Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5 (Rev. 2.0)

[TheBeagle]

I'm very interested in purchasing Gigabyte's Revision 2.0 of their GA-X58A-UD5 motherboard. However, there doesn't seem to be too much information available regarding what changes and/or improvements have been implemented in this new revision. I do understand that the initial BIOS on the Rev. 2.0 board (FA) will recognize an Intel 980X CPU right out of the box (that's an improvement over the F1 BIOS problems in the Rev. 1.0 boards). It is also my understanding that those Rev. 2.0 boards will arrive in the USA about mid-June.

I would appreciate some reliable (a/k/a solid) information on what changes or improvement have been made to the Rev. 2.0 board. Thanks in advance to anyone who might have that sort of information.

Best regards to everyone. TheBeagle

 

[Blazer7]

AFAIK the basic difference between the 2 is the “Dual Power Switching” feature. Both mobos support auto-phase switching for energy efficiency/power consumption reasons but the dual power switching brings on something new.

This feature works by dividing the board's phases into 2 sets of 8 phases each and automatically switch the active set thus sharing the power workload evenly among all phases and prolonging their lifespan.

HTH

Best regards. Blazer7

 

[TheBeagle]

Hello Mr. Blazer,

Thanks for the reply. This new Rev. 2.0 board has me intrigued. I also heard (although just in rumor stage) that the Rev. 2.0 board will also support an i-Pad connection that has a high efficiency charging capability.

I'm seriously considering taking the "leap" for a new system consisting of the Rev. 2.0 board, an Intel 980X, 12GB of Dominator DDR3 memory, a Crucial 300 SSD, a Radeon HD5970, and some other assorted items. However, since that endeavor will cost a few bucks, I'd like to know what I'm getting into before stepping off the edge.

I haven't spoken with you for some time since I was posting on a regular basis on this Forum some while back. It's very nice to see that some of the old regulars are still here.

Best regards to everyone. TheBeagle

 

[Blazer7]

Hello there,

This new Rev. 2.0 board has me intrigued. I also heard (although just in rumor stage) that the Rev. 2.0 board will also support an i-Pad connection that has a high efficiency charging capability.

This is no rumor. GB has been playing with this for some time now. What has changed since rev 1 is that now you can use your pc to charge other devices even if it's off.

I'm seriously considering taking the "leap" for a new system consisting of the Rev. 2.0 board, an Intel 980X, 12GB of Dominator DDR3 memory, a Crucial 300 SSD, a Radeon HD5970, and some other assorted items. However, since that endeavor will cost a few bucks, I'd like to know what I'm getting into before stepping off the edge.

I was also considering the GBs because of their features and quality but their layout was always an issue for me. Especially when it came to cpu cooling with all DIMM slots populated. I have already expressed my thoughts on this here. I believe that water cooling is the only real answer to this but then again, that's just me.

Anyways I put together my new rig just recently and I'm extremely happy with it. I haven't even finished with the RAMs yet. Normally I would tweak them to the max even if it takes me a life time to achieve this. However this time I went the other way around. My mems worked great straight out of the box and then I started lowering the voltages. I started with their default XMP profile with VDIMM 1.66V and QPI 1.35000V and now I'm @ 1.52 – 1.21250 and I haven't finished testing yet. If you are looking for a 12GB kit Corsair's CMD12GX3M6A1600C8 is the way to go.

On the downside I lost all those nice SATA ports the GBs have but the addition of an ASUS U3S6 will fix this for me.


Glad to see you around.

Best regards Blazer7

 

[TheBeagle]

Good Evening Mr. Blazer,

Well, the Corsair RAM that you selected is exactly the sticks I bought last week. I bought two packs, of three sticks each, just like you. I had built a couple of rigs for some friends last year and used that RAM in their units and it worked just great. So, since I had those positive experiences, I bought some for myself, although the price these days is a bit higher than last year.

Since I have six large capacity HDDs for data storage plus an Intel SSD for a system drive, plus three optical drives, etc in my present case (which I will reuse), I will need all those SATA ports that Gigabyte provides. The SATA III is very interesting and that's why I probably will give one of those Crucial 300 SATA III drives a run as my system drive in the new rig. I understand that both the Rev. 2.0 board and the Crucial 300 SSD utilize a Marvell controller chip, so that may help the overall integration. I just hope that I can get the TRIM passed through to the SSD. I read that if you stay with the stock Win7 x64 driver for the Marvell chip, then the TRIM will be functional.

Let me know how your new rig finally performs after you tweak it a bit. As I recall, you are a bit of a demon on that tweaking stuff - LOL!

Good to speak with you again. Best regards to everyone. TheBeagle

 

[Blazer7]

Good Evening Mr. Blazer,

Well, the Corsair RAM that you selected is exactly the sticks I bought last week. I bought two packs, of three sticks each, just like you. I had built a couple of rigs for some friends last year and used that RAM in their units and it worked just great. So, since I had those positive experiences, I bought some for myself, although the price these days is a bit higher than last year.

Actually I'm using one 12GB six stick pack → CMD12GX3M6A1600C8

Passed 13 straight hours of memtest 86+. Now running @1.50 – 1.21250

*** sig updated ***

Since I have six large capacity HDDs for data storage plus an Intel SSD for a system drive, plus three optical drives, etc in my present case (which I will reuse), I will need all those SATA ports that Gigabyte provides. The SATA III is very interesting and that's why I probably will give one of those Crucial 300 SATA III drives a run as my system drive in the new rig. I understand that both the Rev. 2.0 board and the Crucial 300 SSD utilize a Marvell controller chip, so that may help the overall integration. I just hope that I can get the TRIM passed through to the SSD. I read that if you stay with the stock Win7 x64 driver for the Marvell chip, then the TRIM will be functional.

Yes those ten SATA ports are a big plus. I don't know about how much of a difference SATA III will make but that SSD will definitely make an impact. Good luck with your new build.

Best regards. Blazer7

 

[TheBeagle]

UPDATE: Well, I finally got sick and tired of waiting for Gigabyte to release the Rev. 2.0 of the GA-X58A-UD5 board to the USA. That damn board has been available in Taiwan for over 2 months! So, I took a look around and decided on an ASUS Rampage III Extreme - and I'm very pleased with that decision.

I just got the board today and I will update you on how well it performs with an i7-980X proc. Stay tuned!

Best regards to everyone. TheBeagle

 

[Blazer7]

Please also comment on how 12GBs of RAM perform with that board.

Best of luck with your new build.

Regards. Blazer

 

[TheBeagle]

Good Evening Brother Blazer,

You got it. The 1600C8 sticks are only listed for 4 slots in the ASUS approved memory listing, but I've got a hunch that if I just activate the XMP mode option in the BIOS, everything else will go OK. But we shall see.

BTW, the fit and finish on this board is fabulous. I'm also going to stick one of those ASUS U3S6 combo SATA 3 / USB 3.0 cards in the 4x PCIe slot to gain some more USB ports and another set of high speed SATA ports. Thanks very much for leading me onto that combo card, since it uses a Marvell chip which uses the same driver as the onboard SATA 3 controller. That way the one driver will likely serve both controllers and hopefully avoid a conflict (I really hate driver conflicts!!).

I'll keep you posted as the build develops. If it turns out really good, I'll likely start a new thread to post the results.

Best regards. TheBeagle

 

[TheBeagle]

Good Morning Everyone,

It seems that the Gremlins of Gigabyte must have heard that I was considering an ASUS Rampage Extreme III for my new build and therefore made the Rev. 2.0 magically appear at my local distributor. Yesterday afternoon I got my hands on the new Rev. 2.0 board and it looks great.

At the same time, Newegg got in a few of the very new Corsair H70 water cooling systems and I was lucky enough to get a firm purchase for one before the limited supply ran out. That means I'll have the new cooling system this coming Wednesday, and by that time the rest of the build should be pretty well completed, so we'll be firing it up around that time. I'll let you all know how this new endeavor works out.

Best regards to everyone. TheBeagle