| Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P DDR2 790X AMD Motherboard |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Motherboards | |
| Written by Mathew Williams | |
| Sunday, 21 June 2009 | |
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MA790X-UD4P ConclusionThe MA790X-UD4P motherboard came to us from Gigabyte in their now standard holographic white box. It has great shelf appeal and is backed by an excellent website. It appears Gigabyte has also beefed up their file servers, as driver downloads are much faster than they used to be. Once out of the box, the MA790X-UD4P continues to win points in the appearance category. Colored PCBs seem to be standard these days and Gigabyte doesn't disappoint with their blue design. The heatsink solution is also very attractive and helps keep the northbridge, as well as the power delivery components, nice and cool. Overall, the color selection and component layout are great. I only wish they had grouped the audio header with the other front panel connectors to help cut down on cable clutter.
Appearances aside, the MA790X-UD4P is also very well built. I tend to be critical of marketing hype, but the Ultra Durable 3 process that Gigabyte has been using lately is actually very good. The extra copper in the PCB helps with efficiency and the improved power delivery components should provide plenty of stable power. My only concern is that when mounted in most cases, the smaller 9.2" width of this motherboard will leave right edge unsupported. You'll want to take extra care during installation. Despite the shorter width, the MA790X-UD4P is still as feature-packed as any ATX motherboard out there, probably even more so. That's important, because, as our benchmarks showed today, there isn't much variation performance. What consumers are really going to be looking for are the features that fit them. That said, the Gigabyte MA790X-UD4P supports AMD's full line of AM2, AM2+, and AM3 processors, as well as DDR2-1333, ATI Crossfire, OverDrive/ACC, RAID, and a nice mix of internal and external I/O ports. Keep in mind, though, that if you're planning a Crossfire build, this board is based on the 790X chipset and will only run at x8+8x. Of course, Gigabyte's decision to go with the 790X chipset on this board does help to keep prices down. The MA790X-UD4P currently sells for only $110 from newegg.com, which is a pretty good value considering the excellent feature-set and build quality. It's not without its flaws, but the MA790X-UD4P is definitely one of the better AMD motherboards out there. Pros:
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