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Published: July 22, 2011 | Source: Gigabyte | Author: Bryan Waters

Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3P Review

Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3P Review

Introduction

The UD3 has always been the middle-child of the Gigabyte line of motherboards and so it’s been fairly difficult to place.

If what you desire is the cheapest possible motherboard that bears Gigabyte branding, the UD2 is the chap. If however you want a plentiful supply of bells and as many whistles as it’s possible to fit within a 12×8 block piece of hardware, then the UD5 and UD7 will be exactly the fellows for you.

So the UD3, which isn’t so cheap that its quality is almost a secondary consideration, but neither is it so amazing that you’re likely to use it as the basis for a Colossus, tends to fall into the middle. It’s a jack of all trades and by being so difficult to pigeon-hole it truly is a test of going into a review free from the burden of expectation. We know it’s not going to be so cheap that as long as it has room to put the hardware in we’ll be happy, but we also know it’s not going to blow us away by having 24 phase power and 12 PCIe sockets.

Therefore we have to have a clean mind and just see where exactly on the sliding scale it fits. So let’s crack on.

Technical Specifications

The specs of the UD3P are as all-inclusive as we’ve come to expect from the Z68 chipset. We’ve got support for up to 32GB of DDR3, should 8GB density ever become commonplace, along with good quality audio via the Realtek ALC889. Storage is handled by 4 SATA II ports and 4 SATA III 6Gbp/s ones.

The main things that differentiate this from the higher equipped models is the limited fan headers (4 in total) and that the second PCIe socket is only x8 so if you run two cards then both will be at x8 instead of the full-fat x16.

CPU
  1. Support for Intel® Core™ i7 processors/Intel® Core™ i5 processors/ Intel® Core™ i3 processors/Intel® Pentium® processors/Intel® Celeron® processors in the LGA1155 package.
  2. L3 cache varies with CPU

 
Chipset
  1. Intel® Z68 Express Chipset
Memory
  1. 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory
  2. Dual channel memory architecture
  3. Support for DDR3 2133/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules
  4. Support for non-ECC memory modules
  5. Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules
Onboard Graphics Integrated in the Chipset:
  1. 1 x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920×1200
Audio
  1. Realtek ALC889 codec
  2. High Definition Audio
  3. 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
  4. Support for Dolby® Home Theater
  5. Support for S/PDIF Out
LAN
  1. 1 x Realtek RTL8111E chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Expansion Slots
  1. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)
  2. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8)
    * The PCIEX8 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16 slot. When the PCIEX8 slot is populated, the PCIEX16 slot will operate at up to x8 mode.
  3. 3 x PCI Express x1 slots
    (All PCI Express slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)
  4. 2 x PCI slots
Multi-Graphics Technology
  1. Support for AMD CrossFireXâ„¢/NVIDIA SLI technology
Storage Interface Chipset:
  1. 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3_0~SATA3_1) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
  2. 4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2_2~SATA2_5) supporting up to 4 SATA 3Gb/s devices
  3. Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10
    * When a RAID set is built across the SATA 6Gb/s and SATA 3Gb/s channels, the system performance of the RAID set may vary depending on the devices being connected.

Marvell 88SE9172 chip:

  1. 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (GSATA3_6, GSATA3_7) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
  2. Support for SATA RAID 0 and RAID 1
USB Chipset:
  1. Up to 14 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (8 on the back panel, 6 via the USB brackets connected to the internal USB headers)

2 x Etron EJ168 chips:

  1. Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (2 on the back panel, 2 via the USB bracket connected to the internal USB header)
IEEE 1394 VIA VT6308 chip:
  1. Up to 2 IEEE 1394a ports (1 on the back panel, 1 via the IEEE 1394a bracket connected to the internal IEEE 1394a header)
Internal I/O Connectors
  1. 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
  2. 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
  3. 4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
  4. 4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors
  5. 1 x CPU fan header
  6. 2 x system fan headers
  7. 1 x power fan header
  8. 1 x front panel header
  9. 1 x front panel audio header
  10. 1 x S/PDIF Out header
  11. 3 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
  12. 1 x USB 3.0/2.0 header
  13. 1 x IEEE 1394a header
  14. 1 x serial port header
  15. 1 x clearing CMOS jumper
  16. 1 x Trusted Platform Module (TPM) header
Back Panel Connectors
  1. 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
  2. 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
  3. 1 x IEEE 1394 port
  4. 1 x HDMI port
  5. 8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
  6. 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
  7. 1 x RJ-45 port
  8. 6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone)
I/O Controller
  1. iTE IT8728 chip
H/W Monitoring
  1. System voltage detection
  2. CPU/System temperature detection
  3. CPU/System/Power fan speed detection
  4. CPU overheating warning
  5. CPU/System/Power fan fail warning
  6. CPU/System fan speed control
BIOS
  1. 2 x 32 Mbit flash
  2. Use of licensed AWARD BIOS
  3. Support for DualBIOSâ„¢
  4. PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.4, ACPI 1.0b
Unique Features
  1. Support for @BIOS
  2. Support for Q-Flash
  3. Support for Xpress BIOS Rescue
  4. Support for Download Center
  5. Support for Xpress Install
  6. Support for Xpress Recovery2
  7. Support for EasyTune
  8. Support for Dynamic Energy Saverâ„¢ 2
  9. Support for Smart 6â„¢
  10. Support for Auto Green
  11. Support for eXtreme Hard Drive (X.H.D)
  12. Support for ON/OFF Charge
  13. Support for Cloud OC
  14. Support for 3TB+ Unlock
  15. Support for TouchBIOS
  16. Support for Q-Share
Bundle Software
  1. Norton Internet Security (OEM version)
  2. Intel® Smart Response Technology
  3. LucidLogix Virtu
    * Make sure the monitor cable has been connected to the integrated graphics port on the back panel.
Form Factor
  1. ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 24.4cm