Gigabyte X99-UD3P Motherboard Review – X99 On a Budget?

GAMING BENCHMARKS

All gaming tests are performed with our CPU overclocked to our max speed of 4.5GHz and our GPU at stock/factory settings.

3DMARK11 – FIRE STRIKE EXTREME

3DMark 11’s Fire Strike Extreme is one of the most intensive graphical benchmarks available. It is reserved for testing ultra high-end gaming machines with multiple graphics cards or overclocked CPUs.

GRAND THEFT AUTO V

Rockstar’s highly successful Grand Theft Auto V features a large open-world with huge draw distances, lots of NPCs and great detail. It is a very demanding game that is wonderfully optimized for PC.

We test with all settings to “Very High” or “Ultra” where applicable, with MSAA, Reflection MSAA, and ‘Advanced Graphics’ settings turned off, at 1080p.

TOMB RAIDER (2013)

Crystal Dynamic’s 2013 reboot of the long-running Tomb Raider series still serves as one of the best looking and well-optimized PC titles, as such it remains a staple in our gaming performance tests.

We tested the game on “Ultimate” settings with TressFX and FXAA turned on at 1080p.

REPORT ANALYSIS AND FINAL THOUGHTS

We’ve gotta be honest with you; when we first saw the price of this motherboard we weren’t expecting anything spectacular. While Gigabyte has a long-standing reputation for creating some of the most reliable motherboards on the planet, we thought there was no way they could possibly pack this many features into a motherboard at this price-point without cutting any corners. Well, we were wrong!

On paper, a six-phase power design may not sound like it’ll be able to handle the most power-hungry overclocks, but this isn’t any ordinary power design. Gigabyte’s work with International Rectifier has allowed them to create one very efficient VRM that is able to overclock the Intel Core i7 5960x to 4.5GHz without issues, something we would not expect from a $200 motherboard. While we wouldn’t recommend anyone who’s in the market for a $200 motherboard to pair it with a $1,000 CPU, we can definitely see this motherboard as a great match for the much cheaper Core i7 5820K, and will likely be able to get to even higher clocks on that six-core chip.

Sure, there are some things this board does not have; on-board power and reset switches, and a built-in LED Debugger will leave some enthusiasts with something to be desired. That being said, we believe the target market for this motherboard will not necessarily miss those things. If you’re a gamer looking for a good overclocking board with support for 3 or even 4-way graphics configurations, this motherboard is definitely a great choice!

It for these reasons we feel we must award the Gigabyte X99-UD3p with our Technology X award for Top Value!

Check out the Gigabyte X99-UD3P on Amazon Today!