GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD5 (rev. 1.x) Pro Reviews

Loads of USB ports and PCI-E slots make this a fantastic AM3+ motherboard a must-buy for gamers.

Time has come to sum up everything we know about the Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 mainboard. However, at this point there is really nothing else we could say about it. It is a common and very standard board. It does have certain advantages, but doesn’t boast anything unique and distinguishing, or at least simply interesting. There is nothing that could make it stand out among all other products, and all the advantages it has are available on other manufacturers’ products in certain form or shape. Gigabyte has every right to be proud that this mainboard belongs to the Ultra Durable 3 series, but other makers also use high-quality electronic components for their products. We have come across Driver MOSFET on MSI mainboards for many years already, and Asus not only promises long life of their components but even includes a 5-year warranty for their TUF (The Ultimate Force) series mainboards. Having two BIOS chips onboard could be an advantage, but it sometimes causes additional problems, when the board suddenly decides that one chip has been damaged and overwrites it. Only Asus Maximus IV Extreme gave us full control over two fully-functional independently operating BIOS chips. What else? On/Off Charge technology is not unique, similar solutions are available on other mainboards, too. Easy Energy Saver is also not so new anymore, as most mainboards allow enabling proprietary power-saving technologies right from the BIOS without installing any additional utilities.

This is a beautiful motherboard that really performs well when pushed to its limits. I’m sure we will see these boards used to break all kinds of overclocking and performance records. These boards are nicely laid out and come with some of the features that enthusiasts drool over. Recently Gigabyte has really been impressive with the way that they have given users exactly what they’ve been wanting. This new UD5 is no exception. For those looking to purchase a new 990FX board, but don’t think they’ll ever need all of the bells and whistles that come with the UD7, I think they will be more than pleased with the UD5 and end up saving a few bucks too.

We were quite impressed by the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5, with its five PCI Express x16 slots, two FireWire ports, four USB 3.0 ports, eight SATA-600 ports, two BIOS chips, professional-grade audio quality with optical SPDIF output, and a very high-end voltage regulator circuit. Of course, it is not the cheapest motherboard around, but it comes with a fair price for its set ofall of its features. Even though the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 is mainly targeted to the forthcoming CPUs based on the AMD “Bulldozer” architecture, it is already available on the market, supporting current-generation CPUs.