by Ilya Gavrichenkov
06/24/2009 | 03:48 PM
The launch of Athlon II and Phenom II processors revives the user’s interest to AMD solutions. As we have already pointed out several times in our reviews, these processors manufactured with 45nm process offer very attractive combination of price and performance together with pretty good overclocking-friendly functionality. Moreover, AMD doesn’t shoot for the upper price segment but targets these solutions for the mainstream and budget markets, trying to win the hearts of affordable systems owners. And it looks like there are no reasons for the new generation of AMD solutions to face any problems on the way to success here.
Although, it is important to keep in mind that a CPU is not enough for a relatively high-performance platform with an affordable price tag: you also need an appropriate mainboard, of course. In addition to that, this mainboard should meet a number of requirements: on the one hand, it should support all contemporary technologies and offer overclocking-friendly functions, and on the other hand, it should be moderately priced. For example, all the new Socket AM3 AMD processors that we have tested so far were tested in Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P mainboard. During all our tests it performed perfectly fine, proved highly stable and predictable and offered excellent overclocking-related functionality. And we could certainly recommend it as a great Socket AM3 choice, if it hadn’t been for one small thing: its price is as high as $180. I believe that only the owners of the fastest Phenom II processors might be willing to spend so much money on a mainboard. Compared with the prices on triple-core Phenom II CPUs, not to mention dual-core ones, it is extremely expensive. Therefore, we ask a very logical question: are there any mainboards of the same remarkable quality, but at a more affordable price?
And it seems to me that I can give an affirmative answer to this question. We managed to get our hands on an inexpensive Socket AM3 mainboard called Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P that can offer you almost the same functionality as the more pricy Socket AM3 solutions at a low price of only $80. The secret of this low price tag is simple: this mainboard is built not on the high-end AMD 790FX chipset, but on a somewhat simpler AMD770 chipset, which, however, is quite capable of satisfying the needs of most AMD fans. That is why we decided check out if this supposition is true and correct and got our hands on a new low-cost Socket AM3 mainboard from Gigabyte.
Keeping in mind that Socket AM3 has only recently got into the market, the mainboard makers cannot yet offer us a lot of solutions to choose from. It is especially true for AMD770 based mainboards. The same Gigabyte Company that offers a wide range of products, so far has only one Socket AM3 mainboard on this particular chipset. It is Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P. Let’s take a closer look at its specifications first:
Although Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P is an inexpensive mainboard priced way below $100, the manufacturer made sure that it would be a product of highest quality and decided not to save any money on its electronic components. As you can see from the model name, the board not just belongs to the Ultra Durable 3 series, but also supports Gigabyte’s brand name DualBIOS technology. At the same time, we don’t see any obvious drawbacks in its specifications, that is why we think Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P is absolutely worth the attention of those computer enthusiasts who also wouldn’t mind saving some money. Especially, since there are no other Socket AM3 mainboards with DDR3 SDRAM support in the market yet that could boast comparable price point. So, Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P is a kind of unique solution at this time.
We primarily get mainboard samples of solutions from the high-end and mainstream price segments. That is why we are not longer used to ordinary small boxes without flip-open covers, clear plastic windows and vivid holograms. However, Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P package is exactly like that: it is totally unpretentious according to today’s standards:
The front of the box carries the logos of technologies implemented in GA-MA770T-UD3P. The back of the box offers a detailed description of these technologies. There are no mainboard photos or descriptions anywhere on the box that is why you won’t be able to get any idea about the package contents without opening it.
The accessories bundle is also quite modest. Besides the board, you will get two SATA cables, one PATA cable, I/O Shield for the back panel, user’s manual and a CD disk with drivers and software.
In other words, you get minimum goodies. However, they include everything you might need in most cases.
I would like to say right away that Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P mainboard is equipped with a Socket AM3 and DDR3 DIMM slots. It means that this mainboard supports only Athlon II and Phenom II processors (except Phenom II X4 940 and 920). Taking into account that most similar mainboards are based on AMD 790FX and 790X chipsets, the main distinguishing features of Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P is the use of a low-cost AMD 770 chipset for it. Since the memory controller in systems built around AMD processors is integrated into the CPU, the only noticeable difference between the North Bridge of the AMD 770 chipset and North Bridges of other more expensive discrete core logic solutions is the number of supported PCI Express 2.0 lanes. AMD 770 has 20 of them. Besides, this chipset doesn’t allow implementing more than one graphics card slot per board. Therefore, there is only one PCI Express x16 slot on Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P mainboard and that is in fact one of the main factors determining low price of this solution. Today, if a mainboard doesn’t support dual-graphics card configurations, it cannot possibly get anywhere close to the high-end segment.
The South Bridge on Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P is also a not very typical solution for contemporary AMD platforms – AM D SB710 chip. It delivers support for six SATA-300 ports, one PATA-133 channel and twelve USB 2.0 ports. As we see, SB710 doesn’t really differ from the more familiar SB750 chip in the number and variety of supported interfaces. The difference is in the limited RAID functionality: cheaper South Bridge version implemented on GA-MA770T-UD3P supports only RAID 0, 1 and 0+1 arrays.
In addition to the above listed features, the board also supports three IEEE1394 ports provided by TSB43AB23 controller and a network Gigabit port implemented via Realtek RTL8111D chip connected to the PCI Express x1 bus. The sound integrated onto Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P is represented by Realtek ALC888 HD codec. I would like to stress that even though this mainboard is considered an inexpensive solution, it has an eight-channel codec with 97 dBA signal-to-noise ratio. In other words, it is far from being a budget solution, even though it doesn’t support Dolby Home Theater technology.
Overall, Gigabyte engineers didn’t take a straightforward approach to the mainboard design here. It is especially nice to see that they didn’t try to save on everything and a number of technological solutions on GA-MA770T-UD3P are just as good as on its more expensive relatives. For example, the mainboard has all the features of an Ultra Durable 3 product. All electronic components used on this mainboard boast extended reliability. It uses only Japanese solid-state capacitors with polymer electrolyte, only Low RDS(on) MOSFET and only ferrite core chokes.
But electronic components, is just the beginning. Moreover, Gigabyte didn’t try to lower the coasts at the expense of the PCB quality either. Even when you simply hold Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P in your hands it feels nice and heavy, which is not typical of other manufacturers’ solutions from the same price range. The secret behind this heaviness is in the PCB design that uses twice as thick conductive power and ground layers. This engineering solution allows Gigabyte not only to lower the EMI. Doubling the thickness of these copper layers lowered the mainboard impedance and in the end improved the signal quality. And besides, thicker conductors improve heat dissipation for the onboard chips.
Nevertheless, Gigabyte Socket AM3 mainboards also have an obvious feature indicating if the product belongs to a specific price range. It is the cooling system. While top solutions are equipped with several large heatsinks or even water blocks connected into a single contour by several heatpipes, the chipset and processor voltage regulator circuitry of lower-end solutions come equipped with smaller heatsinks. Moreover, the number and length of heatpipes in this case is also minimal. Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P is an example of extremely economical design in this respect: the cooling system over the chipset and processor voltage regulator does not have any heatpipes at all.
The chipset North Bridge is cooled with a small stand alone aluminum heatsink with a sophisticatedly shaped profile, while the South Bridge is covered with a small ribbed aluminum plate, each rib being only 2-3 mm tall. These heatsinks are not fastened very securely: each is pressed against the chip surface with a pair of plastic push-pins with springs. Nevertheless, despite relatively low cooling efficiency of this system, the board working in nominal mode doesn’t get overheated: the heatsinks temperature remains within acceptable range.
The attempt to lower the production costs for the Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P found its way not only in the chipset heatsinks: the processor voltage regulator circuitry has no cooling of any kind at all. And although the voltage regulator has Gigabyte’s brand name four-phase design (plus one phase for the North Bridge built into the CPU) with twice the power components in each phase, this doesn’t prevent voltage regulator MOSFET from running really hot during work. Especially, if the system works with an overclocked quad-core processor.
I would like to point out that although Gigabyte claims that processor voltage regulator supports Easy Energy Saver technology, it doesn’t at all mean that the board can dynamically disable idle voltage regulator phases under low work load, which is a pretty popular feature these days. Although this approach has become very popular lately, Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P can only dynamically change the processor Vcore and is bundled with a special utility for that. However, none of the Gigabyte mainboards for AMD CPUs, even the most expensive ones, support dynamic adjustment of the active processor voltage regulator phases. So far this technology remains an exclusive prerogative of mainboards for Intel Core i7 and Core 2 processors.
Unfortunately, we can’t praise Gigabyte engineers for well thought-through components layout. The thing is that for cost-lowering reasons the board uses a “narrow” PCB and the missing 2.5 cm of board space have messed things up a little. In our opinion, the most inconvenient location has been picked for the 8-pin 12 V processor power connector. It has been moved towards the center of the PCB forcing you to wrap the power cable around the processor cooler. The onboard USB pin-connectors are also located in very unusual spots – right in front of the PCI Express x1 slots. In other words, when you put together a Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P based system it may be pretty challenging to perform cable management properly. Quite a few small things have also turned out pretty upsetting. There is not a single LED indicator on the board, the PCI Express x16 slot lock is extremely hard to reach if you install a card with dual-clot cooling system, the Clear CMOS jumper is hidden between the slots and is also quite hard to reset.
At the same time, you shouldn’t have any problems installing large CPUU coolers and video cards with massive cooling systems onto your Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P mainboard. There is enough free room around the processor socket as well as around the PCI Express x16 graphics card slot. But even despite this fact, compared to more expensive Socket AM3 mainboards Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P truly deserves the title of the “system assembly nightmare”. Since there are no brackets with additional ports included with the board, it is really nice to see that there are quite many on the connector panel already.
There are eight USB 2.0 ports, two IEEE1394 ports, Gigabit network port, six analog audio-jacks, optical and coaxial SPDIF connectors, PS/2 connectors for keyboard and mouse. If you feel that you need more, you can always use onboard pin-connectors to get additional four USB 2.0 ports, one IEEE1394 port, serial COM and Parallel LPT ports.
It is not an easy task to find an optimal mainboard for a high-performance system. However, one of the most important components that determines if the board can be considered an enthusiast solution or not is certainly its BIOS. The features and functionality of any beautifully designed mainboard may be completely diminished by a sloppy BIOS that contains errors and offers no functions for successfully CPU overclocking. The opposite is also true: an inexpensive mainboard that seems to be of no immediate interest to computer enthusiasts, like Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P for instance, may easily turn out an excellent platform that will suit many advanced users’ needs. GA-MA770T-UD3P may become twice as interesting in this case, because it doesn’t have any obvious drawbacks in terms of features and specifications. Besides, due to high-quality electronic components it promises to be very stable in overclocked mode.
In fact, the idea of this review came to us after we checked out the BIOS Setup of Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P mainboard. The thing is that at first glance it offers exactly the same settings and options as the BIOS Setup of more expensive Socket AM 3 mainboards. And taking into account that Gigabyte has a lot of inexpensive but very high-quality solutions in their product range, we decided to see how good the features of GA-MA770T-UD3P will prove during practical experiments. But before we get down to tests, let’s take a closer look at the tools that we will have given to us by the BIOS Setup of this mainboard.
The BIOS of Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P mainboard, just like the BIOS of all other Gigabyte mainboards for Socket AM3, is based on Award microcode. At the time of tests the latest available BIOS version was version F2b from May 18, 2009 and this was the one we worked with. However, the BIOS interface of Gigabyte mainboards has long been shaped up that is why everything we will say about it later in this review will most probably be true for other BIOS versions as well.
The most important section of the Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P BIOS is called MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) and it is proudly positioned at the top of the list in the Setup interface. All options in this section are responsible for basic processor and mainboard configuring. Therefore, the list of parameters available there is pretty long. Besides, some of these parameters have been moved into a sub-menu.
The processor clock frequency is set using a clock frequency multiplier and clock generator frequency. The multipliers for the North Bridge integrated into the CPU and HyperTransport bus frequency are set separately. It is pretty convenient that once you change any of these parameters you immediately get the resulting frequency displayed to you. The memory frequency is obtained the same way using a special multiplier. It is also possible to switch between Ganged and Unganged memory controller modes.
Computer enthusiasts should be pretty pleased with the extensive functionality in terms of voltage adjustment offered by Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P mainboard:
As you can see, there are all the major voltages that can possibly be of interest to computer enthusiasts. Moreover, the supported value ranges are big enough to make GA-MA770T-UD3P suitable even for extreme overclocking experiments (after the corresponding modifications of the cooling system, of course). The only thing w were a little upset about was the rather large voltage increment, however, this drawback is also typical of more expensive Socket AM3 mainboards from Gigabyte.
Note that processor voltages, unlike other voltage settings, are set in relative and not absolute values. But this is hardly a drawback, because the mainboard reports all the info about the default processor Vcore as well as current settings. Moreover, all above listed voltages can also be set to Normal. As for Auto setting that should let the board take care of the voltage adjustment on its own, there is nothing like that here – Auto is only available on more expensive mainboards. However, it could be for the better, because manual overclocking is always more successful than automatic one.
All settings related to memory timings are gathered on a page called DRAM Configuration:
As you can see, although more expensive Socket AM3 mainboards from Gigabyte offer more options here, none of the major timings are missing. They are pretty easy to adjust manually thanks to meaningful hints offering you the timing settings from the modules SPD or as used by the mainboard. The only minor inconvenience is that you can only set them to Auto all at once, but not each of them individually. Moreover, the mainboard doesn’t know how to take parameters from the XMP profiles, which is, in fact, not surprising at all, considering that they are formally designed for systems on Intel processors.
Another second-tier sub-section is dedicated to ACC (Advanced Clock Calibration) technology:
When AMD launched Socket AM3 processors, ACC technology lost its initial purpose of improving overclocking. However, its side effect acquired some serious significance, as it allowed unlocking the disabled cores of triple- and dual-core Phenom II CPUs. And despite AMD’s objections against the use of this function, Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P allows unlocking processor cores, that is why there is EC Firmware Selection function in its BIOS. By setting it to Hybrid, you can enable the old CPU firmware version allowing the use of ACC for unlocking the disabled cores.
Once all the BIOS Setup options that could possibly be of interest to advanced users have been moved to MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) section, other BIOS setup pages started to look pretty empty. However, they still have quite a few useful options. Take, for instance, Cool’n’Quiet technology management that can be performed from the Advanced BIOS Features page:
You can manage the interfaces implemented on Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P mainboard from the Integrated Peripherals page:
Hardware monitoring section offers you control over major temperatures and voltages as well as rotation speeds of all four fans that can be connected to the board.
The mainboard can automatically adjust the rotation speed of two fans out of four depending on the CPU and system temperatures. Moreover, this feature works just fine not only for fans with four-pin power connectors, but also for the ones with three-pin connectors. Nevertheless, we wish there were a little bit more functionality here: the list of monitored voltages and temperatures is a little too small. But, we have to point out once again that it is one of those things typical of all Socket AM3 mainboards from Gigabyte, and the fact that Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P is a low-cost solution has nothing to do with it.
The BIOS Setup of our today’s hero also has Gigabyte’s traditional utility for saving settings profiles. It allows saving up to eight profiles with individual names into the mainboard ROM or a file.
I would also like to say that if the board can’t start because of incorrectly set parameters, it doesn’t hang or enter an endless loop of reboots. Instead, it restarts in safe mode and offers to load one of the saved settings profiles or the latest known working configuration when the board could pass POST successfully.
In other words, the BIOS functionality of GA-MA770T-UD3P mainboard definitely allows us to rgard this solution as a product for computer enthusiasts, even though it is quite inexpensive. Yes, we did find a few things that could have been better, but they have nothing to do with the price of this board and are typical of all Gigabyte mainboards for Socket AM3 platform.
Our testbeds used for performance and overclocking experiments were built with the following hardware and software components:
Overclocking experiments on Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P were an extremely intriguing part of our test session, because they were the ones to confirm or deny if this inexpensive, but very promising mainboard could be considered a good choice for an enthusiast.
First of all we tried to determine the maximum clock generator frequency at which the mainboard remained stable. The mainboard reaction to the clock generator frequency increase turned out not what we expected it to be. The strange thing was that right away we could only set the clock gen frequency no higher than 250-260 MHz, otherwise the mainboard wouldn’t start. However, once the system has rebooted successfully at least once at 260 MHz clock generator frequency, we can continue overclocking and the board will show way higher results without any problems.
So, upon completion of this two-step overclocking procedure we managed to reach pretty good results. Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P remained stable at the clock generator frequency of 330 MHz.
To ensure system stability at this frequency we had to increase the chipset North Bridge voltage by 0.1 V. However, no further voltage increase could help us get past this frequency. And the reason is definitely not the insufficient chipset cooling, because even when we replaced the default chipset heatsink with doubtful efficiency with a much better performing XIGMATEK Porter CN881, we still couldn’t get past 330-MHz mark. So, the real reason for the board’s inability to exceed 330 MHz clock generator frequency must be connected with the limitations in the AMD 770 chipset used for GA-MA770T-UD3P. And that seems to be the biggest imperfection of this board from the overclocking prospective.
Although, it is also important to understand that the existing potential is more than sufficient for regular (non-extreme) CPU overclocking of Phenom II and Athlon II processors that doesn’t involve any extraordinary cooling solutions. The existing Socket AM3 processors all use pretty high multipliers. For example, our test Phenom II X2 550 could easily be overclocked to 3.8 GHz without touching the multiplier.
To ensure system stability at this frequency we increased the processor Vcore by 0.2 V and the voltage of the North Bridge integrated into the processor – by 0.1 V. other voltages remained at their nominal values. By the way, it was especially nice to see that overclocking without changing the multiplier didn’t shut down Cool’n’Quiet processor power-saving technology. When the CPU usage was not too high, the board continued to lower its multiplier and Vcore settings.
Unlocking disabled cores also didn’t cause any problems. When the EC Firmware Selection is set to Hybrid and you enable ACC technology in the mainboard BIOS Setup, the dual-core Phenom II X2 magically turns into a quad-core CPU. And this processor works flawlessly not only in nominal mode but also during overclocking.
However, I have to remind you that this magic is only possible if the semiconductor die of your particular processor has no physical defects, which is not very probable. But if you are lucky, Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P won’t prevent you from using the “hidden CPU resources”.
The features of Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P mainboard and our highly positive overclocking experience with it indicate that despite the low price, it is a fully-functional contemporary platform. The fact that it is based on a “lite” chipset modification didn’t deprive it of any theoretical or practical functionality and the only field where we could possibly expect anything to go wrong is the performance. We needed to clear away all our doubts once and for all that is why we undertook a detailed performance investigation and compared the speed show by our today’s hero against that of the recognized enthusiast solution – Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5 board based on AMD 790FX chipset – the top chipset in AMD’s discrete lineup.
First of all, we tested the mainboards performance in nominal mode, without any overclocking. Phenom II X2 550 processor worked at 3.1 GHz, its North Bridge and HyperTransport bus worked at 2.0 GHz in both cases. The memory worked as DDR3-1600 with 8-8-8-24 timings.
We didn’t even highlight the best and worst results in the comparative table above, because the difference between them is truly tiny and lies within the acceptable measuring error margin. All this clearly indicates that the considered mainboards work equally fast, despite pretty significant functional differences between them.
But maybe the hardware differences will tell on the performance in overclocked mode? Let’s see: the second part of our test session was performed with Phenom II X2 550 processor working at 3.8 GHz obtained by raising the clock generator frequency to 246 MHz and keeping the same default multiplier. The frequencies of the North Bridge integrated into the processor and HyperTransport bus were also increased to 2.2 GHz (with 9x multiplier). The memory worked as DDR3-1638 with 8-8-8-24 timings.
But again the results of both mainboard differ by a fraction of percent. So, it means that the performance of Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P mainboard is not any lower than that of more expensive Socket AM3 solutions neither in the nominal, nor in the overclocked mode.
Of course, it is a significant advantage in favor of an inexpensive Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P mainboard that it is just as good as many more pricy mainboards out there. However, this is not all it is capable of. It may be even better than some of the higher-end models in certain aspects. And one of these aspects is power consumption. In fact, it is pretty logical: GA-MA770T-UD3P uses a simpler and more energy-efficient chipset and has much fewer onboard controllers.
We decided to see how all these factors affect the actual power consumption readings and compared the consumption of two platforms built on Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P and Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P. The numbers below show the full power consumption of assembled systems (without the monitor) powered from the wall outlet. The CPUs were loaded with 64-bit LinX 0.5.8 utility. Moreover, to measure the power consumption in idle mode correctly, we enabled Cool’n’Quiet 3.0 power-saving technology. Note that we measured power consumption twice: in nominal processor mode and during above described overclocking to 3.8 GHz.
Although both mainboards use four-phase voltage regulator circuitry with the same capacity, their practical power consumption is different. And as we can see from the unexpected results, this difference is pretty interesting.
When the CPU utilization is high, GA-MA770T-UD3P mainboard boasts higher energy-efficiency. And it is quite logical for the reasons explained above. However, the power consumption in idle mode raises some eyebrows. Although, there is no mistake here. Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P is more energy-efficient when the CPU load is low. It is so because more expensive Gigabyte mainboard, unlike GA-MA770T-UD3P, supports not only Cool’n’Quiet but also C1E power-saving technology. That is why when GA-MA790FXT-UD5P is idle, it not just lowers the processor multiplier and Vcore, but also temporarily disables some idle functional units, which saves additional watts. However, C1E support may have been implemented in the BIOS and doesn’t in fact require any special hardware to be integrated onto the board. Therefore, very soon Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P is very likely to have even lower power consumption in CPU idle mode.
The launch of dual-core Phenom II and Athlon II processors created the need for inexpensive Socket AM3 mainboards. This demand is also determined by dropping DDR3 SDRAM prices as well as the fact that the use of DDR3 SDRAM with AMD CPUs can provide pretty significant performance gain of up to 5-10% in some applications. And the first one to claim the uncharted waters was Gigabyte with their GA-MA770T-UD3P Socket AM3 solution priced at only $80.
According to the results of our test session, despite its modest price, this mainboard may become a good choice not only for inexpensive unpretentious platforms, but also for computer enthusiasts. It has adequate specifications meeting today’s needs, and flexible configuring options together with overall predictable behavior are just as good as those of more expensive Socket AM3 products. In other words, during our test session, we didn’t reveal any serious issues that could give anyone the reason to underestimate Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P. Especially, since it performs and overclocks just as good as Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P, for instance, that belongs to a much higher price range.
However, Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P is not an ideal product. It does have certain design flaws, is equipped with a cooling system of doubtful efficiency, doesn’t support C1E technology and doesn’t work at clock generator frequency increased beyond 330 MHz. Moreover, some users may be unhappy that there is only one PCI express x16 slot or that some other interfaces or features are missing. But once you look at the price tag, you will be easy to forgive Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P a lot of things, trust me. That is why we expect Gigabyte MA770T-UD3P to become a highly demanded popular solution very soon.