Stability

For stability testing we reset the UD3R to its optimised default values. We then ran the Small FFTs torture test of Prime95 across all cores to let the system warm up a bit, before adding 3DMark06 looping over the top of it. Ordinarily we would walk away and leave the system running for 24 hours and see if it was still running in the morning. If it is, then you have a stable bit of kit.

You'd think that most boards would be able to handle this amount of stress at stock speeds but a surprising amount fail the stability test. The Gigabyte however was in the list of win boards, and passed the test without so much as a hint of instability.

Power Consumption

With a specific Core i7 920 CPU, 6GB (3x2GB) of memory, a GeForce GTX 280 graphics card and the BIOS set to its default values we tested with the Intel C-States enabled for the CPU throttling function. All the power saving is left entirely to Intel's Core i7 CPU.


Clearly power consumption is another strength of UD3R: even if it’s not the best we’ve seen, it’s ahead of most. The bundled Dynamic Energy Saver (DES) software didn’t shave too much from the power consumption when enabled, with the wattage dropping by just 4W when the board was under load.


In comparison to other X58-based motherboards, the Gigabyte’s power consumption under load brought it in a similar position to that seen when idle. Again the DES software shaved just 4W from the total power used.