Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3r versus GA-EX58 UD5

[Beat Productions]

I'm going to be building a new I7 DAW and I wondering, aside from slightly more memory availability and 2 more SATA connections, what the advantage of the UD5 over the UD3r is?

[TAFKAT]

From just a quick glance, the most obvious is the UD3R has only 4 memory slots over the UD5's 6 , which is limiting the memory options as the systems run Tri-Channel arrays .

[resonator]

I just built an i7 system using an EX58-DS4, and the 6GB triple channel DDR3 really makes this blazingly fast. I'm very satisfied with the board and the system. One word of warning though - the first board I got was DOA, I had to exchange it with another one.

[Michael Tibes]

I have the GA-EX58 UD5 and if I remember right it was advertised to have better capacitors etc. I wouldn't save money on the motherboard, shit like exploding capacitors are the most silly reason to have for a system failure. Whether those advertisement claims are worth anything might be another topic though. So far everything's fine here, but it's only been some weeks so far.

Michael

[TAFKAT]

.. the better quality capacitors , ferrite core chokes and Mosfets are worth their weight in gold IMO.. :wink:

[StevenG]

I just rebuilt a dead P4 rig with a Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4 mobo and i7. The i920 is overclocked to 3GHz (as simple as can be) and the whole thing is rock solid for the moment (rebuild was last thursday).

A few things about the Gigabyte mobo:
- triple channel RAM with 6 slots = very good! I put in a Corsair 3-pack for 3 Gig. I'll wait for a stable 64 bit Win7 to move on to 6 Gb.
- 3 PCI slots BUT a PCI-X card will only fit in the center slot as the two others have components that block a longer card from fitting in (the grey radiator below the right slot, and some capacitors below the left slot)!
- The PCIe x4 slot could be considered next to useless as Gigabyte has installed a big radiator (blue thingy with GIGABYTE written on it) that is too high to allow a card to get to the slot. Maybe there is a riser that exists?? In any case it's really dumb.

http://media.ldlc.com/ld/products/00/00/68/67/LD0000686769_2.jpg

Otherwise this thing really flies. I'll try and do some benchmarking with your test projects.

I did'nt go for the UD5 as I cant give a rat's ass about 3 x16 PCIe slots, as we have lots of in-use PCI and PCI-X stuff here.

[Beat Productions]

Should I go with DDR3 1333 or 1600?

[StevenG]

I went for 1600. The price was OK. http://www.ldlc-paris.com/fiche/PB00080041.html

[Beat Productions]

I just built my Gigabyte X58 UDR3r Intel I7 920 with 6 gigs of Patriot DDR3 1600 ram. The ram defaults to 1066, what's the best way to get it up to 1600?

[D]

I just built my Gigabyte X58 UDR3r Intel I7 920 with 6 gigs of Patriot DDR3 1600 ram. The ram defaults to 1066, what's the best way to get it up to 1600?

IN the BIOS, set the timings to be set by SPD, which is the RAMs own internal set of rules for best performance. If that isn't there or doesn't work, you will need to set the timings manually, but I would be very surprised if that doesn't fix your issue.

[Beat Productions]

IN the BIOS, set the timings to be set by SPD, which is the RAMs own internal set of rules for best performance. If that isn't there or doesn't work, you will need to set the timings manually, but I would be very surprised if that doesn't fix your issue.

On my motherboard the ram SPD defaults
to "auto" which makes it run at 1033, should I try X12 to get it up to 1600?

Also, My CPU (I7 920) is getting pretty hot, do you guys use the stock CPU cooler and pre applied thermal grease?