Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P Motherboard Review – AMD 770

By jason

Introduction and Specs

Once again we have the opportunity to look at a Gigabyte motherboard. We were pretty impressed with the GA-MA790FXT-UD5P motherboard that we recently reviewed, so we got a little excited to see how its little sibling, the GA-MA770T-UD3P, would stack up. Today’s economy is all about doing stuff as economically as you can, so most people will like a motherboard that can be gotten on the cheap and still perform very well. So, is that where this board fits in from Gigabyte? That is exactly what we intend to find out as we put it through our testing and see how it stacks up against the likes of a 790FX and a 790GX board.

Gigabyte A-MA770T-UD3P Motherboard Review

The GA-MA770T-UD3P uses Gigabyte’s famed Ultra Durable 3 technology on this budget friendly AMD socket AM3 platform. This technology brings 2 oz copper PCB and further helps to reduce the system temperature and dramatically enhance the performance. Based on AMD 770 chipset, the GA-MA770T-UD3P supports all the 45nm AMD AM3 Phenom II series processors that feature DDR3 memory controllers and HyperTransport 3.0 technology. To top all that off the board also features Easy Energy Saver technology to help conserve power and be green friendly. Not a bad list of features considering this board retails for just $79.99 shipped at Newegg! Add in one of the $87 AMD Athlon II 250 3.0GHz dual-core processors and you have a motherboard and processor for under $170!

The AMD 770 chipset does have some limitations though and the most obvious is that it lacks support for multi-GPU configurations as it sports just a single x16 PCI Express 2.0 slot for graphics. Looking at the AMD chipset specifications site for reference, we can see exactly what this chipset offers compared to the 790X and 790FX chipsets. According to AMD the 770 chipset lacks ATI CrossFireX Technology, Quad PCIE Blocks, GPU-Plex Technology, and Auto Xpress. Three of these features revolve around the board only having a single PCI Express 2.0 slot, so if you only plan on running one video card these features don’t mean much to you. AMD Auto Xpress technology is a feature that automatically activates with AMD/ATI components to deliver better CPU, GPU, and system performance. If you know your way around a BIOS you can manually set things, so again no big deal. What you end up getting here with the GA-MA770T-UD3P motherboard is a solid single GPU platform that is able to run all the latest processors for under $80! Not bad at all! Let’s take a quick look at the specs:

CPU
  1. Support for AM3 processors
Hyper Transport Bus
  1. 5200/2000 MT/s
Chipset
  1. North Bridge: AMD 770
  2. South Bridge: AMD SB710
Memory
  1. 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 16 GB of system memory (Note2)
  2. Dual channel memory architecture
  3. Support for DDR3 1666(OC)/1333/1066 MHz memory modules
  4. Support ECC memory (Note 3)
Audio
  1. Realtek ALC888 codec
  2. High Definition Audio
  3. 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
  4. Support for S/PDIF In/Out
  5. Support for CD In
LAN
  1. Realtek 8111C/D(L) chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Expansion Slots
  1. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIE_16)
    (The PCI Express x16 slot conforms to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)
  2. 4 x PCI Express x1 slots
  3. 2 x PCI slots
Storage Interface South Bridge:

  1. 1 x IDE connector supporting ATA-133/100/66/33 and up to 2 IDE devices
  2. 6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors supporting up to 6 SATA 3Gb/s devices
  3. Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 0+1

iTE IT8720 chip:

  1. 1 x floppy disk drive connector supporting up to 1 floppy disk drive
IEEE 1394 T.I. TSB43AB23 chip

  1. Up to 3 IEEE 1394a ports (2 on the back panel, 1 via the IEEE 1394a bracket connected to the internal IEEE 1394a headers)
USB Integrated in the South Bridge

  1. Up to 12 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (8 on the back panel, 4 via the USB brackets connected to the internal USB headers)
Internal I/O Connectors
  1. 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
  2. 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
  3. 1 x floppy disk drive connector
  4. 1 x IDE connector
  5. 6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors
  6. 1 x CPU fan header
  7. 2 x system fan headers
  8. 1 x power fan header
  9. 1 x front panel header
  10. 1 x front panel audio header
  11. 1 x CD In connector
  12. 1 x S/PDIF In header
  13. 1 x S/PDIF Out header
  14. 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
  15. 1 x IEEE 1394a header
  16. 1 x parallel port header
  17. 1 x serial port header
  18. 1 x power LED header
  19. 1 x chassis intrusion header
Back Panel Connectors
  1. 1 x PS/2 keyboard port
  2. 1 x PS/2 mouse port
  3. 1 x coaxial S/PDIF Out connector
  4. 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
  5. 8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
  6. 2 x IEEE 1394a ports
  7. 1 x RJ-45 port
  8. 6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone)
I/O Controller
  1. iTE IT8720 chip
H/W Monitoring System voltage detection

  1. CPU/System temperature detection
  2. CPU/System/Power fan speed detection
  3. CPU overheating warning
  4. CPU/System/Power fan fail warning
  5. CPU fan speed control (Note 4)
BIOS
  1. 2 x 8 Mbit flash
  2. Use of licensed AWARD BIOS
  3. Support DualBIOS
  4. PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.4, ACPI 1.0b
Unique Features
  1. Support for @BIOS
  2. Support for Download Center
  3. Support for Q-Flash
  4. Support for EasyTune (Note 5)
  5. Support for Xpress Install
  6. Support for Xpress Recovery2
  7. Support for Virtual Dual BIOS
  8. Support for Easy Energy Saver
Bundle Software
  1. Norton Internet Security (OEM version)
Operating System
  1. Support for Microsoft Windows Vista/XP
Form Factor
  1. ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 21.0cm
Note (Note 1) We recommend that you enhance heat dissipation for the CPU VRM area if an AMD Black Edition CPU is installed and the Advanced Clock Calibration is enabled.
(Note 2) Due to Windows XP 32-bit operating system limitation, when more than 4 GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory size displayed will be less than 4 GB.
(Note 3) Use of a CPU that supports ECC is required if you wish to install ECC memory.
(Note 4) Whether the CPU/ system fan speed control function is supported will depend on the CPU/ system cooler you installed.
(Note 5) Available functions in EasyTune may differ by motherboard model.

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