Thoughts and rating
Gigabyte is putting significant store in AMD's new FX chips by releasing seven 9-series boards armed with the AM3+ socket. The headline act is the 990FXA-UD7, which is a £200 board designed with the enthusiast firmly in mind.
Presented in an eATX form factor and well-laid-out for a genuinely high-end offering, the UD7 can run four double-slot graphics cards for ultimate performance. Toned down somewhat from last year's equivalent board - the outlandish 890FXA-UD7 - and able to overclock our FX-8150 to 4.7GHz with ease, there's plenty to like if going down the 'extreme' AMD route.
But it's about time that Gigabyte transitioned to a full-UEFI BIOS on a £200 investment. Speaking of pricing, the UD7 could do with a snip, because considered as a whole, AMD's FX chips struggle against price-equivalent Intel's, making the jump to high-end 990FX more than a little nebulous if laying down lots of cash.
All said and done, the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 is a niche board that caters for the enthusiast who absolutely needs the utmost component flexibility - from four graphics cards to super-clocked CPUs - though, given what we know about the FX chip, we recommend most users look further down the stack for value-orientated boards such as the UD5 and UD3.
The Good
Accepts four double-slot graphics cards
Well-laid-out
Overclocks well
The Bad
Pricey
Old-style BIOS
HEXUS Rating
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7
HEXUS Where2Buy
The Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 is available from Scan.co.uk.
HEXUS Right2Reply
At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
