Gigabyte MotherBoard which supports AMD Phenom™ II X6 Black 1090T Processors

[jack]

I am planning to setup a Home PC with certain requirements. Can someone please suggest me  Giagbyte motherboard which can support the AMD  Phenom™ II X6 Black1090T Processor and provide atleast 3 PCI expansion slots.

My requirement is for using 3 adaptec/D-link 10/100 quad port network adapters in the motherboard.

Can someone please suggest a Gigabyte board that can meet these requirements.

All your inputs and advice would be of great help to me in my buying decision.

Kindly please help.

Thanks & Regards

Jack

[absic]

Hi Jack,

to be honest, you are pretty limited to your options with 3+  PCI slots. However, if you can get hold of the GA-790XTA-UD4 you should find it does what you want. http://www.giga-byte.co.uk/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3263&dl=1#ov You won't be able to run with one of the 2 slot graphic cards though, as it would cover the first PCI slot.

I have this Mobo along with a 1090T and 8 Gig of RAM and have had no real problems with it. In fact, as Dark Mantis will vouch for me, I have been pretty ruthless with this board and have done a lot of testing and re-configuring with it and it has taken everything I have thrown at it.

On the downside is the Marvell SATA3 controller, it is the only weakness on the board, as far as I'm concerned but it works OK if you don't expect anything too much from it if you use mechanical hard drives.

Another board worth a serious look is the GA-770TA-UD3 http://www.giga-byte.co.uk/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3272&dl=1#ov. This has 4 PCI slots and is another board that I have put through some quite rigorous testing and has been pretty good. Again the Marvell Controller is this boards only real weakness. Again I have had this board running with the 1090T and 8 Gig of RAM, quite happily.

The only thing to bear in mind with both these boards is that they might need the BIOS updated before you will be able to run with the 1090T and it is something you will need to check with your supplier to make sure they have the latest version.

[Dark Mantis]

Absic is the guru here and what he says is true enough. He's certainly given his boards a hammering and they still come back for more. Can I enquire as to what use you intend to put this build to? I take it that it is some sort of server with all those network ports.

[jack]

Hi Absic,

Thanks a lot for your detailed reply. I am sorry to respond so late on the same.

I have also found out some other gigabyte motherboards compatible with AMD processors with each having 3 PCI slots. to be real frank i literally dumb about hardware and i always had a silly doubt. Like i mentioned earlier i am planning for either HP or Adaptec 10/100 quad nic cards in the motherboard.

How can we find out that these cards would work on these motherboards is there a dependancy of the motherboard for these cards to work.

Also from gigabyte site how can we find out which series of the motherboards are the latest ones. I mean there are so many versions of the same series.

Can you please advice me it would of great help to me.

Thanks & Regards

Jack

[absic]

Hi Jack,

I think the best thing to do would be to post a list of boards that you are considering and that are available to you. I will happily look at them and try to assist you with offering my advice on what I would consider the best option for you.

It would also really help if you could give some idea as to what you want to do with this build.

[jack]

Hi Mate,

Thanks a lot for helping me out in a big way. I am preparing for Cisco CCIE certification and building a home lab for the same. This lab is a mix of routers and switches. There is a software called dynamips which emulates the cisco routers in the PC but it require high CPU processing and enough ram to operate smoothly. Hence i am opting for AMD Phenom™ II X6 Black 1090T Processors with 8 Gb Ram so these routers will be emulated in the PC and will be connected to external switches which will make a complete lab setup.

For this lab setup i would require 12 to13 nic ports on the PC for connecting each emulated router to the external switches. for such a huge requirement of nic cards,  quad port nic cards are the ideal ones for me. Three 10/100 quad ports are sufficient are my setup but 10/100 quad ports are old and are only supported on PCI slots. Hence I am looking for motherboards supporting this CPU and providing 3 PCI slots are connectivity. 10/100/1000 quad nic cards are available but they are very expensive and they are only supported on PCIe slots.

can you please tell me is there a dependency on the motherboards for the successful installation of these cards. I think the OS that will be installed should support drivers for these cards right. Kindly please advice I might be completely wrong on this one.

I have gone through Gigabyte website and sorted the motherboards which support the processor and provide 3 PCI slots but i am confused as to which one would be better and which one is latest. Would be really great it you could help me out on the same.

1) GA-790FXTA-UD5 (rev. 1.0)

2) GA-770T-USB3 (rev. 1.3)

3) GA-770TA-UD3 (rev. 1.0)

4) GA-790XTA-UD4 (rev. 1.0)

5) GA-880GA-UD3H (rev. 2.1)

6) GA-870A-UD3 (rev. 2.1)

7) GA-790XT-USB3 (rev. 1.0)

Can you please advice me which one of the boards would be ideal & latest so that it's support and updates would be available.

Thanks  a lot once again.

Regards

Jack

[Peteruk]

can you please tell me is there a dependency on the motherboards for the successful installation of these cards. I think the OS that will be installed should support drivers for these cards right. Kindly please advice I might be completely wrong on this one.

Their isn’t, not one motherboard to successful have your cards installed and working it just simply has not been tested, it will either very likely work or it will very unlikely not work in which case you have to contact Gigabyte to see what they can do. They might not have 3 adaptec/D-link 10/100 quad port network adapters to play with but they could try other types or just look at the code for the PCI slots to fix it if possible.

[absic]

Hi Jack,

You are trying something interesting with your set-up that I doubt any body else has tried to do and as Peteruk says, there are no guarantees that any board will do what you want it to and all we can do is try and find the option that is liable to be the most successful for you but, it will really be a case of suck it and see. 

From the list of motherboards you have supplied I guess any one would be as good as another. They are all reasonably new and well supported. We have already mentioned the GA770TA-UD3 & GA790XTA-UD4 as they were the first 2 boards that I opted for before knowing what you were hoping to do with this build. The GA-770T-USB3 only has 2 PCI slots, so I don't think this would be the board that you want. The GA-880GA-UD3H & GA870A-UD3 boards are the newer models but I'm not sure I would go for these as newer doesn't always mean better.

It's a tough choice and I think if I were going to attempt your build I would probably go for the GA-770TA-UD3 or the GA-880GA-UD3H. My first choice would be the GA-770 though as it has 4 PCI slots combine this with a single slot Graphics Card and it would give you more options to play with. Also, this board has been around for a while so it is less likely to have issues with driver compatibility than a newer board.

The reason I for considering the GA-880GA is purely because it has on-board graphics, not something I would usually think about but with what you have in mind it might be more advantageous to use such a feature.

Hope this helps

[jack]

Hi absic,

Thanks a lot for your detailed and frank advice.

I know about the successful installation of the cards in the motherboard is a twister but i got to try my luck on the same.

Looking at my requirements i am seriously considering this board GA-790FXTA-UD5. Can you please let me know if this also could be a board that i can consider. The only advantage that i see with this board is it's got 2 10/100/1000 ports as well as 3 PCI slots which i am looking for.

Can you please provide your advice on the same. Is this a pretty old card or new one i mean is this card announced as end of life/sale. 

Thanks & Regards

Jack

[absic]

Hi Jack,

as far as I know the GA-790XTA-UD5 is still current and I can't see any reason for it being dropped in the immediate future, but I don't work for Gigabyte so I am only guessing about that. 

It is the next board up from the one I am running and it should do as well as any of the ones we have discussed. The reason I didn't opt for this board though, was mainly due to the higher cost. Yes it does have 2 10/100/1000 ports but that is really the only advantage over the GA-770TA-UD3 that I can see and I feel that having the 4th PCI slot might prove more beneficial in the longer term, considering what you are trying to achieve.

Of course, this is only my opinion of which board will give you the best chance in succeeding in your aims without being at a ridiculous cost. Having played around with the GA-770TA-UD3 I know that it is a very robust motherboard, that it will run your chosen CPU and, should you need it to, it will also run with 8 Gig of RAM. The 4th PCI slot gives you the option of altering the configuration, if you encounter any problems or even of adding an extra card if you find that you can get 3 network cards running OK. Overall I do feel that the GA-770TA-UD3 is the strongest contender and best suited to your needs.

[jack]

Hi absic,

Thanks for your prompt reply mate.

OK as you suggested and since you have tested the GA-770TA-UD3 board i think i would find out the cost of this board with my local vendor tomorrow.

Can you please roughly tell me what would be the cost of the GA-790XTA-UD5 board as compared to the GA-770TA-UD3.

So if i go with the GA-770TA-UD3 I would get one PCIe slot for graphics card since this board doesn't  come along with onboard graphics and plus I would be getting 4 PCI slots for nic cards ?.

Thanks & Regards

Jack

[absic]

Hi Jack

In the UK at the moment the GA-770TA-UD3 costs around £74 whilst the GA-790FXTA-UD5 is about £142 nearly double the price.

Yes, you will need a graphics card for either of these boards and I think, considering what you are going to do with this PC you can get away with an ATI 5450 or lower. I would strongly recommend that you go for an ATI card over NVidia as, from my own experiences, there are a lot less driver/incompatibility problems with ATI on the AMD platform.

If you keep the graphic card to a single slot model rather than a dual slot one, then you will be able top make use of all the PCI slots on both boards.

[jack]

Hi Absic,

Thanks for your reply mate. these are the expansion slots available with GA-790FXTA-UD5 board.

   1. 2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16
      (PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2) (Note 4)

   2. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8) (Note 5)
      (The PCIEX16_1, PCIEX16_2 and PCIEX8 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard)

   3. 1 x PCI Express x1 slots

   4. 3 x PCI slots

As you suggested if i go with a single slot PCIe graphics card i would be able to use all the 3 PCI slots for the network adapters right.

With the above config do i still have a PCIe slot free for a another 10/100/1000 network adapter.

Can you please help me out on the same since i am not so well versed with the PCI & PCie slot concepts.

Thanks & Regards

Jack

[absic]

Hi Jack,

As you suggested if i go with a single slot PCIe graphics card i would be able to use all the 3 PCI slots for the network adapters right.

Having just looked at a picture of the GA-790FXTA-UD5 I would have to say no.

Once you put a graphics card into the PCIE slot it looks as if the 1st PCI slot will be covered by the fan of the graphics card. The same would apply if you tried to install the graphics card into any of the other slots, one of the PCI slots would be blocked.


This is not the case with the GA-770TA-UD3.

This is a picture I just took of the GA-770 with an ATI 4850 graphics card installed. As you can see the 1st PCI slot is clear.

I think, having checked once more, what you are trying to do, the GA-770TA-UD3 really is the board you need.

[Dark Mantis]

Yes I would also agree with absic. The 770 would seem to be muich more useful to you regarding your primary concern of having at least 3 PCI slots free. The 790 would be a headache.