The 990FXA-UD7 sports an 8+2 power phase design specially designed for Bulldozer CPUs, in line with almost every other high end AM3+ offering, and is designed to accommodate CPUs of up to 140W. Cooling in this area is ample and the design attractive, but with the cramped space on the PCB, you can observe just how close the MOSFETs get to the edge of the board. This in itself doesn’t present a problem, but there are other limitations due to the high density nature of the PCB components that will be mentioned later. You can see here the AM3+ socket in more detail and the more keen readers may note that the holes for the CPU pins are slightly larger than the AM3 and AM2+ socket designs. This is to accommodate the new 32nm ‘FX’ CPUs that will be released later this year. Despite this, the socket still easily deals with AM3 CPUs, but you may also notice the tightening process (by pushing down the lever) presents slightly less resistance than with an AM3 based socket.




The same keen-eyed readers will also note that the AM3+ socket mounting system has changed from AM3 and its predecessors. The pieces of plastic that connected the top and bottom sections of the mount have been abandoned to leave more clear space. This is intended to improve airflow across the board, and it’s a welcome change from the fairly large plastic mounts we’re used to with AMD. However, most users of a high end board such as this are likely to be removing these mounts anyway in favour of a custom mechanism that is part of any high performance CPU cooler. Another observation to make is the orientation and position of the 8-pin ATX power connector. This has migrated further down the board and is forced into a more difficult orientation for those who demand neat cabling – most of the buyers of high end hardware. This is a result of the limited real estate on the PCB, and you’ll also see the heatsink has been cut away to allow easier access in installation.




The UD7 has the standard 4 DIMM slots for up to 32GB of RAM (Dual Channel) running at speeds as high as 1866MHz (2000MHz overclocked), though this depends on your CPU. AM3 CPUs typically support up to 1333MHz via the Integrated Memory Controller, but the new AM3+ CPUs natively support 1866MHz. Of course, with some overclocking memory can be run at higher frequencies on AM3 CPUs, and most likely AM3+ when they’re released.




GIGABYTE has also provided three buttons on the PCB of the board itself – power, reset and clear CMOS. A fairly standard offering but useful nontheless. Unlike some other boards that focus on multi-GPU setups and overclocking (at the highest levels like this), there is no sign of any manual voltage check points or an option to selectively disable PCI-E lanes. Perhaps the former isn't so useful, but the latter may be a Godsend if you're troubleshooting GPU problems with a water cooled multi-GPU system and would have been a very welcome addition on GIGABYTE's highest end AMD motherboard (so far). Also visible is the 24-pin ATX power connector, which is colour coded to the rest of the motherboard, along with the other plastics. No right-angled orientation here, but the placement is more than adequate for the overwhelming majority of enclosures. On the other side of the buttons is a SATA power connector (labelled ATX4P), which enables the user to connect an additional 12V power connection when using more than one GPU on the motherboard. Traditionally such connectors have been molex type, but the small profile and right angled SATA power connector is certainly an improvement, even if it serves the same function.




Moving onto the storage capabilities of the 990FXA-UD7, it sports 8x SATA III connectors (enough bandwidth for SSD RAID arrays), with 6 of the ports originating from the AMD SB950 chipset, and two additional ports being provided by the Marvell 88SE9172 controller. There are also two eSATA ports on the rear of the board that are controlled by the Marvell controller as well should you need them. The AMD controller (part of the SB950 southbridge) will provide the best performance, but it’s good to have extra ports for devices that don’t push the boundaries of SATA III performance, such as optical drives and external hard drives.




Here you can see the POST status LEDs that show an increasing percentage on boot, and if an error occurs, they then show a unique code that can be referenced in the motherboard manual to a list of boot tasks to point towards the cause. Behind is the CMOS battery and also to the right (behind the SATA ports) are the two BIOS chips. One primary and one backup (GIGABYTE’s DualBIOS design) so that if one is corrupted, there is another to fall back on. Also, to the left of the image is a System Fan header, which supports DC and PWM fans, though it is one of just 4 fan headers on the entire motherboard. There is also a CPU Fan (DC/PWM), another System Fan (DC) and a Power Fan (DC), but for the highest end users this may not be enough. High end 990FX boards from other manufacturers give up to 7 fan headers on the board. Yes, you can use splitter cables, but this limits your choice of control, as well as maximum power of fan that you’re able to use. It would be wise that, if you use many fans, you should think about getting a dedicated fan controller to go with the 990FXA-UD7.