Gigabyte 870A-UD3 – Features

In terms of features the Gigabyte 870A-UD3 is a far more serious product than Asrock's budget offering. In identify of the AMD 880G/SB710 configuration, the Gigabyte 870A-UD3 employs the AMD 870/SB870 chipset combination. The AMD 880G and 870 chipsets are about identical spec-wise, with the only divergence being the integrated Radeon HD 4250 graphics engine which is non supported past the 870.

That bated, Gigabyte has decided to slap an extra $10 on the price tag and offer a number of notable features not found on the Asrock 880GMH/USB3 -- features such as Firewire and dedicated eSATA ports.

Using the AMD SB850 s bridge the Gigabyte 870A-UD3 provides half dozen SATA 6Gb/due south ports with support for SATA RAID 0, RAID one, RAID5, RAID 10, and JBOD, giving users a great deal of flexibility. Besides the SATA support offered by the SB850 south bridge chip, Gigabyte has too included the Gigabyte SATA2 and JMicron JMB362 fries.

The Gigabyte SATA2 controller (a re-labeled JMicron JMB363) offers an IDE connector and a pair of SATA 3Gb/s ports. Meanwhile, the JMicron JMB362 serves upwards an additional 2 SATA 3Gb/s connectors used to provide the board's eSATA support. This degree of storage expansion is incredible for a sub-$100 motherboard.

Not only does the Gigabyte 870A-UD3 delivers on the storage forepart, but it'due south also quite impressive when it comes to connectivity. Alongside the twelve USB 2.0 ports provided by the SB850 due south bridge are a pair of USB three.0 ports courtesy of the NEC D720200F1 controller, likewise as a T.I. TSB43AB23 chip providing iii Firewire (IEEE 1394a) ports.

An interesting characteristic that Gigabyte has added to all their new AMD 8-series motherboards is called "3x USB Power Boost". This unique feature is able to efficiently regulate output over the total voltage range, which greatly enhances USB device compatibility. In add-on, defended lower resistance fuses ensure lower voltage drops and provide more stable and plentiful power delivery.

Like the Asrock 880GMH/USB3, the Gigabyte 870A-UD3 relies on the popular Realtek ALC892 audio codec to evangelize 7.ane channel high definition audio. Yet, unlike the onetime information technology features all half-dozen audio jacks and Due south/PDIF in/out.

Providing network support is the Realtek 8111D Gigabit Ethernet controller that relies on the PCI Express bus.

Gigabyte as well included a way to unlock the dormant cores of certain AMD processors, a feature that was denied by the SB850 south span. With this users should have the power to plow a Phenom Ii X2 into a full blown quad-core processor -- something we will exist testing afterwards on.