Differences between low end x58 Gigabyte boards?

Hessian · 19 Jan 2009 at 01:04

I'm looking to upgrade to i7 and at the moment I just want to get my foot in the door, so going for a low end setup for the time being! Just wondering what the difference are between the lower price ranged Gigabyte boards! On two of them the description is exactly the same except for the product code.

I won't be overclocking and I won't be using SLi, so just wondering which of the boards you would recommend? Is there much difference between the
UD3R or UD4P for example?

RJC · 19 Jan 2009 at 07:17

Main differences are the UD4P Supports SLI & Crossfire and can handle 24gb of RAM, the UD3R is only configured for Crossfire and can take 16gb of RAM.

AlexTrickle · 19 Jan 2009 at 07:44

^^ Continuing on, so basically for your needs go for the UD3R

Hessian · 19 Jan 2009 at 13:28

Thanks for the replies guys! I thought it would be something as simple as that, but just wanted to make sure! 24gb of RAM is just CRAZY! Who has that amount? :-p

miniyazz · 19 Jan 2009 at 23:24

Hessian said:
Thanks for the replies guys! I thought it would be something as simple as that, but just wanted to make sure! 24gb of RAM is just CRAZY! Who has that amount?

More of note is the largest density of DDR3 RAM to date - 2GB sticks - meaning that at the moment you'll only be able to get 6GB triple channel RAM in the UD3R (yes I know there's a fourth slot) while you can get 12GB triple channel RAM in the UD4P. That's unlikely to be a concern to you, especially given your 'foot in the door' approach, but it might be worth considering spending an extra £20 or so and getting a mobo you'd be happy to keep - it'll work out cheaper in the long run. Pretty much all this generation of i7 mobos are performance models so you should be able to O/C w/o problems a fair way on any of them (don't take my word for it!)

Gazb · 20 Jan 2009 at 21:35

I posted this on another similar thread and I think after supporting SLI it is the biggest difference.

The UD4P, UD5 and Extreme also have better power regulation.
Taken from Gigabytes website:
Advanced 12+2+2 power phase design with VRD 11.1 support

They don't seem to go into details about the power regulation on the lower models on Gigabytes website.