Difference between GA-X58A-UD7, GA-X58A-UD5, UD3R

[aragond]

Go to Newegg.com, compare the three mobos -- GA-X58A-UD3R, UD5, UD7 -- or gigabyte.us, and you will see (almost) no difference btween them. Does anyone know where to find a proper comparison, cuz this is doing my head in.

 

[tecmo34]

Difference between UD3R & UD5/UD7 is that UD3R only has one Ethernet, where they have a dual setup. The difference between UD5 & UD7 is the massive PCI chipset cooler on the UD7. Besides those differences, they are pretty much the same boards.

 

[aragond]

Precisely. Which is why I'm so confused as to why they have such widely disparate prices. There must be more to it than just that

 

[tecmo34]

It is simply a marketing tool to provide a preceive greater amount of options by providing little differences between boards... and saying theh are tailored to the Average user to Enthusiast user

 

[aragond]

It is simply a marketing tool to provide a preceive greater amount of options by providing little differences between boards... and saying theh are tailored to the Average user to Enthusiast user

'K, but that still leaves me wondering where they publish lists of these "little differences".
'Cuz, I know the UD5 adds a second networking ib over the UD3R but I'm not aware of anything else, 'cept $70. And a network card cannot be worth $70. Can it?
Or the chipset cooler between the UD5 and 7, is it really worth the $60 price differential?
And I've heard it said that as you rise through the models, the more "accommodating" to overclocking the boards become, but what tangible or even documented evidence of that exists. And how accommodating is "accommodating"? (I mean, sure, I won't try hitting 5GHz on a UD3R, but.... )
That's all.
Thanks for your replies, tho'. (You seem to be the only bunny in here at the mo')

 

[dsasteel_80]

I currently have a GA-965p-DQ6 and am looking to upgrade to an i7 board and have been staring at these same boards on newegg trying to figure out which one to buy. The UD9, UD7, UD5 and the UD3R all have the same FSB, north/south bridge, memory specs, except the UD9 says 2200+. I'm definitely not getting the UD9 because I will never use 4-way sli.. period.

The UD5 has "Advanced 12+2+2 power phase design with VRD 11.1 support" I have no clue what that is. And, the UD9 has "Smart 24 power phase design with mutual back-up to each 12 phase". Can someone explain this to me?

I think I'm going to go with the UD3R.. sigh. So many choices.

 

[aragond]

I've found this which may add to the discourse:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/268890-30-x58a-ud3r-x58a

They concluded, from calling Gigabyte, that the UD5 and 3 differed by:

■The UD5 has (much) better northbridge cooling, for better overclocking.
■The UD5 has another GbE port. (a what? Oh, is this that: "2 Gigabit Ethernet LAN ib's with Teaming functionality"?)
■The UD5 has better power power management: 8 phase for UD3R, 12+2+2 for UD5.
■The UD5 has a POST Debug LED light.
■UD5 has another layer in the PCB (is this good or bad?)
■UD5 has hardware-based 3-way Xfire/SLI and the UD3R has software-based 3-way Xfire/SLI. 2-way SLI/Xfire is the same on both boards.

Aaaaalrighty then. Next, UD5 and UD7.

 

[aragond]

Best answer selected by aragond.

 

[Guest]

I also have the GA-965P-DQ6 and am looking at building Another PC with the UD5 MB. I just want a top of the line board with all the new bells and whitsles ( USB 3 and SATA 3) and a nice i7-950 cpu, windows 7 pro 64bit OS(first time using 64 bit OS), hopefully if i can afford it the best 8gigs of memory, 160GB C-drive, 1TB data drive. later on I plain on slowly updating my old GA-965P-DQ6 pc (going on 5 yrs old).

 

[spooky2th]

damian071,

That new UD5 MoBo you're gonna get has triple channel memory, so get your memory modules in 3's. Triple channel kits. Forget about 8 gigs. Go with 6 or 12 gigs.