Legit Motherboard Reviews

GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H AMD 880G Motherboard Review

Manufacturer: Gigabyte
Product: GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H
Date: Tue, Aug 17, 2010 - 12:00 AM
Written By: Dan Stoltz -
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GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H

GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H Performance Review

GIGABYTE has been a force in the computer industry for many years, and today we are graced with one of their products. Today we are going to take a look at a micro ATX board, the GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H. The GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H is based around the AMD 880G chipset and has all of the latest features. Features such as the USB3.0, SATA3 and ATI Radeon HD 4250 integrated graphics make this board well worth the $99.99 with free shipping. What makes the 880G chip set different than the other AMD 8XXSeries chipsets, you may ask?

PCI Express® Generation 2.0 870 880G 890GX 890FX
PCI Express Generation 2.0 1x16 1x16 1x16 Or 2x8 2x16 Or 4x8
ATI CrossFireX Technology No No Yes Yes
Microsoft DirectX 10.1 No Yes Yes No
Unified Video Decoder(UVD)2 No Yes Yes No
ATI Stream Technology No Yes Yes No
ATI Powerplay No Yes Yes No
Gigabit Ethernet Yes Yes Yes Yes
SATA 6Gb/s Yes Available Yes Yes

The primary differences between the different AMD 8XX series chipsets are the Graphics capabilities of the board. The AMD 870 and 880g chipsets are both limited to a single discrete graphics card and aren't capable of running ATI CrossfireX. The AMD 880G chipset also has ATI Radeon HD 4250 graphics integrated into the board, while the AMD 870 chipset does not have integrated graphics. The AMD 890GX chipset also has integrated graphics, although it is a step up from the 880G's. The AMD 890GX chipset uses ATI Radeon HD 4290 integrated graphics and is also capable of running Crossfire, although each card runs at the reduced bandwidth of x8 as opposed to the x16 of a single card. The AMD 890FX leaves out the integrated graphics and is capable of running two cards in CrossfireX at x16 each or four cards at x8 each.

The GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H is a full featured board in a small package. It has all the latest features like USB3.0 and SATA3. The only feature that the GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H is lacking is CrossfireX capabilities. With the level of graphics you can get from today's graphics cards, Crossfire isn't really needed unless you are trying to go all out and break a few records.

CPU Support for Socket AM3 processors: AMD Phenom II processor / AMD Athlon II processor
Hyper Transport Bus 5200 MT/s
Chipset
  • North Bridge: AMD 880G 
  • South Bridge: AMD SB850
Memory
  • 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 16 GB of system memory 
  • Dual channel memory architecture 
  • Support for DDR3 2000(OC)/1333/1066 MHz memory modules
Onboard Graphics North Bridge: 1 x D-Sub port 1 x DVI-D port 1 x HDMI port
Audio
  • Realtek ALC892 codec
  • High Definition Audio
  • 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
  • Support for Dolby Home Theater
  • Support for S/PDIF In/Out
  • Support for CD In
LAN 1 x Realtek 8111D chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Expansion Slots
  • 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)
  • 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4) 
  • 1 x PCI Express x1 slot (All PCI Express slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.) 
  • 1 x PCI slots
Multi-Graphics Technology Support for ATI Hybrid CrossFireX technology
Storage Interface South Bridge:
  • 5 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors 6 supporting up to 5 SATA 6Gb/s devices 
  • 1 x eSATA 3Gb/s connectors on the back panel supporting up to 1 SATA 3Gb/s device
  • Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, and JBOD 
JMicron JMB368 chip:
  • 1 x IDE connector supporting ATA-133/100/66/33 and up to 2 IDE devices
iTE IT8720 chip: 
  •  1 x floppy disk drive connector supporting up to 1 floppy disk drive
USB South Bridge:
  • Up to 10USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 on the back panel, 6 via the USB brackets connected to the internal USB headers) 
NEC D720200F1 chip:
  • Up to 2 USB 3.0 ports on the back panel
IEEE 1394 T.I. TSB43AB23 chip:
  • Up to 2 IEEE 1394a ports (1 on the back panel, 2 via the IEEE 1394a bracket connected to the internal IEEE 1394a header)
Internal I/O Connectors
  • 1 x floppy disk drive connector 
  • 1 x IDE connector 
  • 5 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors 
  • 1 x front panel audio header 
  • 1 x CD In connector 
  • 1 x S/PDIF In/Out header
  • 1 x IEEE 1394a header
  • 3 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
  • 1 x serial port header 
  • 1 x clearing CMOS jumper
Back Panel Connectors
  • 1 x PS/2 keyboard port or PS/2 mouse port 
  • 1 x D-Sub port 
  • 1 x DVI-D port 
  • 1 x HDMI port 
  • 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector 
  • 1 x IEEE 1394a port 
  • 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 
  • 1 x eSATA 6Gb/s connector 
  • 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports 
  • 1 x RJ-45 port 
  • 6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone)
BIOS
  • 2 x 8 Mbit flash 
  • Use of licensed AWARD BIOS 
  • Support for DualBIOS
  • PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.4, ACPI 1.0b
Form Factor Micro ATX; 24.4cm x 24.4cm

Now that you know everything that there is to know about the GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H, let's take a look at the retail packaging and the GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H before we fire it up!

Next Page - GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H Retail Packaging


Review Index
Page 1 - GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H
Page 2 - GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H Retail Packaging
Page 3 - GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H Board Layout
Page 4 - GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H System BIOS
Page 5 - Legit Reviews Test System
Page 6 - PCMark Vantage
Page 7 - 3DMark Vantage
Page 8 - SiSoft Sandra 2010 Memory Bandwidth
Page 9 - USB3 Testing
Page 10 - Network Throughput
Page 11 - Rightmark Audio Analyzer
Page 12 - Aliens Vs. Predator
Page 13 - System Power Consumption
Page 14 - GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H Overclocked
Page 15 - Final Thoughts and Conclusion