![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Wednesday, June 03, 2015
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Share:
GIGABYTE X99-UD4P LGA 2011-v3 Motherboard Review
The GIGABYTE X99-UD4P is a full featured yet affordable X99 chipset based motherboard which promises to bring solid overclocking, 3 and 4 way GPU support, premium audio, dual BIOS, "Safer design around screw mounting holes," and GIGABYTE's Ultra Durable component selection. But, does it blend?
Introduction
GIGABYTE is one of the largest motherboard manufacturers on the planet. GIGABYTE was founded in 1986 and has grown to nearly 2 billion dollars in annual revenue and currently employs more than 7,000 employees. The company has been at the forefront of the DIY enthusiast market for decades. While GIGABYTE’s initial focus was always on motherboards the company has diversified and now builds graphics cards, power supplies, computer cases, networking equipment, tablets, and computer peripherals.
We have had some mixed dealings with GIGABYTE motherboards over the last couple of years. We’ve been critical to excess of the UEFI BIOS and firmware quirks which border on inexcusable at times. It isn’t all doom and gloom as we recently had a fantastic experience with the Z97N-WiFi. Hopefully the trend continues and our experiences with the X99-UD4P will be positive.
The X99-UD4P is based on the X99 Express chipset and uses the LGA-2011v3 socket. The motherboard supports all the features we’ve come to expect in modern enthusiast class motherboards. Supported features include: SATA 6Gb/s. SATA Express, M.2, Gigabit networking, multi-GPU graphics card support, USB 2.0 and 3.0 technologies. The X99-UD4P uses all digital PWMs from International Rectifier. These new Pow!Rstage ICs feature International Rectifiers Isense technology for more precise current sensing accuracy. The all in one package DirectFET MOSFETs are designed for excellent thermal efficiency and reduce the overall footprint of the electrical hardware on the motherboard PCB. Server level chokes and durable black solid electrolytic capacitors rated at 10,000 hours round out the electrical design of the motherboard. A gold plated CPU socket and 2oz copper PCB supposedly allow for greater current carrying capabilities for better overclocking.
As usual GIGABYTE’s PR department managed to think of cute pet names for common features found on similar class motherboards. Ambient LED, dual BIOS and Q-Flash Plus are all examples of features found on competing motherboards. Never the less these are all good things to have. Well the Ambient LED is just cool looking rather than a must have. The rear panel LED on the other hand is something we very much wish more companies would implement. This feature illuminates the port labels on the I/O panel which is a godsend when you need to reseat a mouse or keyboard cable while gaming in the darkness.
Main Specifications Overview:
Detailed Specifications Overview:
Packaging
The packaging is fairly basic although there is the usual box flap and window showing the motherboard inside. You can’t actually see the motherboard too well in the anti-static bag. The box flap is pretty much superfluous as it lacks any of the usual product information. Inside the box you’ll find the following accessories: multilingual installation guidebook, driver disc, user manual, I/O shield, sleeved SATA Cables, Crossfire and flexible SLI bridges, a large gap 3-Way SLI bridge a standard 3-Way SLI bridge and one 4-Way SLI bridge.
Board Layout
The layout of the X99-UD4P is quite good. My usual complaints about the CMOS battery location and the power connectors aren’t applicable here. The CMOS battery is located in an area that would be inconvenient for 3 or 4-Way SLI systems but that’s next to impossible to avoid. The amount of people who will build such a system are even fewer and far between anyway.
The CPU socket area is very clean. The power phases are cooled using a large, yet low profile cooler with an embedded heat pipe. Unless you use really tall DIMMs you shouldn’t have too much trouble mounting larger CPU cooling solutions to the X99-UD4P.
The X99-UD4P has eight 288-pin DDR4 DIMM slots supporting up to 128GB of DRAM at speeds up to DDR4 3333MHz.
The X99 chipset itself is cooled by a heat sink connected to the MOSFET cooling hardware via heat pipe. When the system is powered on embedded LEDs in the heat sink give off a yellow light. The ambient LED feature can allow this to pulse, stay on steady or it can be disabled if so desired. The motherboard’s SATA and SATA Express ports are directly in front of the chipset cooler. The SATA ports are the right angled locking variety. The CPU mode switch for the CPU socket is also present in this area. The heat sink is flat enough to avoid clearance issues with PCI-Express expansion slots.
The expansion slot area is laid out extremely well. There is a right angled four pin MOLEX connector for supplemental PCI-Express power. I don’t really care for these myself as there are fewer and fewer of these connectors found on power supplies now. The PCI-Express lane allocation allows for multiple configurations of graphics cards or other expansion cards. The following multiple GPU configurations are possible: x16/x0/x0/x0, x16/x16/x0/x8 or X8/x8/x16/x8. In other words 3-Way, 4-Way and Quad-SLI / Crossfire are all possible using the X99-UD4P.
The I/O panel offers a great deal of connectivity options. PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports, 4x USB 1.1/2.0 ports, 6x USB 3.0 ports, 1x RJ-45 port, 1x optical output, 5x, mini-stereo jacks and a bracket for WiFi antennas.