GA-990FXA-UD5 Living Review

[absic]

Sadly the case fans do make a little noise but, in fact, the Sapphire 4850X2 GPU that I use is the noisiest component. The Noctua Cooler is, for all intent and purposes, silent!

Using a different PC case and GPU would obviously bring the noise levels down a bit and from what I am experiencing so far with this board, wouldn't impact too much on the temps, as it really does run very cool.

[Night Gyr]

Well this is awesome news. The 4850 X2 - I hear you man, better say, I can hear the thing even from my desk

BTW absic, if you're about to upgrade, and are a PC hardware tester, I'd recommend you to have a look at the new Corsair cases - like 650d/500d. Nice middle-tier cases they are. I'll go further than that and ask you to review those (on a different forum maybe) as well. (Hope this is not too much

And Scythe fans are some really cheap and quiet fans. If you have the cash, there's Enermax, but those may need an additional fan controller as they're not silent by default.

(Pardon my OT, but it's the geek in me who's talking here not me )\

Aaand one more thing, I'd like to ask you how does the board boot? E.g. are there any additional controllers initializations with reboots following (like in ASUS P6T SE) or any other stuff that would require waiting/pressing any keys/just plain old annoy you? This BTW is one of the reasons I don't want to get an ASUS board. The other one is UEFI.

[Dark Mantis]

If you don't like noise try liquid cooling instead of the air. My system is silent to all intents and purposes and is stting right next to me on the desk.

[absic]

Aaand one more thing, I'd like to ask you how does the board boot? E.g. are there any additional controllers initializations with reboots following (like in ASUS P6T SE) or any other stuff that would require waiting/pressing any keys/just plain old annoy you? This BTW is one of the reasons I don't want to get an ASUS board. The other one is UEFI.

At the moment I am experiencing a few issues with BOOTING this board and am passing the information I am gathering, on to Gigabyte, in an effort to find the cause and is one of the reasons I like to do a living review rather than a standard hardware review, as it can throw up more of the problems user's will come across in the real world.

A general hardware review will look at the features, set the board up once, run a few tests and try a little overclocking and say everything is fine, sometimes with a few criticisms, but won't give a real insight into how the board works on a day-to-day basis.

Generally though, the BOOT process is one of switching on the power, pressing the On switch on the PC case and waiting for the POST and BOOT to run their course. No intervention is required from the user. The only time you should really need to enter the BIOS is during the initial setting up and then, if you wish, to overclock your PC.  Gigabyte boards do seem to take a little longer to go through the POST & BOOT phases than some other manufacturer's boards and if you are not used to this it can seem a little disconcerting.

[absic]

I've just updated the thread here: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php/topic,5704.msg45816.html#msg45816
with information regarding setting up a RAID0 Array on the AMD SB950 Controller.

[Lordred]

Hello Absic, I was wondering if you had attempted any overclocking runs with the UD5 as of yet, as I have been getting some large ammounts of Vdrop on the Vcore and Dram thats rather unsettling as I bought the 990FXA-UD5 based on its voltage regulation.

With my 1100T brought up to 4000mhz I am getting 11/100ths of V drop (-0.11) from the bios setting under load, and a drop of 3/100ths (-0.03) from bios while idle. While the Dram is consistantly showing a Vdrop of 3/100ths. Would you be so kind as to see if you are having the same issues or not?

The exact settings I'm using are as follows

FSB:250
CPU Multi 16
HT Link X10 (2500)
NB X11 (2750)
Dram : 6.66 (3:10) 1666mhz 8-8-8-24-34-1t 1.68v (1.65v after drop)
CPUV 1.475v (1.472idle, 1.392load)
CPUNB 1.375v (not read)

C1E: Disabled
C&Q: Disabled





Thanks
~Red

[absic]

Hi there,

to be honest I haven't undertaken any real attempts at O/C'ing yet as I have encountered a few other issues with the BIOS that I am struggling to get to grips with.

If you can give me a couple of days I will look into what happens but remember, I am running a 1090T so it will probably not work in the same way on my system as your CPU does on yours. Also, what make and model of RAM are you running and how much, as this would have a bearing on any results too?

[Lordred]

Sure I can wait a little for that.

As for ram I have Kingston HyperX T1 DDR3 2000mhz 2x2gb kit # KHX2000C9AD3T1K2/4GX rated for 9-11-9-27-47-2T 1.65v However since no present AMD application allows for a tRC (bank cycle time) in excess of 42 I have opted to run tighter timings at lower a lower speed.

As for the ram having an effect on the actual performance that there is no doubt about. But the Vdrop is what really gets me, as the board I was using prior to this was an Asus M4N98TD EVO which only has an 8+1 split phase power delivery. But did not suffer as much drop as I am getting with the UD5, because the Asus suffered less from voltage drop I was able to maintain lower Vcores at the same, and higher clock speeds.

[absic]

Yes, I understand where you're coming from and it is always nice to get a good overclock at the lowest possible voltages.

I will look into what happens on my system and will give an update as soon as I have some proper info for you. And, just so you know, I will be covering overclocking in this review too.

[Lordred]

I look forward to your review. As so far it would seem you are the only one putting together a review for the UD5.

As for the rest of our differences between our systems. I am running a pair of GTX480's and a Thermaltake TR2 RX 850, Zalman's 9900Max for cooling the CPU, and the CM690 Chassie

Link to picture if desired.

[absic]

Your PC looks good! 

I think most people are waiting for the new AMD Processors to come along before they write their reviews.

[derobert]

Hi! What about this Ctrl+F problem when rebooting with raid? I use raid only so it is bothering me... Will it stuck on Ctrl+F screen on every reboot? Thanks!

[absic]

Hi there,

when I tested the RAID I was using the F3 BIOS. I haven't experienced the same problem with the F5b Beta BIOS I am currently testing so I believe this issue has now been addressed and shouldn't cause any problem when the new BIOS is released.

As I stated in the review, the problem only happened if I rebooted. If I shutdown the PC and then restarted everything worked fine.

[derobert]

Great! One more thing before i buy it: I want to use RAID 0 with 3 sata hdds plus 3 sata hdds out of raid, 1 dvd drive and 1 esata (ocasionally). Will this setting work?  Maybe someone know?

[absic]

Hi again,

you will be able to set RAID on the AMD SATA Controller and the 3 non-raided drives should operate in AHCI Mode. Attach the DVD drive to one of the Marvell SATA ports in IDE mode and then you still have two external eSATA ports available, operated by a separate Marvell Chip.

Another option would be to set up RAID on the AMD SATA ports SATA£_0 to SATA3_3 then set the AMD SATA3_4 and SATA3_5 ports to Native IDE. Attach your 3 HDD's for RAID to the SATA ports SATA3_0 to  SATA3_2 and two of your non-raid HDD's to SATA3_4 & SATA3_5. You can then attach the third HDD to a Marvell SATA port along with your DVD.

So yes, you should be OK.