Gigabyte GA-MA790FXT-UD5P

Manufacturer: Gigabyte
UK Price (as reviewed): £138.63 (inc. VAT)
US Price (as reviewed): $179.99 (ex. Tax)

Ever a fan of long winded names, Gigabytes GA-MA790FXT-UD5P is a premium AM3 motherboard from the aforementioned, arguably world leading performance consumer motherboard brand (if there is such a division).

Tweaked with the same refined blue and white design, Ultra Durable 3 technology and other bells and whistles, Gigabyte draws us in with this decadence, and its reputation would naturally indicate something very special. However, does it work as well as its (long) name suggests?

Features List

• Support for socket 938 AM3 CPUs including Phenom II, and Athlon series.
  
• AMD 790FX northbridge
  
• AMD SB750 southbridge
  
• Four 240-pin DDR3 memory slots supporting 1,066 and 1,333MHz DIMMs, with 1,600MHz overclocking support for up to 16GB in total
  
• Two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots (x16/x16) with ATI CrossFire-X technology support
  
• Three PCI-Express x1 slots
  
• Two PCI slots
  
• Realtek ALC889a 7.1 channel high-definition audio codec, with Dolby Home Theatre support
  
• Two Realtek RTL8111DL PCI-Express Gigabit LAN
  
• Six SATA 3Gbps ports from SB750 supporting RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 and JBOD
  
• Four SATA 3Gbps ports from one Gigabyte SATA2 + two JMicron JMB322 supporting RAID 0, 1 and JBOD
  
• One IDE port
  
• Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 chipset supporting three IEEE1394a Firewire ports (two rear I/O, one pin-out)
  
• Twelve USB 2.0 ports (eight rear I/O, four pin-outs)

Box Contents

• Four SATA 3Gbps ports (two of which use 90 degree connectors)
  
• One PCI bracket with two SATA to eSATA connectors and Molex power
  
• One Molex power plug to SATA power adapter
  
• Two eSATA to SATA cables
  
• IDE cable
  
• Floppy cable
  
• Metal rear I/O panel
  
• Driver DVD and manuals

The box contents are relatively comprehensive but miss some crucial inclusions. There are only four internal SATA cables for the ten ports and no CrossFire bridges so we are relying on the ATI Radeon graphics cards to supply the right sizes. In addition, the Gigabyte lacks any PCI brackets to use the USB and Firewire pin-outs as well. Considering this is a UD5P model, we feel somewhat short changed.

That said, the SATA cables do offer a pair of 90 degree connectors and the SATA to eSATA adapter offers a nice alternative choice to a fixed port alone. Like usual the manual is comprehensive and the driver DVD features an auto-install program, but be wary of the "toolbar" crapware Gigabyte also tries to sneak in on the sly. Tut, tut.