Gigabyte X79S-UP5 WIFI Workstation Class Motherboard Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2013-05-07
·
2,223 words · ~11 min read
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Welcome to my unboxing and first look at Gigabyte. Actually, a really exciting
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board from Gigabyte. This has a whole bunch of really cool stuff that I'm
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super excited about. And I want to preface this whole unboxing video by
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saying this looks like it might be the board for me. I'm uh I'm in the still in
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the middle of doing my my personal rig upgrade and I'm super excited about this
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board. Ultra durable five ultra cool, ultraefficient, ultra performance and
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high current capability. So they have completely redesigned their VRM design.
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So well VRM design, yes, redesigned their design. Industry-leading 60 amp
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rated power stage with lower losses, higher efficiency, and excellent thermal
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management. What this means to me is that in previous almost everyone's X79
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boards because there's so little room to build the VRM, you have to use really
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high quality components to deliver the kind of current those CPUs demand.
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Almost all of them made like whining obnoxious noises. So, Gigabyte has just
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revamped it completely to the point where they're saying, "Yep, this is
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awesome. It's the best. We are going to put a five-year warranty on this in the
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US and Canada." And uh you know they're
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just basically like I wish I had sunglasses. Okay, cameraman tripped. I
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wish I had sunglasses so I could like put them on like this and just be like
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yeah. So that's pretty much what they're doing at this point. So let's uh let's
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finish up with the rest of the box. So this is the X79S UP5. This is using the
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Intel chipset C606. So they're using the officially Zeon supporting Xeon grade
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chipset. Comes with you know what? Let's not talk too much about accessories. Includes their 3D power. So digital
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power for the CPU and uh to for each of
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the memory channels uh or not for each of the memory
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channels for each of the sets of memory channels or whatever something like that. Um worldwide number one digital
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desktop PWM provider. Okay. So they're actually giving you the brand of the
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power components they're using. Very cool. Uh so the 3D BIOS, a UFI BIOS with
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uh with backup like physical backup SAS on board ECC memory support. So, this is
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more like a workstation board really than just a desktop board. This is not
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like your grandpa's desktop board. Uh, cool power inside and out. So, single
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package design, industryleading 60 amp rated power stage, high-side MOSFET, low
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side MOSFET, all on a single package. So, check this out. So, they're saying
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compared to traditional or even lower RDS on MOSFETs, which their competitors
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are still talking about, the IR 355 power IR stage, power stage. Oh, wow.
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That's hilarious. runs cooler and delivers more power. Same thing here,
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cooler temps equals high and higher overclocks. And this is for a couple of
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reasons. So, number one is that your VRM components will perform better when
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they're running cooler. And number two is that when all these components down
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here over here, when all these components around the outside of the CPU
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socket are hot, it does inherently make your CPU run hotter. And I think that's
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pretty much it. So, they still got their two times copper PCB, which basically
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amounts to better cooling, better conduction, and let's get the board
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open. I am just like super stoked to check this out. So, motherboard
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itself opened up. Oh, I love what Gigabytes been doing
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with their motherboard color schemes since pretty much P67. Matte black.
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Okay, you know what? Hold on. Hold on. We got to do accessories first. We'll just blow through these because I really
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want to check out the board. So, here's their uh PCI Express Wi-Fi Bluetooth
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module. This is a great value ad because you can not only install it in your
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Gigabyte board, but you can also just install it in some other computer if you
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don't plan to use wireless in your gaming PC. So, um yes, they haven't
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locked it down the way that ASUS does with a lot of their add-ons. And check that out. Matte black PCB on this, too.
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Way to go, Gigabyte. Figuring out the details and getting it done. Same thing.
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Flexible black Crossfire and SLI bridges. Perfect. black antennas for the
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Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Perfect. Um,
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whatever this cable connects to, it's black and it's perfect. Uh, we've got
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six SATA 36 GB per second connection,
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uh, cables. We've got a front 3 and 1/2 in bay that you can use to hook up a
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couple USB 3 ports if you don't have um,
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if you don't have that functionality built into your case. You've got a
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three-way SLI bridge included. So, this board is three-way SLI and Crossfire
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compatible. Matte black, of course, gorgeous. I think this might be the best
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overall package that Gigabytes ever done on a motherboard ever. And Gigabyte can
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take that feedback right back to their HQ because I have unboxed almost every
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Gigabyte motherboard in the last few years. IO shield, color coded, but not
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too color coded. See, it's not overdone. Perfect. Manual was it's a driver disc.
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Download the latest uh manual for the wireless thing or something.
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multilingual place your guide book. Okay, accessories are done. We're done.
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We're done. We're moving on to the good part. So, let's check out this board.
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This is not quite an ATX board. This is an EATX board, but it's not quite EATX
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either. It's just a touch wider than ATX. So, if you have an ATX case that's
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a little bit on the wide side, this should fit just fine. You've got the
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motherboard socket. This is an LG 2011 socket supporting Intel Core i7 up to
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Extreme Edition processors with quad channel memory. You've got eight banks
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of memory on here. So that means you can with 8 gig dims, you can install up to
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64 gigs of memory, no problem. Although, you know, ECC does start to become
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something you might want when you have that much RAM. Fully supported on this
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particular board. Your eight pin power connectors in its ideal location at the
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top of the board. I wouldn't have minded seeing it a little bit over here, but I
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understand why they've done this because it's right behind the PWM and then right
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next to the CPU socket. So they've gone for a very efficient layout in terms of
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not overdoing, you know, extra random traces that it takes to, you know, carry
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the power over here through here. So efficiency is what it's all about with
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this particular board. Onboard power switch is up here on the top right in
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its ideal location. 24 pin power connectors on the right hand edge in its
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ideal location. I wouldn't have minded seeing this USB 3 front panel header on
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a right angle, but other than that, not bad. Not bad. Now check this out. Look
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at all these connectors. Holy smokes. So you've got two Intel powered SATA 3 6
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Gbit per second connectors. You've got four Intel powered SATA 2 3 Gbit per
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second connectors and eight SAS 6 Gbit
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per second connectors. So that is a total of 14 SATA port uh SATA ports on
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this board. So you can fill up pretty much any case that you can put this
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board in with hard drives without worrying about a darn thing. Dual BIOS
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right here. So you have two physical BIOSes. Here's your onboard reset
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switch. Wouldn't have minded seeing that sort of up here with the power switch, but not the end of the world. Front
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panel connectors. That's your supercharging, you know, high powered
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USB uh 2.0 front panel header. So, that'll allow you to charge your iPad
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off of it. Extra current. Two regular USB 2 front panel headers, your trusted
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platform module, front FireWire, front audio, and moving right along, you got
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your PCI Express layout. So, even though this is an EATX board, usually X79
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boards go for an XLATX longer form factor if they're going to try and
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squeeze in seven slots. A Gigabyte has gone with six slots for this board, but
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you're still going to have full 3-way video card compatibility. 1 2 3. So,
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that'll run in probably 168. You know what? Let me find out in just a sec. So,
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I nubbed out because they're using that C606 chipset rather than a regular
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desktop chipset. That's where all your SAS connectivity is coming from. So,
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those are actually powered off the Intel chipset. And remember guys, you do need
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a Zeon if you want to run ECC uh registered DIMs or anything like that.
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So, bear that in mind. Aha. Okay. So, back to the PCI Express slot layout.
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You're going to be running at 16 8X 8X. So, they have not opted for a PLX chip.
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And there's actually a good reason for that. So, these are PCIe 3.0 ports,
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which means they've got lots of bandwidth even if you're throwing a few GTX 680s in here. Um, what it also means
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is there's less latency. Running through switches, even if they're switches that
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increase the overall bandwidth being delivered to the slot, can increase the
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latency and can actually reduce performance in isolated cases. So, as
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long as you're delivering at least 8x to the card, 8x PCIe 3 is equivalent to uh
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to 16x PCIe2, then you're not concerned
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about not having enough bandwidth and uh it's better to not have the additional
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latency. So, there you go. So, oh yeah.
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Okay. So, what do I think of the overall layout? So, once you install one 16X
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card here, you're going to be left with three PCIe 16X physical slots. 8X 8X.
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This one is actually wired for 4X and a PCI slot. This gives you a pretty darn
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good mix. You know, you want to throw in like your legacy sound card. Maybe you
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got an older like Ozentech XM or whatever, you know, really good sound
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card and then you got a few more PCIe expansion slots. Sounds good. I'm really
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shown the back of the board using all metal screws. I'm glad we've gotten completely away from plastic push pins.
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More cooling on the back. So, pairing this up with a case like an 1100 or
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something like that would be great cuz you'll get a little bit of additional cooling with that fan built into the
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back of that case and your back IO. 1 2
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3 4 5 6 Yes, 56 USB 2.0 ports, PS2 port,
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clear SIMOS, OC button, as well as BIOS changer. Okay, this is a USB ESATA combo
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port. This is an ESATA port. This is
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FireWire. 2 GB Ethernets, one running off the Intel chipset and one running
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off a Realtech third party chipset. Um,
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optical audio out, 7.1 audio, and I
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think that pretty much covers it. So, I'm just going to do a little spiel on
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why this is perfect for me. It has the absolutely perfect color scheme. I
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really don't like the powder blue that one of Gigabytes competitors is using
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for accents. I also really love the overall subdued matte um just oh
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performance look that they've got with these boards. Great cooling solution. So
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this right here actually isn't really attached to anything. This is just
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additional cooling for the chipset as well as due to the connection by heat
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pipes uh the VRM up here. So, they've gone with sort of a traditional layout
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where normally on most motherboards you'd find additional VRM components and
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cooling here, but they've just put the cooling over here and they've connected everything with heat pipes to move it
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around. Um, I love the just the size of it. It's not XLATX, which means that
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you've got compatibility with almost every case out there with the exception
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of very, very narrow, very cramped cases where you won't have that extra room.
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And it's Gigabyte quality. I mean, honestly, is there really anything else
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to say? um whether it's Gigabyte or
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whether it's you know any other of the big three you know the real guys who are
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actually designing and building these things from the ground up manufacturing them and testing them um yeah you can
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pretty much trust it. I think that is pretty much it guys. Thank you for
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checking out my unboxing and first look at the X79S UP5 Wi-Fi. Don't forget to
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