Gigabyte X58A-UD9 and GTX480 Quad Sli Review

Test Setup and Synthetics

Published: 27th July 2010 | Source: Gigabyte | Price: £465.99 | Author: Tom Logan

Gigabyte X58A-UD9 Review

Test Setup

Intel i7 980x
6GB Corsair Dominator GT
Corsair AX1200w PSU
Asus HD5870 v2
4 x Zotac GTX480
Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Gigabyte X58A-UD9

We have to emphasise our huge thanks to Zotac for lending us four nVidia GTX480s to allow us to test out Quad-SLI. They really came through for us in the clutch.

Our primary motherboard based testing will be on our standard bench rig using the HD5870 as our graphics card. The 3D and gaming tests we'll get to in a moment will be utilising the Quad-SLI setup. Because it's fairly obvious that an overclocked system will lead our charts, for comparison today we're putting the UD9 up against it's main rival, the Asus Rampage 3 Extreme. Both with stock settings for the CPU and Memory.

Everest Ultimate

The inclusion of the AES instruction set in the 980x does make our graph a little top heavy. The UD9 managed to edge out the R3E in everything but our CPU Queen tests. The zLib result is particularly eye-opening. A great start.

Absolutely no idea what is going on here. We tested and re-tested. Using the identical kit of RAM that we tested the R3E with, the UD9 is absolutely spanked. We know how important memory speeds are, so let's hope this is an aberration with Everest rather than a specific problem with the board. We'll soon find out.

SiSoft Sandra

Starting with the Arithmetic test, the Whetstone results have a slight lean towards the UD9, but within tolerance. The Dhrystone result really liked the UD9 and this is then shown up in our aggregate results. Nothing earth shattering, but considering how highly we thought of the Rampage 3 Extreme, impressive.

The Sandra Processor Multimedia test is almost as curious as the Everest Memory results were. There is no reason for the UD9 to be so very far ahead of the Rampage 3 Extreme, and yet there it is.

One bunch of tests down, and it's not at all easy to pinpoint what is what. Are those Everest Memory results right, and if so how can the Sandra Multimedia results be right? But that's why we test using more than one program.

Most Recent Comments

30-07-2010, 05:09:23

tinytomlogan

Fancy a motherboard that has absolutely everything you could need? Gigabyte have the answer.

Continue Reading

30-07-2010, 06:40:36

Runebeard

Best review ever! Really appreciate the effort you and the guys must have gone to for this! Clearly proves that 3-way is good if a little expensive, but 4-way is just stupid for anything except PC Mark really. What a well made board though! Even if that stupid chipset heatsink is a massive gimmick , it's nothing short of awesome! Well done OC3D!

P.S. Love the new watermark btw.

30-07-2010, 07:35:35

silenthill

Fantastic, amazing, fabulous, unbelievable, jaw dropping, there is not enough words in the dictionary that would describe this review and videos I enjoyed every minute of it and to be honest I read it twice actually it was better than watching AVATAR in 3d in the cinema, I’m a very critical person by nature but OC3D you deserve a 5 star for this one as for the videos I watched them in 1080p on my 40’’ Samsung to enjoy every single detail there is and it is truly amazing stuff guys and the watermark oh... just lovely truly professional , If it was up to me I'll put this review on the BBC it would definitely be better than watching click, to be honest there is nothing ells I can say to show my appreciation to you guys for giving me a two hour journey of pure enjoyment. I truly love you guys.

Regards to everyone in OC3D even the cleaners if you have any.

30-07-2010, 10:53:21

killablade

Quote:

Originally Posted by name='silenthill'

Fantastic, amazing, fabulous, unbelievable, jaw dropping, I enjoyed every minute of it, you deserve a 5 star for this one, just lovely truly professional, pure enjoyment, I truly love you guys,

You're like Steve Jobs at keynotes xD

Nice review though.

30-07-2010, 11:28:32

silenthill

Well your signature looks like readings from a cheap hand blood pressure machine

:haha: :haha: :haha:

30-07-2010, 13:38:57

killablade

Quote:

Originally Posted by name='silenthill'

Well your signature looks like readings from a cheap hand blood pressure machine

:haha: :haha: :haha:

Hahahaha xD

31-07-2010, 03:38:21

BadApathy

Good review sir, the shortcomings of quad sli were eye opening.

31-07-2010, 07:33:26

w3bbo

Fantastic looking board. I don't think there will be too many wanting to shill out £450 for this though with the new round of CPUs on the horizon.

4xsli is a joke. How gutted would you be if you bought the board for that reason only to get the results you have shown.

31-07-2010, 08:49:33

silenthill

Quote:

Originally Posted by name='w3bbo'

Mate with crazy overclockers who just want a few extra frames and seek to have the highest benchmark scores on the planet the term (money is no object) comes in to mind this is what this board is designed for not for a normal enthusiast which takes price in to consideration believe me if there was 5 way sli these people will go for it it’s the same thing as the car racing culture they just add on more gear to their cars to make them a bit faster and the cost is tremendous and you need to bear in mind that this mad drive to be faster and faster is what makes the computer industry evolve continuously and it has become the fastest growing market in the world.

:topic:

29-08-2010, 11:11:41

Ari-M.

Quote:

Originally Posted by w3bbo

Count me in the lot that has more money than sense. Well significantly less money now that the ud9 lives in my case.

I am not rich, by any means. Let me point one thing out though. I do multimedia production work, and use some proprietary PCIe cards in that work. The cards MUST follow consecutive slot orders. So that made the ud9 one of only 3 options for my needs. The EVGA lacked the sata3 and a few features. The ASUS SC has been plagued with problems. So that only left the ud9. Well to be fair there was a small assortment of high end server boards also, but none exactly fit the bill.

ALSO, Gigabyte does make the promise that they will "custom engineer" BIOS features for ud9 users. This is critical for my needs. As my software/hardware matures, I am constantly running into dma/irq issues with mobo's/os's. If Gigabyte makes good on their promise and expedites BIOS implementations even ONE day ahead of the competition. The board has payed for itself.

Not to brag or tout my other hardware, but the proprietary PCI cards I use run about $15k for 3, so the premium for the ud9 was really not that big of a deal (in the bigger picture).

Now for the icing on the cake. I was previously running these cards in a MAC

Apple was forcing me to buy a new $7k computer every 2 years or so, just to keep up. So now that I moved over to a Win platform, the performance is through the roof....and I have under $4k into a system that utterly DEMOLISHES the MacPro in BOTH cost and performance.

I think the ud9 is actually a bargain, considering what it does. If there was ONE single competing product on the market...I would call it as you have.....but there is not.

I don't regret my purchase one bit. I am not just talking artificial benches....I am talking REAL WORLD performance. 24/7

ud9 is truly the current king

Gigabyte X58A-UD9 and GTX480 Quad Sli Review

Test Setup and Synthetics

Published: 27th July 2010 | Source: Gigabyte | Price: £465.99 | Author: Tom Logan

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