Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R

Stability

We reset the BIOS to its default values, and set both Prime95 torture test and 3DMark06 running to load the CPU, memory and graphics subsystems as much as possible, then we left it for a day to see how it held up.

We even left out the heatpipe we'd dismantled to take earlier pictures and still the board survived perfectly - we can back a day later to find it completely responsive and still entirely usable.

The northbridge was certainly hot to touch, but we did not add any extra airflow other than for the CPU heatsink, and it didn't seen to bother it that much.

Overclocking

On a Q9550 quad core we managed to get 495MHz FSB working with Prime95 for a short while before Cores 1 and 4 dropped off and eventually the whole PC locked up. With time on the clock skews and GTL voltages we think this could be ironed out, but without spending hours tweaking it we were satisfied with a slightly lower 490MHz FSB stable instead. That's an excellent result for an air cooled quad core, and more than most P45s we've seen to date.

We had high hopes for our E8500 in dual core overclocking but couldn't get it stable at all over 495MHz FSB. Anything 500+ and it would simply throw a fit and continually reset itself before POSTing or reset during Windows boot. No amount of voltage tweaking would make it happy over 500MHz, but as soon as it was dropped under it would boot and be happily stable. We tried jumping it quite a bit further thinking there was an FSB hole, but that didn't work either.

Another thing to note is that it absolutely does not like red memory slots only being used - it simply won't boot without something in the closer, yellow slots as well. In addition, we tried to see if Gigabyte had employed any special tricks to get more out of performance memory - we tried just a 1GB stick of Micron D9s at 2.4V rated to 1150MHz at over 1200MHz and the board wouldn't even boot.

While Gigabyte may be offering a competition for extreme DDR2 overclocking, you clearly need performance memory capable of this in the first place, preferably with a lifetime warranty when you kill it. It's great to hear the board can do this, but it's a moot feature on its own.

Conclusions and Value

We've had a far better experience with this board than we have had with the DS3R - it feels more stable, more reliable, it looks better and for £100 it's good value too. It's not the most feature rich P45 on the market - it's missing dual LAN and CrossFire - but not everyone wants those, and there are lots of different P45s on the market to cater for every possible whim. It still has a very useful eight SATA, great audio, a superb BIOS and plenty of PCI and PCI-Express for expansion - all these are genuinely useful additions and not marketing gimmicks or "nice idea, probably won't ever use" like Asus' Express Gate.

Does the extra ounce of copper make that much of a difference? It's very difficult to say - simple BIOS evolution, the redesigned layout or simply updated hardware could afford the improvements on their own, so it's hard to quantify the difference. At worst though, it's a marketing gimmick that Gigabyte loves to throw onto its "Ultra Durable" branding and it doesn't seem to cost any more.

The very good quad core overclock that does notably better than the DS3R, but dual core overclocking still matches and can't break that 500MHz barrier others clearly have done. If you're after a cheap, extreme overclocking board, check elsewhere, but for most of us this board should achieve an acceptable, stable overclock with any Core 2 CPU.

Since the DS3R now retails for almost an identical price to this and it was between the two - we'd get the UD3R every time: it's better cooled, better performing in our benchmarks and lower power. It doesn't achieve excellence but we'd certainly recommend it for those needing a solid P45 purchase.

• Performance
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• 8/10

• Features
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• 9/10

• Value
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• -
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• 8/10

• Overall
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• 9/10

Score Guide