Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 Motherboard

On Board Peripherals

The AMD 990FX chipset is a two-chip solution, and it is combined with the SB950 south bridge chip. The SB950 chip has six SATA-600 ports, supporting RAID (0, 1, 10, and 5). This motherboard has two additional eSATA-600 ports, controlled by a Marvell 88SE9172 chip (supporting RAID 0 and 1).

The SATA ports are installed on the motherboard edge and rotated 90°, so the installation of video cards won’t block them.

Figure 4: The six SATA-600 ports controlled by the chipset

The AMD 990FX chipset supports 14 USB 2.0 ports and the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 offers all 14 USB 2.0 ports, eight located on the rear panel and six available through three headers located on the motherboard. It also offers four USB 3.0 ports, two on the motherboard rear panel and two available through a header on the motherboard. The USB 3.0 ports are controlled by an EtronTech EJ168 chip.

The Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 has two FireWire ports, one available on the motherboard rear panel and one available through a header. These ports are controlled by a VIA VT6308 chip.

This motherboard supports 7.1+2 audio format, i.e., eight channels plus two independent channels for audio streaming. On this motherboard, the audio is generated by the chipset using a Realtek ALC889 codec, which is an outstanding solution, providing an impressive 108 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, 106 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, and up to 192 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs, with 24-bit resolution. This means you are able to capture and edit analog audio (e.g., converting LPs to CDs or MP3, converting VHS to DVDs or any other digital format, etc.) with this motherboard without adding any background noise.

The motherboard has on-board optical SPDIF output. There is also a header for SPDIF signal on the motherboard, so you can install a coaxial output or connect it to a video card in order to have digital sound on the HDMI output.

The analog outputs are independent, meaning that you don’t need to share any of them when using a 7.1 analog speaker set.

The portrayed motherboard has one Gigabit Ethernet port, controlled by a Realtek RTL8111F chip.

In Figure 5, you can see the motherboard rear panel with a shared PS/2 connector for keyboard and mouse, optical SPDIF audio output, eight USB 2.0 ports, one FireWire port, two eSATA-600 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, one Gigabit Ethernet port, and the analog audio jacks.

Figure 5: Motherboard rear panel