Gigabyte F2A88X-UP4 AMD Motherboard Review

Thanks to our friends at AMD we are glad to bring you a Gigabyte A88X UP4 Motherboard Review. This board came with our test kit of the AMD A8 7650K APU which was a pleasant surprise thanks to our experiences in the past with other Gigabyte boards like the Z97X UD3-BK and the X99-UD3P so naturally we have some high expectations, does this motherboard meet them? Let’s find out!

UNBOXING AND PACKAGING 

Taking a look at the front of the box we see Gigabyte listing off their Ultra Durable branding, as well as product features we will be going over later on in the review.

We see underneath the motherboard you will find x6 all black SATA Cables, users manual, multilingual installation guide book as well as driver CD and I/O shield (Make sure you install that in the case first you don’t know how many times we’ve forgotten to do that…)

SPECIFICATIONS AND PRICING

The Gigabyte F2A88X UP4 is definitely on the higher end of the FM2+ socket for AMD’s APUs being priced at $105 on Amazon at time of writing might seem like a bit expensive for those looking to build a budget APU system but you do get a lot for your money.

This motherboard is a standard full ATX layout, with a wonderful matte black PCB as seen on the X99 UD3P and Z97X UD3-BK we’ve reviewed in the past and we just love it! We can see that red and grey are used as accent colors and add a nice splash of color to the board in addition to a heat pipe connecting the southbridge to the MOSFETs to assist in cooling while giving it a bit of character as well. The heatsinks are held in place with screws, a welcome change from the plastic push pins seen on most motherboards and make great contact with their intended targets.

The addition of a heatpipe on the beefy heatsink on the southbridge is a nice touch and does well to keep temperatures manageable when overclocking. We are a fan of the dual bios system and it is nice to see in a board of this price.

This motherboard also features Gigabyte’s ‘2x Copper PCB’ which means it has twice the amount of copper with thicker traces that allow for lower temperatures and more stability when overclocking. If that’s not enough, Gigabyte has also added gold-plating RAM slots, and PCIe connectors, which should provide better connectivity and reliability over a long period of time, and makes the board less prone to corrosion or shorted contacts.

The CPU power is delivered by an all digital 6+2 phase power design made by International Rectifier, with IR digital PWM controllers and PowIRstage ICs, which feature Isense technology to provide a more precise current sensing. This helps to evenly distribute thermal loads between ICs to prevent overheating. It also comes equipped with Gigabyte’s solid Japanese capacitors made by Nichicon.