GIGABYTE X79-UD5 LGA2011 Motherboard Review

[MAC]

Included Software pt.2

Included Software pt.2

TouchBIOS

Click on image to enlarge​

The Overclock section allows users to change the CPU multiplier, memory frequency, timings, and all vital system voltages. The Boot Disk section allows you to configure advanced features like PCI-E slot priority. The PC Status section displays CPU and system temperatures, vCore + memory voltages, and fan speeds. The Integrated Hardware section allows you to control/enable/disable some of the onboard controllers like LAN, SATA, and USB 3.0. The Power Management section allows you configure power management settings linked to the power-saving sleep modes. The Quick Boost section allows users to enable automatic overclocking. The @BIOS section simply gives users another way to access the @BIOS utility and update the BIOS.

Basically, TouchBIOS has a lot, if not all, of the functionality of the actual BIOS. It is user-friendly and very functional, but a lot of the time you need to reboot whenever you make changes. That's not unexpected, but it is a bit of a time waster. Most importantly though, TouchBIOS doesn't always work. Changing CPU multipliers didn't work, changing the memory frequency was hit-and-miss since there are two different spots where it can be done, changing memory timings didn’t work, Quick Boost didn't work, etc. Furthermore, it is also quite sluggish when just navigating the interface. Ultimately, we just don’t see a point to this piece of software, much like the 3D Power utility.


@BIOS

If you don’t want to bother formatting a USB flash drive to FAT16/32 in order to use the Q-Flash Utility in the BIOS, you can simply use the @BIOS utility to flash from within Windows.

Click on image to enlarge​

EasyTune Touch is a currently iOS-only app that allows users to remotely control their desktop PC with a utility that allows for overclocking, general system tweaking, system monitoring, and the ability to also remotely shut down a system. This mobile application also features Quick Boost, which can only users to easily overclock via three preset overclocking configurations.

In GIGABYTE's own words, Cloud OC is an overclocking utility designed for system overclocking via virtually any Internet-connected device, such as a smart phone, iPhone, notebook PC, etc. By simply connecting to an Internet browser via LAN, wireless LAN, or Bluetooth and logging in to the Cloud OC server, you can easily access three major functions of Cloud OC, including Tuner (system tweaking), System Info (system monitoring), and Control (system status control).

Frankly, these are both novelty pieces of software since I don't know of anyone that has ever bothered overclocking a system without sitting in front of it.

 

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Test Setups & Methodology

Test Setups & Methodology

For this review, we have prepared four different test setups, representing all the popular platforms at the moment, as well as most of the best-selling processors. As much as possible, the four test setups feature identical components, memory timings, drivers, etc. Aside from manually selecting memory frequencies and timings, every option in the BIOS was at its default setting.

Intel Core i7 LGA2011 Test Setup​

For all of the benchmarks, appropriate lengths are taken to ensure an equal comparison through methodical setup, installation, and testing. The following outlines our testing methodology:

A) Windows is installed using a full format.

B) Chipset drivers and accessory hardware drivers (audio, network, GPU) are installed.

C)To ensure consistent results, a few tweaks are applied to Windows 7 and the NVIDIA control panel:

• UAC – Disabled
• Indexing – Disabled
• Superfetch – Disabled
• System Protection/Restore – Disabled
• Problem & Error Reporting – Disabled
• Remote Desktop/Assistance - Disabled
• Windows Security Center Alerts – Disabled
• Windows Defender – Disabled
• Screensaver – Disabled
• Power Plan – High Performance
• V-Sync – Off

D) Windows updates are then completed installing all available updates

E) All programs are installed and then updated, followed by a defragment.

F) Benchmarks are each run three to eight times, and unless otherwise stated, the results are then averaged..

Here is a full list of the applications that we utilized in our benchmarking suite:

• 3DMark06 Professional v1.2.0
• 3DMark Vantage Professional Edition v1.1.0
• 3DMark11 Professional Edition v1.0.2
• 7-Zip 9.22 beta 64-bit
• AIDA64 Extreme Edition v2.00.1719 Beta
• Cinebench R10 64-bit
• Cinebench R11.529 64-bit
• Civilization V 1.0.1.383
• Crysis v1.2.1 64-bit
• Crysis 2 v1.9 + DX11 Pack + HiRes Texture Pack
• Deep-Fritz 12
• DiRT 3 v1.2.0
• Far Cry 2 v1.03
• HyperPI 0.99b
• Lame Front-End 1.0
• Left 4 Dead 2 v2.0.8.9
• LuxMark v1.0
• MaxxMEM² - PreView v1.90
• PCMark 7 Professional Edition v1.0.4
• Photoshop CS4 64-bit
• POV-Ray v3.7 RC3 64-bit
• SPECviewperf 11
• Street Fighter IV Benchmark V1.0.0.1
• Team Fortress 2 v1.1.7.6
• TrueCrypt 7.1
• Valve Particle Simulation Benchmark v1.0.0.0
• WinRAR 4.0.1 64-bit
• World in Conflict Demo v1.0.0.0
• wPRIME version 2.05
• x264 HD Benchmark 2.0
• X3: Terran Conflict Demo v1.0

That is about all you need to know methodology wise, so let's get to the good stuff!

 

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Synthetic Benchmarks

Synthetic Benchmarks: AIDA64 / MaxxMEM² / SiSoft

AIDA64 Extreme Edition 2.00 - CPU & FPU Benchmarks

AIDA64 Extreme Edition 2.00 - Cache Benchmark

AIDA64 Extreme Edition 2.00 - Memory Benchmarks

MaxxMEM² - Memory Benchmarks

Sisoft Sandra 2011.SP5 - Memory Benchmarks

Sisoft Sandra 2011.SP5 - Cache Benchmarks

​

 

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General Benchmarks

General Benchmarks

SuperPi Mod v1.5

When running the SuperPI 32MB benchmark, we are calculating Pi to 32 million digits and timing the process. Obviously more CPU power helps in this intense calculation, but the memory sub-system also plays an important role, as does the operating system. We are running one instance of SuperPi via the HyperPi 0.99b interface. This is therefore a single-thread workload.

wPRIME 2.03

wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton's method for estimating functions, with f(x)=x2-k, where k is the number we're sqrting, until Sgn(f(x)/f'(x)) does not equal that of the previous iteration, starting with an estimation of k/2. It then uses an iterative calling of the estimation method a set amount of times to increase the accuracy of the results. It then confirms that n(k)2=k to ensure the calculation was correct. It repeats this for all numbers from 1 to the requested maximum. This is a highly multi-threaded workload.

Cinebench R10

Cinebench R10 64-bit
Test1: Single CPU Image Render
Test2: Multi CPU Image Render
Comparison: Generated Score

Developed by MAXON, creators of Cinema 4D, Cinebench 10 is designed using the popular Cinema software and created to compare system performance in 3D Animation and Photo applications. There are two parts to the test; the first stresses only the primary CPU or Core, the second, makes use of up to 16 CPUs/Cores. Both are done rendering a realistic photo while utilizing various CPU-intensive features such as reflection, ambient occlusion, area lights and procedural shaders

Cinebench R11.5

Cinebench R11.5 64-bit
Test1: CPU Image Render
Comparison: Generated Score

The latest benchmark from MAXON, Cinebench R11.5 makes use of all your system's processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene using various different algorithms to stress all available processor cores. The test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects containing more than 300,000 total polygons and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights and shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. This particular benchmarking can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. The result is given in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.

Deep Fritz 12 - Chess Benchmark

POV-Ray 3.7 RC3

Lame Front End

Lame Front End v1.0 is a single-threaded application, which means that it only utilizes a single processor core. This will obviously limit performance but it will allow us to gauge a processor's single-threaded performance as well as test any turbo feature that it might have. We will be encoding a WAV rip of Santana’s Supernatural album and converting it to MP3 using the highest fidelity VBR 0 quality preset.

Photoshop CS4 64-bit

For the image editing portion of this review, we will use Photoshop CS4 in coordination with Driver Heaven’s Photoshop Benchmark V3, which is an excellent test of CPU power and memory bandwidth. This is a scripted benchmark that individually applies 15 different filters to a 109MB JPEG, and uses Photoshop’s built-in timing feature to provide a result at each test stage. Then it’s simply a matter of adding up the 15 results to reach the final figure.

x264 HD Benchmark v4.0 x264

x264 HD Benchmark v4.0 x264
Test: MPEG-2 HD 720P Video Clip Conversion to x264
DVD Video Length: 30 Seconds
Comparison: FPS of Second Pass

x264 is quickly becoming the new codec of choice for encoding a growing number of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC videos. Think of it as the new Divx of HD and you can understand why we felt it critical to include. Tech Arp's recent development of the x264 HD Benchmark takes a 30 second HD video clip and encodes it into the x264 codec with the intention of little to no quality loss. The test is measured using the average frames per second achieved during encoding, which scales with processor speed and efficiency. The benchmark also allows the use of multi-core processors so it gives a very accurate depiction of what to expect when using encoding application on a typical full length video.

TrueCrypt 7.1

LuxMark v1.0

SPECviewperf 11

PCMark 7

WinRAR

WinRAR 4.0.1 x64
Test: Compression of 1GB of Assorted Files
Comparison: Time to Finish

One of the most popular file compression/decompresion tools, we use WinRAR to compress a 1GB batch of files and archive them, timing the task until completion.

7-Zip

7-Zip 9.22 x64
Test: Compression/Extraction of 1GB of Assorted Files, with AES-256 encryption
Comparison: Time to Finish

 

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Gaming Benchmarks

Gaming Benchmarks

Futuremark 3DMark Vantage

3DMark Vantage v1.1.0
Graphic Settings: Performance Preset
Resolution: 1280X1024

Test: Specific CPU Score and Full Run 3DMarks
Comparison: Generated Score

3DMark Vantage is the follow-up to the highly successful 3DMark06. It uses DirectX 10 exclusively so if you are running Windows XP, you can forget about this benchmark. Along with being a very capable graphics card testing application, it also has very heavily multi-threaded CPU tests, such Physics Simulation and Artificial Intelligence (AI), which makes it a good all-around gaming benchmark.

Futuremark 3DMark 11

3DMark 11 v1.0.2
Graphic Settings: Performance Preset
Resolution: 1280X720
Test: Specific Physics Score and Full Run 3DMarks
Comparison: Generated Score


3DMark 11 is Futuremark's very latest benchmark, designed to tests all of the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. At the moment, it is lot more GPU-bound than past versions are now, but it does contain a terrific physics test which really taxes modern multi-core processors.

Crysis

Crysis v1.21
Resolution: 1680x1050
Anti Aliasing: 0
Quality Settings: High
Global Settings: DX10 / 64-Bit

Test 1: Ice benchmark_CPU2 demo
Comparison: FPS (Frames per Second)

Still one of the most hardware intensive game on the market today, Crysis has been chosen for its obvious ability to be able to showcase the differences between platforms and to showcase just how far one will need to go in the quest for maximum performance. The game also features the renowned CryEngine, the power behind the incredible graphics, which is expected to be foundation of future titles.

Crysis 2

Crysis 2 v1.9 + DirectX 11 Ultra Upgrade Patch
Quality: Very High
Resolution: 1680x1050
Anti-Aliasing: 0X
Map: Downtown
Runs: 3
API: DirectX 11
Edge AA: Edge Blur
Hi-res Texture: On

Civilization V

Civilization V - LateGameView Benchmark
DirectX 11
1680x1050 @ 59Hz
4X MSAA
All quality settings on high.

DiRT 3

DiRT 3
DirectX 11
1680x1050@60Hz
Graphics Quality: High
4X MSAA
Skidmarks: On
Track: finland_rally

Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2 1.02
Resolution: 1680x1050
Anti Aliasing: 0
Quality Settings: Very High
Performance: Very High
Global Settings: DX10 Enabled

Test 1: Ranch Long Demo
Comparison: FPS (Frames per Second)

Far Cry 2 is the hot new new first-person shooter from Ubisoft's Montreal studio, and the first game to utilize the new visually stunning Dunia Engine, which will undoubtedly be used by numerous future games. Using the included Benchmarking Tool, we ran the Long Ranch demo in DX10 mode at 1680x1050 with all settings set to very high.

X3: Terran Conflict

X3: Terran Conflict 1.2.0.0
Resolution: 1680x1050
Texture Quality: High
Shader Quality: High
Antialiasing 4X
Anisotropic Mode: 8X
Glow Enabled

Game Benchmark
Comparison: FPS (Frames per Second)

Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2 (Latest Update)
Map: Dustbowl
Resolution: 1680x1050
Anti-Aliasing Mode: 4X MSAA
Filtering Mode: Anisotropic 8X
Graphic Settings: High
Texture Detail: Very High
Water Detail: Reflect All
Motion Blur: Enabled
High Dynamic Range: Full
Test 1: HWC TF2 Custom Timedemo
Comparison: FPS (Frames per Second)

Street Fighter 4

Street Fighter 4 Demo
Resolution: 1680x1050
Anti-Aliasing: 4X
Texture Filter: 8X
Graphic Settings: High
Test 1: Built-in Timedemo
Comparison: FPS (Frames per Second)

Street Fighter IV is a 2008 arcade game produced by famous developer Capcom, that has finally been released on the PC platform. This game has not been 'ported' since the Street Fighter IV arcade machines actually have PC internals, with circa 2005 components. As a result, the version of the game released on the PC is considered the definitive version. With fully multi-threaded engine and an astounding hybrid 2D/3D graphics style, this game is sure to please all fans of the Street Fighter series.

World in Conflict

World in Conflict v1.0.0
Resolution: 1680x1050
Anti-Aliasing: 4X
Anisotropic Filtering: 4X
Graphic Settings: Very High
Test 1: Built-in Benchmark
Comparison: FPS (Frames per Second)

One of the most visually stunning real-time strategy games in recent history, World in Conflict can really push systems to the brink, which is what we attempt by running the game in DirectX 10 mode at 1680x1050 with all settings maxed out. For this test we used the in-game benchmarking tool.

 

[MAC]

Temperatures / Power Consumption

Power Consumption

For this section, every energy saving feature was enabled in the BIOS and the Windows 7 power plan was changed from High Performance to Balanced.

For our idle test, we let the system idle for 15 minutes and measured the peak wattage through our UPM EM100 power meter.

For our CPU load test, we ran Prime95 v26.6 64-bit In-place large FFTs on all available threads for 15 minutes, measuring the peak wattage via the UPM EM100 power meter.

For our overall system load test, we ran Prime95 v26.6 64-bit In-place large FFTs on all available threads for 15 minutes, while simultaneously loading the GPU with OCCT v3.1.0 GPU:OCCT stress test at 1680x1050@60Hz in full screen mode.

While Intel-branded motherboards are often a little rough around the edges, and never have the most impressive features list, they are always the most energy-efficient motherboards on the market. As such, it’s no surprise that see that the X79-UD5 has the higher power consumption numbers of the two. Having said that, when you consider the fact that the UD5 features a much more robust PWM, two additional SATA RAID controllers, and two extra USB 3.0 controllers, a few dozen extra watts is a worthwhile tradeoff.

Temperatures

For this test, we set all the BIOS settings to default, and then ran one hour of both Prime95 v26.6 64-bit In-place large FFTs and OCCT v3.1.0 GPU:OCCT stress at the same time. In this case, our thermal probe was actually put in direct contact with the southbridge and one MOSFET. The ambient temperature was 23°C/73.4°F.

Even though we had some reservations about the small MOSFET heatsink, when running at stock settings the MOSFET temperatures never reached above 50°C. However, when you throw overclocking into the mix, this new generation of MOSFETs and accompanying PWM components can get quite hot. How hot really depends on a lot of factors, like the vCore, CPU frequency, CPU current draw, VRM switching frequency, ambient room/case temps, etc. Either way, when overclocking try to direct some kind of airflow to the CPU socket area, just out of an abundance of caution.

Unlike the X58 chipset that it replaces, which was a toasty 24W part, the X79 Express chipset has a mere 7.8W TDP and it runs cool with very minimal cooling. As a result, the large heatsink that GIGABYTE have utilized on the UD5 is more than capable of keeping temperatures in check, even with zero additional airflow.

 

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Overclocking Results

Overclocking Results

Despite anything you might have seen or read, when playing around with the newest bioses F7 through F9 we didn't experience anything worrisome as far limits on overclocking, at least there was no decline in overclocking headroom when compared to the older bioses. Having said that, we don't really have the cherry chips and sub-zero cooling necessary to see what those upper limits might be.

We are not going to over the ins and outs of overclocking on the LGA2011 platform, you can find a nice recap here, but we are going to recommend that users stay within the following voltage limits for their 24/7 overclocks: 1.45V vCore, 1.25V VTT, 1.20V VCCSA, 1.65V vDIMM. That is what we used below, and it should allow the majority of users to max out their chips on high-end air cooling.

Click on image to enlarge​

For this overclocking portion of the review, we decided to swap in our Core i7-3820, since it is better in every respect than our woefully average i7-3960X.

Give or take a few megahertz, we were able to achieve the same overclocking results as on an Intel DX79SI, but to be honest Intel-branded motherboards never really shine in the overclocking department. Based on conversations with our colleagues, it does seem like other big motherboard manufacturers currently have an edge when it comes to LGA2011 overclocking, perhaps to the tune of 100-200MHz on the core clock. This is obviously just conjecture at this point, since we haven’t yet tested this particular i7-3820 on any ASUS, ASRock, or MSI motherboards.

Click on image to enlarge​

By using the 1.25X strap, we were able to achieve a solid 131.5MHz bus speed. When combined with the i7-3820’s 43X multiplier limit that gives you potential headroom up to 5.65GHz, which thus far is not even achievable using liquid nitrogen (LN2). Reaching the highest bus speed was not particularly hard, it was simply a matter of slowly inching towards a 105.2MHz host clock and then engaging the 1.25X strap. However, the UD5 has poor auto-recovery when you push things too far, so we did inevitably have to turn off/on the power supply.

The 1.66X and 2.50X gear ratios don’t work on the UD5, just like every other X79 motherboard on the market right now, except the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme. If you have a Core i7-3930K or i7-3960X bus speed is going to be of secondary importance due to the fully unlocked multipliers. You really won’t need to make use of even the 1.25X strap, just minor increases in the host clock should allow you max out your processor.

Click on image to enlarge​

On the memory front, we were able to achieve DDR-2219 using our G.Skill F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH kit’s stock 9-11-10-28 timings, albeit with a tighter tRFC and Command Rate. The limiting factor was really our aforementioned 1.25V VTT / 1.20V VCCSA / 1.65V vDIMM voltage limits, since the kit kept scaling up to the mid-2300 range as we increased the vDIMM to 1.75V. Having said that, increasing the voltage or further loosening the timings just isn’t a worthwhile tradeoff in our opinion. We have no reason to doubt the X79-UD5’s support for DDR3-2400 modules.

 

[MAC]

Conclusion

Conclusion

Since Sandy Bridge-E launched back in November we have had the pleasure of reviewing a couple of really outlandish motherboards like the ASUS X79 Rampage IV Extreme and ASRock X79 Extreme9. While the LGA2011 platform is ideal for such high-end ‘Everything and the Kitchen Sink’ type motherboards, there is also obviously a demand for more conventional models as well.

In this category, the GIGABYTE X79-UD5 looks like a standout model since it features a reasonable $300 price tag and an impressive specs list. This motherboard has top-notch connectivity in the form of USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, and even the rarely seen eSATA 6GB/s. The included WiFi & Bluetooth capabilities are definitely a nice bonus, especially with the two external antennas. However, we do wish that GIGABYTE would have included a dedicated spot for the combo card since depending on your graphics cards configuration you can end up covering all the board’s PCI-E slots. While on the subject, this motherboard is mysteriously missing one PCI-E x16 slot. The ability to support four graphics cards is a fundamental selling point of the LGA2011 platform, and even though it’s a feature that few will ever use, we do find it unusual that the UD5 features one less PCI-E x16 slot than the lower-end UD3. On a similar and maybe related note, we do also find odd that the UD5 is the only model in GIGABYTE’s X79 lineup to include the full complement of eight memory slots. It’s definitely not a negative, since it means that the UD5 can support up to 64GB of RAM, but it is a weird way to try to funnel buyers towards this model.

The new 3D BIOS is an impressive first step into the UEFI realm. While the first iterations were a little rough around the edges with regard to smoothness, the updates are coming fast and furious and the overall experience is slowly approaching perfection. Long-time GIGABYTE fans shouldn’t find the transition to UEFI too jarring, and novice users should be able to navigate the mouse-enable 3D Mode GUI without getting overwhelmed by cryptic settings. While we are clearly enthused about the new BIOS, we can’t say the same about some of the new software utilities. The new additions like 3D Power or TouchBIOS might sound good on paper, but in reality they are never as easy or trouble-free as simply using the BIOS. We are still fans of @BIOS and EasyTune6, they have never let us down yet, but they are more than due for an aesthetic refresh as well.

On the overclocking front we were satisfied with our results, but getting there could have been smoother. This motherboard currently doesn’t have very good auto-recovery, so if you push things too far you will inevitably encounter an endless boot loop. It’s not damaging in any way, but is annoying having to turn the power supply off/on all the time. When you get it setup properly, this motherboard is rock-solid though. We’ve had our particular sample since way before the over-publicized blown MOSFET episode, and even with 1.50V pumping through our i7-3960X and no active airflow on the MOSFET heatsink nothing cataclysmic happened, no smoke, no throttling, no spontaneous BSODs...just a lot of excess heat. For those who aren't trying to push their luck, common sense dictates that when overclocking you should ensure that the CPU socket area has some airflow. Although we haven’t noticed any overclocking differences between between BIOS versions F4 through F9, by some accounts GIGABYTE’s X79 motherboards are currently a little bit behind the pack when it comes to air-cooled overclocking.

Overall, we have too many little reservations. The X79-UD5 is a good motherboard in many respects, but there is no feature or capability so unique or well implemented that makes it stand out from the rest of what is an impressively strong contingent of X79 motherboards. Furthermore, there is an ominous shadow over GIGABYTE's X79 lineup, and although largely unfounded it will remain until they inevitably unveil a revised X79A series sometime down the road.