Gigabyte 990FXA UD5 Motherboard Review

All of the new high-end Gigabyte motherboards come with matte black PCBs which is a change from the baby blue ones we are accustomed to seeing.  The change was prompted as a way to differentiate the different motherboard segments but also fot its uncanny ability help overclockers identify water on the PCB.

The front of the motherboard resembles the styling found on the current P67 and Z68 Ultra Durable motherboards which features high profile heatsinks, black expansion slots, and blue accent colors.  The colors make for a nice visual distinction within the Ultra Durable lineup, blue will be used on UD5 whereas Gold can be found on UD7 and black on the lower end UD3.

Flipping the motherboard over we can see there is not much going on.  Both chipsets can be identified along with the PCI Express slot layout configuration.  

One of the reasons for the new chipset is to support the new line of AMD FX processors based on the "Bulldozer" technology.  These new processors will be using the AM3+ socket which is also reverse compatible with existing AM3 processors already in the market.

Power is a very important part of any system, especially when tasked with stabilizing an overclock.  The GA-990FXA-UD5 features a 10 phase PWM with 8 phases dedicated to the CPU and the remaining 2 supplying power to chipset and memory.  Driver Mosfets are used throughout for better power efficiency and faster switching.

Gigabyte has included two banks of dual channel DDR3 that together support up to 32GB of memory.  Unlike Intel based DDR3 systems you can use both high and low voltage memory modules but for best performance you will want to find a kit specific for the AMD platform.