Tweet
I just got one of these, figured I would give you guys a look.
To begin here is the box, accessories, and board:
GIGABYTE decided to include both blue and black SATA cables so you can pick whichever fits your needs best I guess. However the blue cables are SATA3GB/s while the black are SATA6GB/s. There is a USB 3.0 front panel bay included as well. Considering the board has a whopping 3 internal USB 3.0 headers I would think a front panel bay is appropriate.
Here we have the backpanel filled with video outputs and USB 3.0 as well as 1394A and dual NIC!
Here we have good spacing between the socket and the DIMMs, the less space between the two the better it is for OC, however the further away the easier it is to fit a larger cooler. It is a give and take scenario. What I like is that you can fully open the DIMM latches without having to remove the first long GPU. You can also see my favorite addition to the UD5; the OC area. :D We will take a closer look at all the OC features this board offers in a short while.
We can see the extra PCI-E power connector in the form of an SATA power connector, as well as 9 SATA ports, 5 of which are SATA6GB/s and 4 of which are SATA3GB/s. If you install a mSATA device it is disable the SATA port #5 which is one of the SATA3GB/s ports. We can also see all 3 USB 3.0 internal headers right here, two are positioned to either be for the front or backpanel, and one is very well positioned for the front panel included. If you look closely you can find a BIOS switch in there among the internal headers!
The 16X slots here all can be PCI-E 3.0, they are physically 16x, 8x, and 4x.
The back of the board features some extra low-side MOSFETs.
I like the screws holding down all of the heatsinks.
However now we take those heatsinks off to reveal the good stuff:
A powerful VRM has been provided, while the G1 Sniper 3 uses the same phase count, the UD5H features higher current capability chokes. These chokes are made by the same manufacturer that manufactured the custom chokes for the X58A-OC.
This VRM uses an 8 phase PWM, in which 6 of those 8 phases are doubled by special doubler ICs. The MOSFETs used this time around have better characteristics than the giga X79 MOSFETs, and GIGABTYE is using 3 MOSFETs per phase instead of 2 to better balance the load.
You also have a very good cooling solution this time around, GIGABYTE says that these new heatsinks are the same mass as the heatsinks used on the Z68/P67 UD5, but have more surface area and have a direct contact design.
Now to move to the other chips:
The Anti-ESD are pictured above, they make sure nothing gets hurt when you shock your USB ports, as I do a lot of the time. The risk of hurting anything is small as is, however these types of technologies cut down on RMAs and lead to happier buyers, so it is nice to see them implemented even though they cost a slight bit more on the manufacturing side.
From the looks of it this UD5H seems to be really great hardware wise, the hardware used from the VRM to the connectivity is all great. GIGABYTE has learned from their mistakes with Z68 and is doing its best to listen to its problems for last year, and improve on them this year. The Z77X-UD5H is poised to do just that, and then some.
Okay so I have tested this platform, but I am not going to be able to post up my findings until NDA lift, however I will say that this board is a huge improvement overall, hardware and bios support have come together on this new board better than almost all previous GIGABYTE boards I have tested. I will show this when I am able to post up some results :)
In my honest opinion these boards are like later gigabyte x58 boards, with better hardware and bios, they are very solid BIOS wise compared to Z68 and X79 GIGABYTE boards, hopefully from here on in, the GIGABYTE boards will all be like this.
Also for those of you who like my OC guides, one will be ready on launch date :D
To begin here is the box, accessories, and board:
GIGABYTE decided to include both blue and black SATA cables so you can pick whichever fits your needs best I guess. However the blue cables are SATA3GB/s while the black are SATA6GB/s. There is a USB 3.0 front panel bay included as well. Considering the board has a whopping 3 internal USB 3.0 headers I would think a front panel bay is appropriate.
Here we have the backpanel filled with video outputs and USB 3.0 as well as 1394A and dual NIC!
Here we have good spacing between the socket and the DIMMs, the less space between the two the better it is for OC, however the further away the easier it is to fit a larger cooler. It is a give and take scenario. What I like is that you can fully open the DIMM latches without having to remove the first long GPU. You can also see my favorite addition to the UD5; the OC area. :D We will take a closer look at all the OC features this board offers in a short while.
We can see the extra PCI-E power connector in the form of an SATA power connector, as well as 9 SATA ports, 5 of which are SATA6GB/s and 4 of which are SATA3GB/s. If you install a mSATA device it is disable the SATA port #5 which is one of the SATA3GB/s ports. We can also see all 3 USB 3.0 internal headers right here, two are positioned to either be for the front or backpanel, and one is very well positioned for the front panel included. If you look closely you can find a BIOS switch in there among the internal headers!
The 16X slots here all can be PCI-E 3.0, they are physically 16x, 8x, and 4x.
The back of the board features some extra low-side MOSFETs.
I like the screws holding down all of the heatsinks.
However now we take those heatsinks off to reveal the good stuff:
A powerful VRM has been provided, while the G1 Sniper 3 uses the same phase count, the UD5H features higher current capability chokes. These chokes are made by the same manufacturer that manufactured the custom chokes for the X58A-OC.
This VRM uses an 8 phase PWM, in which 6 of those 8 phases are doubled by special doubler ICs. The MOSFETs used this time around have better characteristics than the giga X79 MOSFETs, and GIGABTYE is using 3 MOSFETs per phase instead of 2 to better balance the load.
You also have a very good cooling solution this time around, GIGABYTE says that these new heatsinks are the same mass as the heatsinks used on the Z68/P67 UD5, but have more surface area and have a direct contact design.
Now to move to the other chips:
- #1. Intel WG82579V is a GBit Ethernet controller which many in this industry thing is a great performer.
- #2. is a Atheros AR8151 is a very high quality advanced GBit Ethernet controller, and thus provides the second NIC on this board. Atheros states that its controller has the lowest power consumption in the world.
- #3. is a VLI810 USB 3.0 hub, it is a 1 to 4 output USB 3.0 SuperSpeed certified hub, if you want a USB 3.0 IC you want to make sure its SuperSpeed certified, as when it is it should operate up to the USB 3.0 standards advertised. I saw this little controller at work at IDF, it is pretty cool. There are two of these employed on this board.
- #4. Is a VIA VT6308P which is a PCI to 1394A controller, providing two outputs. One output is on the backpanel and the other is an internal header. The PCI bus is provided by the iTE PCI-E to PCI bridge chip on this board.
- #5. iTE8728F is a SuperI/O that we commonly find on all GIGABYTE boards, on this board it provides all 5 fan headers and control over them. It also provides temperatures, voltage, and fan speed monitoring.
- #6. Realtek ALC898 featuring 110dB SNR, but get this, GIGABYTE has added the Creative XF-I software emulation to this board, so just like the ASUS ROG boards with XF-I the UD5H has it too now! However this board is using the new ALC898 codec that was first introduced by board makers on their X79 boards.
- #7. This is where the audio output gets even better than other XF-I packages, two of these TI DRV632 which each not only improve the sound output but also are amplifiers and provide head phone amps built into the board. NO LONGER ONLY ON G1!!!! The UD5H now has some cool decked out audio as well.
- #8. Marvell SE9172, this board has 2 of them, which provide the eSATA on the backpanel and the internal grey SATA6GB/s headers.
The Anti-ESD are pictured above, they make sure nothing gets hurt when you shock your USB ports, as I do a lot of the time. The risk of hurting anything is small as is, however these types of technologies cut down on RMAs and lead to happier buyers, so it is nice to see them implemented even though they cost a slight bit more on the manufacturing side.
From the looks of it this UD5H seems to be really great hardware wise, the hardware used from the VRM to the connectivity is all great. GIGABYTE has learned from their mistakes with Z68 and is doing its best to listen to its problems for last year, and improve on them this year. The Z77X-UD5H is poised to do just that, and then some.
Okay so I have tested this platform, but I am not going to be able to post up my findings until NDA lift, however I will say that this board is a huge improvement overall, hardware and bios support have come together on this new board better than almost all previous GIGABYTE boards I have tested. I will show this when I am able to post up some results :)
In my honest opinion these boards are like later gigabyte x58 boards, with better hardware and bios, they are very solid BIOS wise compared to Z68 and X79 GIGABYTE boards, hopefully from here on in, the GIGABYTE boards will all be like this.
Also for those of you who like my OC guides, one will be ready on launch date :D
(LOL I wanted to order a Toshiba toslink port for some audio equipment for a price of about $1.00 US and shipping was going to be about $65.00 US! I said no thanks.)
Comment