Joined on 02/16/05
High refresh and gsync is the real deal
Pros: So smooth. No tearing. There is no way I could go back to 60hz without adaptive sync again.
Cons: Gsync displays are pretty ridiculously priced so they are out of reach for many, at $850 this is not cheap. I could do without the RGB backlight but I get some people are into that.
Overall Review: If you have the money and are used to larger displays I highly recommend this unit.
Follow up review REV 3 Board
Pros: It has a decent amount of options, plenty of USB and SATA ports.
Cons: The REV 3 board's VRM's cannot handle the AMD FX 8 core CPU's. I as well as many others on overclock.net have been plagued with throttling. Since the day I received this board it has throttled. This is actually my second one, the first was RMA'd due to other issues. I could not utilize all 8 cores of my CPU for any longer than 5 minutes before it would start throttling hard. CPU temps were around 51C so well within thermal limits. I have gone to great lengths to solve the throttling issue, no thanks to Gigabyte who appears to think its APM mode. I narrowed it down to the VRM temperatures and successfully fixed it. All while never disabling APM. So no Gigabyte, its not APM mode, its a terrible cooling solution! My board was also warped badly, to the point the inner VRM chips weren't even contacting the heatsink. I flattened the board and installed a forged copper VRM heatsink. That still wasn't enough. The heatsink absorbed huge amounts of heat however the CPU still throttled after about 20 minutes of full load on all 8 cores. I added an AMD heatpipe CPU fan. With some creative engineering I was able to mount it directly on top of the copper heatsink. Now when I use all 8 cores that little fan sounds like a fog horn speeding itself up to 5500RPM. However it no longer throttles. Nobody should have to do this to make a 990FX board work properly... This is a huge booboo by Gigabyte.
Overall Review: If you want my advice, if you want a FX 8 core CPU don't get this board. If you are interested in a FX 8 core CPU go with the Asus Sabertooth, and I myself wouldn't but others I've talked to recommend the Gigabyte GA990FXA-UD5 as they haven't experienced any throttling with it. You guys that already have the Rev 3 board and 8 core CPU, I recommend you run Prime95 blend for 30 minutes or so with all 8 cores while monitoring CPU speed and voltage. I think what you see may surprise you. If you have throttling, get the Enzotech MST-88 copper heatsink, get a decent 80mm fan and install them in place of the stock aluminum heatsink. I hope I am able to save you guys the hours and money I spent fighting with this board to make it work the way it should have out of the box.
A very good X370 board
Pros: This board appear well built and is pretty good looking. It has plenty of SATA ports, fan headers and PCIe slots. Started right up with my Ryzen 1700X and Ripjaws V. It is able to run the Ripjaws at 2933 and I'd imagine when the BIOS gets more updates it'll do the rated 3200.
Cons: Doesn't get the BIOS updates like the CH6 gets. No ability currently to disable SMT if you are looking to do that.
Overall Review: If you are having a hard time getting a CH6 like I was I'd definitely recommend grabbing this board. So far it has been working beautifully for me. I have not overclocked yet, I've been happy with Ryzen's stock performance, so I can't really say anything about it's overclocking ability. However at stock speeds the VRM's stay nice and cool.
Works decently with Ryzen
Pros: All the tales of Ryzen and RAM can be scary. I was certainly worried. I bought this kit because I've had good look with Ripjaws before. I'm happy to say they work pretty well. Booted right up at 2133mhz. Once I installed Windows I was able to get them up to 2933mhz with 3200mhz timings. To be fair I haven't tried to tighten them up yet.
Cons: 3200mhz is no bueno on my Asus Prime X370-Pro. Fails to boot and finally reverts defaults. Not totally surprised as these aren't even on the QVL for this board.
Overall Review: If you are ok with not quite getting advertised speeds with Ryzen currently these work well. There is a good chance that as the platform matures 3200mhz should be attainable. Maybe more, who knows!
This thing is a tank
Pros: I've owned it almost 10 years!!
Cons: It's slow by todays standards and only 300GB
Overall Review: I bought this drive in 2005 and it is used DAILY still today as my downloads/videos/music drive. Seriously this drive has been used every day since 2005 and it still works flawlessly! They sure don't make them like this anymore!
Good quality cooler
Pros: Quality forged copper, absorbs a ton of heat. The price wasn't to bad either. Fits the Gigabyte GA990FXA-UD3
Cons: being its copper its quite soft and malleable so the fins bend easily. During installation you will probably bend a few, just gently push them back into place
Overall Review: I bought this to replace the very inadequate stock VRM heatsink on my GA990FXA-UD3. It works much better than the stock unit. However the UD3 generates so much VRM heat I still needed to add a fan. This isn't a fault of the Enzotech. Its Gigabytes garbage board.