Gigabyte X79S-UP5 Review
Introduction and Technical Specifications
Published: 21st September 2012 | Source: Gigabyte | Price: £240 |
Introduction
When the LGA2011 socket was first unleashed upon the world there were only a handful of motherboards around, as is often the case with any major upgrade in technology. Adapting current Z68 motherboards to Z77s is a lot easier than going from X58 to X79.
One of the first models we got our hands on was the Gigabyte UD5, and it was clear from our preliminary testing that it most definitely wasn't ready for public exposure. Gigabyte agreed and the UD5 quietly disappeared.
Now, nearly a year later, we finally have our hands upon the X79S-UP5. Although the change in designation might fool others, it's obviously a UD5 v2. A revised version if you will. Regular readers will remember the P55-UD3 had a similar upgrade to cure a few issues. So, are the power problems solved with the new UP5?
Technical Specifications
But wait, I hear you cry, this is based on the Intel C606 chipset, not the X79. This isn't anything like the UD5 at all. Ahah knowledgeable readers one and all, the C606 is the workstation variant of the X79. Otherwise this would be the C606-UP5 wouldn't it. Consider it the middle child of the Intel C60x range of chipsets. For the vast majority of users this motherboard works exactly like any other LGA2011 motherboard would. If you happen to have a bunch of SAS drives laying about (anyone? didn't think so), or could afford to splash out on a Xeon (again, a very niché product) and Gigabyte has been shouting very loud about Xeon support with the C606, but its worth pointing out Xeons work perfectly fine on X79 anyways. The only thing the C600 chipset's bring to the table is support for dual sockets which this obviously does not have. It'll support your ECC RAM too, if you happen to have any.
But we know that almost nobody has SAS drives or Xeon CPUs, so to all intents and purposes this is a X79 motherboard and will be reviewed as such. We do have Xeons on hand, so we'll be running our tests on the E2687W for those of you who care about such things plus mixing it up with the good old 3960X with a hefty overclock.
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Most Recent Comments
at last: they fixed the niggles from its predecessor
if only i could get my hands on one of these, for next to nothing, i would be very happy
NOT!|
Originally Posted by dugdiamond
very VERY nice mobo
at last: they fixed the niggles from its predecessor if only i could get my hands on one of these, for next to nothing, i would be very happy |
I think you must be reading the wrong thing mate. Its GASH.
I'm surprised gigabyte sent you 1 considering you already mentioned the bad v droop, they must of known you'd check that out
Back to the X79 Pro I guess. How did IT do with a hex-core Xeon?
- Sam
I always understood that SAS has a backward compability with SATA, so i guess you can use Mainstream SATA hd's on those SAS connectors!!
Making this mb achieve the total of 14 usable ports just like the asrock extreme11, am i wrong or should some testing be made?
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Originally Posted by Dread
Something i don't grasp about this review...
I always understood that SAS has a backward compability with SATA, so i guess you can use Mainstream SATA hd's on those SAS connectors!! Making this mb achieve the total of 14 usable ports just like the asrock extreme11, am i wrong or should some testing be made? |
CSS Valid
The long awaited upgrade to the problematic X79-UD5 is finally upon us. Has the long gestation fixed the issues?
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