Normally when a series of a new gen flagship/HEDT processors and chipsets come out, manufacturers tend to put all the features, bling and expandability in a motherboard. Some will appreciate it. Some don’t see give any attention to it. Some will love to have it, only to see them not being used once it goes inside a closed case. Reality is, while there is a large community base that love and appreciate such features, a good number of users don’t use them in a closed case setup. Note- I am not talking about build quality, rather about extra feature. To each of their own.
But in any case, the basics should never be compromised- layout, functionality, ease of use and quality of the components, especially for power delivery. Or else, it’s simply counter-productive. Gigabyte X99-UD4 motherboard stayed with me for a pretty long time, but it was used as a base for previous reviews. This motherboard was used for testing Intel i7 5960X HEDT processor, and the first DDR4 I had with me- the 16GB Kingston HyperX Predator 3000MHz DDR4 kit. This was also used as a base for Nvidia GTX 980 and also benched with Zotac GTX 780Ti. I did a good share of swapping and benching even with CPU coolers like Noctua NH-D15 and Noctua NH-U14S. it gave me a good understanding.
Calling Gigabyte X99-UD4 as an ‘entry-level’ is the best way to insult this motherboard. There are many features and expandability on this motherboard that will impress a lot of people simply by reading the specs and seeing the layout alone, but what about the ease of use once you hook it up?
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