Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P - P45 at its Finest
by Gary Key on February 3, 2009 12:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Software
GIGABYTE provides several software applications with the GA-EP45-UD3P, EasyTune6 and D.E.S Advanced being the two main ones.
EasyTune6
GIGABYTE's EasyTune6 application provides monitoring, system information, and overclocking capabilities. This is one of the best applications provided by the various motherboard suppliers for tuning a system within Windows. We would still like to see additional voltage readings and the ability to save the settings to the BIOS - or at least a BIOS profile. Other than that, this application is useful for extracting a decent amount of performance improvement out of the system after booting Windows. One benefit of such an approach is that you can reduce performance - along with power requirements and the stress on a system - without rebooting.
Quick Boost mode is a new feature that GIGABYTE introduced along with Ultra Durable 3 on their motherboards. It is a simple way for novice users to quickly overclock their systems without entering the BIOS. Once you click on one of the three boost levels, the utility will automatically optimize system settings according to your specific hardware combination. The program is based on algorithms of hardware that has been pre-tested by GIGABYTE engineers.
We tried about twenty-five different hardware combinations and 24 out of the 25 worked correctly. While not perfect, it was commendable that a majority of hardware combinations worked as advertised. GIGABYTE is constantly updating the application for product compatibility. Our testing indicates that users with recently purchased hardware will not have any trouble with Quick Boost.
The combination that did not work properly happened to be with our standard test setup today. On the first setting, we wanted to take our 2.83GHz Q9550 to 3.2GHz. Sounds simple right? We hit the first boost level, rebooted, and Vista loaded without a problem. We checked our settings and sure enough, the system was operating at 3.2GHz with an 8x CPU multiplier, 400FSB, memory set to DDR2-1066 at 5-5-5-15. Voltages were all set to stock except VDimm was increased to 1.9V per the SPD. We started our first benchmarks and the system crashed. It crashed repeatedly as a matter of fact. The problem is that Quick Boost set the FSB strap (MCH Latch) from 333 to 200 in order to run the memory at 1066. However, it did not raise the MCH voltages to compensate for the additional load on the memory controller.
We sent in a trouble ticket to GIGABYTE Technical Support. We received a standard reply that overclocking is not guaranteed even though we more or less laid out the problem for them. This was the one time we had a problem with technical support. Our other technical support tests ranging from flashing the BIOS to enabling SpeedStep were answered correctly. We ended up escalating this problem to the Technical Marketing Group and within 24 hours we had a new BIOS delivered to our in-box that fixed the problem. Our FSB strap stayed at 333 and the memory was set to DDR2-800 on the 1:1 ratio with 4-4-4-12 timings per the SPD.
For those who appreciate and want a manual approach to overclocking, the Tuner tab has two different options. Easy mode allows control over the front side bus, but it is Advance mode that opens a slew of on-the-fly tweaking options that actually work. You can adjust the front side bus, processor multiplier, memory multiplier, PCI-E frequency, and numerous voltage options.
We have to say that using EasyTune6 was a pleasure. We repeatedly loaded this application first after getting the OS installation up and running. ET6 is definitely a huge help in tweaking those final settings to find a motherboard's overclocking limits.
DES
One of the most highly touted features from GIGABYTE is their Dynamic Energy Saver (DES) advanced power management solution. GIGABYTE provides a Windows-based software application to control DES. After installing the software (we highly suggest downloading the latest version) and a quick reboot, the application is ready for use. The control panel is powered down by default and it is up to the user to turn it on with a simple click of the DES button.
The DES software is simple to use and easy to understand. GIGABYTE provides a power savings meter in the top portion providing us with power savings information that can be reset at startup; otherwise it will track the power savings since the installation of the product. Real-time CPU power usage is available along with a graphic representation of the phases in use. You can also enable CPU throttling to save additional power during operation. GIGABYTE also includes an onboard LED system that indicates the number of phases in use. These LEDs can be turned on and off from the control panel. The user can also utilize DES while the system is overclocked, something most power saving programs do not allow.
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djc208 - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
Thanks for the review. Picked this board up for $100 w/ free shipping from Newegg a few months ago. Looked like a great board for the money, glad to see you agree.I'll have to go back and update my software though, I also didn't notice any real benefits to their power program, and the OC program would hang my XP system.
weh - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
Did you happen to test the pair of GSata ports in addition to the Sata ports connected directly through the ICH10R? Are they equally as responsive?Also, if you were to attach a pair of drives in either RAID-0 or RAID-1 to the ICH10R Sata ports, is throughput to a third (or fourth) drive affected?
Two specific examples: 1) Two (2) VelociRaptors attached to Sata_0 and Sata_1 in a RAID-0 array containing OS and apps with data storage on a Caviar "black" 640GB drive attached to Sata_2; and, 2) A single VelociRaptor attached to Sata_0 containing OS and apps with a pair of Caviar RE3 drives in RAID-1 attached either to Sata_1 and Sata_2 or to GSata_0 and GSata_1.
Gary Key - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - link
Hi,Yes, we tested the secondary controllers and I will update the article to include those results. We had a bit of trouble on the AMD board (Phenom II) getting consistent results but a BIOS update cured that problem last night. The X58 article linked in the above response will give you an idea about the secondary controller performance until I get the article updated.
Personally, I would only use the GSata (JMB363) ports as a last alternative but that is just me. Those ports are on the board as a marketing checklist feature. ;) We have not noticed any performance degradation on the ICH10R with a RAID setup on two ports and single drives on the other ports. Running drives off the GSata ports will not affect performance on the ICH10R ports, at least with a two drive configuration on the ICH10R and two drives on the GSata controller. I have not loaded all eight ports and tried that but that is a good question to answer in the future if I can get enough of the same drive model for testing.
weh - Wednesday, February 4, 2009 - link
Thank you for the response. I suspected that the GSata ports would behave much like those on the X58 board, but it's nice to know. By the way, your review of the X58 boards is the ONLY review I've been able to find on ANY review site that compared performance between "native" south bridge Sata ports and auxiliary Sata ports.I'm building four machines to be used by photography professionals. Performance is paramount, but so is redundancy. Each setup will consist of a computer with an os/applications drive (Velociraptor) and a pair of drives in RAID-1 for working space (either a pair of Caviar "blacks" or the RE3 units) and fourth drive inside the case used for continuous backups (probably one of the Caviar "green" drives). They also want 3 optical drives in each machine (they archive 3 of everything and want the ability to burn all 3 at once), so I'm running out of ports rapidly. I'll probably attach the three primary drives and the three optical drives to the six native sata ports and the backup drive and an eSata port to the two auxiliary GSata ports.
Zoomer - Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - link
I would recommend a SSD for OS/apps drive, but that's just me. Raptor? Slow. ;)The0ne - Tuesday, February 10, 2009 - link
Most definitely go with a stand alone CD duplicator. It's small, cheaper and easier to manage for what you've outlined.bobbyto34 - Monday, February 9, 2009 - link
You should perhaps consider buying a special "dedicated" computer for burning data. There are several robots (mechanized arms + software) to burn DVD/CD easily :example :
- connect to the robot via the software
- choose file + label for DVD print
- launch burning
New tasks are paused until their turn arrives.
Primera or Rimage provide these types of products.
semo - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
to add to the questions above, what is gsata? and why do boards have 2 sata contollers these days. is it so tha one set can be used for os and app drives and the other set for high capacity data drives?review was good though and this board is smoking. plenty of peripheral slots and very well placed. with current oversupply and competition you can get cheapo memory, one of these boards and a mid range processor and overclock everything with relative ease. i don't thinkg we've had it so good since the amd barton core days
weh - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
GSata is Gigabyte's add-on SATA controller, an additional controller for two additional SATA drives which can be run individually, in RAID-0 or in RAID-1. Gigabyte also includes an controller for a single channel parallel IDE (P-ATA) port (2 drives, master & slave).What I'd like to know is how drives connected to this alternate controller's ports compare in throughput to those connected to the "native" ICH10R Sata ports.
I also want to know if adding a RAID array pair affects the performance of a drive outside the array as compared to the drive's performance when the RAID array is not present at all. In other words, does the presence of a RAID array impede the performance of another drive connected to the same controller?
semo - Tuesday, February 3, 2009 - link
i don't know about the raid question (interesting to find out) but i know that the ich10r sata controller is pretty good and seems better than the secondary contollers.http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3471&am...">http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3471&am...