Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P

Opening a New Front

The intense competition between the top tier motherboard vendors means that you're likely to find manufacturers touting new features with every chipset refresh or introduction. Some have worked better than others, becoming household names among enthusiasts and creating first mover advantage for vendors who got it right. Others have sunk in the market, to be removed quietly in the next revision.

Among the notable vendors, Gigabyte has had its fair share of such moments. Its recent successes, including the introduction of solid capacitors on its motherboards and its Dynamic Energy Saver technology for active phase power management have been taken up by other vendors and consolidated Gigabyte's status in the market. While some companies have been focused on cutting production costs to compete, Gigabyte has upped the stakes with high quality products that appeal to power users.

So it's with great interest that we examine another new development in this competitive segment. Gigabyte's Ultra Durable 'umbrella' of features will see an addition - the company is doubling the amount of copper in the PCB. The hence renamed Ultra Durable 3 (UD3) will lead to a cooler motherboard and greater power efficiency. At least that's what the marketing claims. We'll see how this plays out in Gigabyte's latest P45 motherboard enhanced with Ultra Durable 3, the EP45-UD3P.

Gigabyte has four models of P45 motherboards enhanced with UD3 at the moment, two are DDR3 and the other two are DDR2 models. As for the difference between the two (using the same memory type), it appears that the UD3P version that we received has 1 more Gigabit LAN port and more importantly, 2 PCIe x16 slots for CrossFire compared to the UD3R model.

There weren't any excessive extras in the Gigabyte package, no audio add-on module for instance. Here's the complete list of the items we found, followed by the technical specifications:-

• 3 x SATA data cables
• 1 x eSATA data cable
• 1 x SATA power converter cable
• 1 x 80-conductor Ultra ATA data cable
• 1 x floppy drive data cable
• 1 x eSATA I/O bracket
• I/O shield
• Driver CD
• User manual
• Hardware installation guide

Double the Copper, Double the Durability?

Traditionally, motherboard PCBs have come with 1 oz of copper per square foot of PCB. Gigabyte has doubled this to 2 oz for its new Ultra Durable 3 series of motherboard PCBs (denoted by the UD3 suffix). According to Gigabyte, having twice the amount of copper improves power efficiency by reducing circuit impedance while heat dissipation is also improved by the greater amount of copper within the PCB. Hence, Gigabyte claims that the UD3 boards run 50 degrees Celsius cooler than a traditional board though we doubt we'll see that magnitude from an end-user point of use. As it is, the board does not feel much heavier than the typical motherboard even with the extra copper.

From our temperature tests of the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P at load, the Northbridge cooler measured at around 33 degrees Celsius while the small cooler on the Southbridge had a higher reading of 40 degrees Celsius. This was conducted in our air-conditioned environment that hovers about 21 degrees Celsius. Other P45 motherboards that we have temperature readings are the MSI P45D3 Platinum at around 36.5 degrees while the ASUS P5Q3 Deluxe came in at 37 degrees.

However, due to the larger heatsinks on these two higher end enthusiast class motherboards, the areas (rear heatsink) used to take the temperatures were slightly different from that on the Gigabyte EP45-UD3P (Northbridge, Southbridge heatsinks), so take these numbers as a rough estimate rather than a direct comparison.

Besides its new PCB with more copper, the other facets of Gigabyte's Ultra Durable technology include the presence of ferrite cores and MOSFETs with lower resistance that consumes less power and produces less heat. Of course, as usual, we find the now standard solid Japanese capacitors on the Gigabyte board. Meanwhile, Gigabyte's Advanced Dynamic Energy Saver and its 6-gear power phase switching technology will contribute to better power efficiency. Gigabyte has even thrown in a TPM chip for added data security.

In terms of its specifications, this Intel P45 board from Gigabyte looks to be targeted at enthusiasts despite its expected mainstream pricing, with its support for high FSB (1600MHz) and high speed DDR2 memory (DDR2-1366). Two PCIe x16 slots (configurable as either 1 x16 or 2 x8) ensure that CrossFireX is supported. The ICH10R Southbridge also gives it 6 SATA 3.0Gbps ports with RAID while the Gigabyte branded SATA2 controller adds another 2 SATA along with IDE support. Two Gigabit LAN controllers from Realtek and the usual HD audio CODEC (Realtek again) ensure that it is a full featured modern motherboard.

We had no problems installing our components on this board, with most of the headers and connectors located conveniently at the edges of the board. There was a decent number of expansion slots for users who still need these options, including up to 3 PCIe x1 slots. The heatsinks used for the Northbridge and Southbridge were moderately sized, unlike the typically complex copper structures that are found on higher end boards. Users should hence have no difficulties fitting their own CPU coolers.

Onboard LEDs also help enthusiasts troubleshoot their boards during boot up, while the clear CMOS mechanism is not the handy one-button solution found on some boards. Updating the BIOS to the latest F4 version using a simple flash thumb drive through the BIOS was another very convenient feature found on Gigabyte, which capped our very pleasant experience with this board so far. It was polished and trouble-free and enthusiasts should have no problems setting it up quickly.

Overclocking

With the extra copper claimed to have an effect on the cooling of the board, hopes were high that this could translate into better overclocking. Although we can't say for sure that it was the case, we did get some very decent numbers in our overclocking attempt, hitting a stable 480MHz. The board could even boot into 490MHz, though that failed to pass our stability tests. Compared to the majority of the boards that we have tested so far that failed to reach 480MHz using our processor, this Gigabyte board was already doing very well.

The other good thing about this board is Gigabyte's polished BIOS. Of course, this is not unique to the UD3P and can be found in other comparable Gigabyte boards but we felt that we had to mention it for the ease of use and features. While other brands may have more tweaking options, the ones we found were more than adequate for a mainstream board. Here are the OC related settings:-

• FSB Settings: 100MHz to 1200MHz
• PCIe Settings: 90MHz to 150MHz
• CPU Voltage Settings: 0.5000 - 2.3000 (in 0.0625V - 0.02V steps)
• Memory Voltage Settings: 1.450 - 3.040V (in 0.02V steps)
• MCH Core Settings: 0.850 - 2.00V (in 0.02 steps)
• MCH Frequency Latch: Auto, 200, 266, 333, 400
• ICH Core Settings: 1.10 - 1.40V (in 0.10V steps)
• ICH I/O Settings: 1.05 - 2.310V (in 0.02V steps)
• Multiplier Selection: Yes, 6 - 16 (CPU dependent)

Test Setup

We have only reviewed one other DDR2 board previously, the DFI LANParty DK P45-T2RS PLUS so it shall be our main comparison. Additionally, we have shown our results for the DDR3 versions of the P45 in our graphs. While we could only get our DDR2-1066 memory to run properly at DDR2-800 on the DFI board (for the lack of proper memory ratios), we did manage to get the Gigabyte to run at DDR2-1066 - but was running at a looser 5-5-5-15 memory timing instead. The following hardware configurations were used:-

• Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6850 processor (3.00GHz)
• 2 x 1GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1333 @ 7-7-20 CAS 7.0 (for DDR3 motherboards)
• 2 x 1GB Kingston HyperX DDR2-1066@800 and @ 4-4-4-12 (for the DFI LANParty DK P45-T2RS PLUS)
• 2 x 1GB Aeneon DDR2-1066 @ 5-5-5-15 (for the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P)
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 200GB SATA hard disk drive (one single NTFS partition)
• MSI GeForce 8600 GTS 256MB - with ForceWare 162.18 drivers
• Intel INF 9.0.0.1007 and AHCI 8.0.0.1039 driver set
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (and DirectX 9.0c)

The following benchmarks will be used to determine the performance of the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P when compared to our previously tested Intel P45 boards:-

• BAPco SYSmark 2004 (with Patch 2)
• Futuremark PCMark05 (ver 120)
• SPECviewperf 9.0
• AquaMark3

Results - BAPco SYSmark 2004

With its slower memory timings (the same standard we use for motherboards running DDR2-1066), it was perhaps not too surprising that the Gigabyte EP45-UD3P turned up slower than the DFI running DDR2-800 at tighter timings in our first benchmark, SYSmark 2004. Still the differences are small and are well within the general deviation allowance. However, compared to the performance of the Gigabyte EP45T-EXTREME, the UD3P was not too far off and would actually represent better value for its performance.

Results - Futuremark PCMark05

The Gigabyte EP45-UD3P looked more competitive in PCMark05, with the board scoring well for the CPU and hard drive performance segment. Only in the memory segment did it quite naturally take a small hit from its memory timing disadvantage to fall behind the rest. Without this memory timing issue, we foresee it having no problems keeping up with the competition as can be seen by the good performance of the board on the next set of stringent tests on the following page.

Results - SPECviewperf 9.0

In SPECviewperf 9.0, the Gigabyte produced scores in the 3dsmax and PRO/ENGINEER test segments that were on par with the DFI board, which is good despite the memory timing differences.

Results - AquaMark3

The CPU score in AquaMark3 for the Gigabyte was only marginally behind the DFI, something that we have to attribute to its memory timing, though the board made up for that in the Graphics score. Overall, both boards were a fair bit behind for the CPU performance, which meant the DDR3 boards certainly look better for the high-end enthusiast.

Conclusion

Of the features that Gigabyte has added to its motherboards in the past, having more copper content in the PCB will probably not spark a wave of similar moves by other vendors. The benefits of having the extra copper are hard to quantify, though Gigabyte naturally considers the Ultra Durable 3 series of motherboards to be more premium than its usual mainstream offerings. Lest you're worried that this means a more expensive board, you may be glad to know that at around US$137, the UD3P is still safe in mainstream territory compared to what one may expect to pay for Gigabyte's high-end motherboards. To compare, the Gigabyte EP45-DS3R is selling for around US$127.

So the question is, does the extra copper bring any value to this motherboard? The performance that we saw from the Gigabyte EP45-UD3P was ordinary if competitive. At its best, it was on par with the competing DFI board in our benchmarks. The few occasions that it slipped behind, it was probably no doubt due to the slightly slower memory timings used on our standard DDR2-1066 memory modules. Even considering this, this Gigabyte board appears to be no extraordinary speed demon.

If there was one aspect that seemed to be better than usual, it was that our overclocking experience showed that the maximum FSB achieved on the Gigabyte to be on par and slightly better than the high-end boards we had tested previously. These high-end boards had superior cooling options so the fact that this UD3P board could be on the same level could either be luck or the design of the board. It was definitely cool enough during our temperature testing despite a very small heatsink for the Southbridge.

Finally, our overall experience with the board, from the fuss-free installation and BIOS update, to the testing and overclocking, has been generally positive. There were no problems encountered and the board worked flawlessly. This alone is worth the extra cost of the Gigabyte EP45-UD3P compared to other brands who may be more powerful but at the expense of user friendliness. However, since these are characteristics of Gigabyte's current generation of motherboards, one may even opt for the DS3R model mentioned earlier if the extra perks are not attractive enough.

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