Gigabyte Teases LED-Lit X99-UD4 Motherboard
Now Gigabyte is teasing its X99-UD4 motherboard for the Haswell-E processors.
Yes, motherboard manufacturers, keep teasing, and keep reminding us of the week we have left to wait. Okay, maybe it's not so bad -- we love seeing all of the new X99 goodness, and today we get to see Gigabyte's X99-UD4. So far, we've seen the company's X99 Gaming G1 WiFi, along with the X99-SOC.
Unlike the other motherboards revealed thus far, Gigabyte has made it more difficult to make out the details with the X99-UD4. Of course, we know that it is a UD-series board, so there will be a lot that we can say about it based on just that. However, note that we suspect that this photo doctoring wasn't done to hide certain features, but rather to draw your attention to the LED lighting on the board and the heatsinks.
Usually, the Ultra Durable 4 line is the company's no-frills (but high-quality) motherboards that come with little more than all the standard features we expect from a platform. This includes a glass fabric PCB, a 2x Copper design and more than adequate VRM circuitry and heatsinks.
On this motherboard, we can clearly see eight DDR4 memory slots for quad-channel memory, along with four evenly spaced-out PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots. Between these slots there are PCI-Express 1x slots, as well as a single 10 Gb/s M.2 slot. SATA connectivity is handled by ten SATA3 (6 Gb/s) ports, two of which can be sacrificed to make a single SATA-Express interface.
Looking at the rear I/O does not reveal much except that at the bottom there appears to be some sort of bracket. It looks like a mount for a wireless antenna, so we can assume that the motherboard will come with some sort of wireless connectivity, presumably 802.11 ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0. Gigabyte also placed dedicated audio hardware on the motherboard, so you will not need an expensive sound card to get decent audio.
That's all for now, really. We will hopefully know more on August 29, when we expect the entire platform to make a retail launch.
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Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.
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jossrik I remember years ago they had a contest to suggest motherboard options, and some one suggested LEDs. I thought it was a good idea then, and I think it's a good idea now.Reply
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lp231 I wrote in another thread asking for LED heatsink and LED ram slots that changes colors via software or bios so it can match the components. Maybe I'm asking too much? lolReply
That Gigabyte board is best pair up with this ram
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt_vgMPFQc8 -
g-unit1111 I'm really hoping that the motherboard and CPU prices for Haswell-E aren't the rumors that I've been seeing. I really want my rig to be an ultra high performance rig and that Gigabyte board looks like it will be the right combination and price for what I want it to do, but it seems like the wait is forever to find out what this is actually gonna cost! :lol:Reply -
lp231 Reply
My guess, $ something.9914001776 said:I'm really hoping that the motherboard and CPU prices for Haswell-E aren't the rumors that I've been seeing. I really want my rig to be an ultra high performance rig and that Gigabyte board looks like it will be the right combination and price for what I want it to do, but it seems like the wait is forever to find out what this is actually gonna cost! :lol: -
TheMentalist I'm not being a fanboy, but wasn't ASUS the first one with led's on the motherboard?Reply -
lp231 Reply14003192 said:I'm not being a fanboy, but wasn't ASUS the first one with led's on the motherboard?
They have a LED logo but not the actual heatsinks, so Gigabyte is the first to do so. Asus did have a bunch of LED to light up dark to see spots like USB headers, SATA ports, I/O ports on the CrossHair, which was the very first production ROG board, from their Concept Pluto. -
TheMentalist Reply14004330 said:14003192 said:I'm not being a fanboy, but wasn't ASUS the first one with led's on the motherboard?
They have a LED logo but not the actual heatsinks, so Gigabyte is the first to do so. Asus did have a bunch of LED to light up dark to see spots like USB headers, SATA ports, I/O ports on the CrossHair, which was the very first production ROG board, from their Concept Pluto.
Look at this: http://www.technic3d.com/article/pics/1673/asus_maximus_vii_hero_z97-20.jpg
I think they already did it. -
asiaprime it doesn't look like it has led lights on the board itself. it could be lit by led lights but it would be above the motherboard. I've taken pictures of lights & it creates a star effect. plus for a "no frills" mobo to have lights.. seems extraneous. does the previous iterations have lights?Reply