After posting a preview of MSI’s upcoming 970A-G45 motherboard yesterday, we have two more 970-based motherboards that get the preview treatment – GIGABYTE’s GA-970-A-UD3 and GA-970A-D3.
Left: GA-970A-UD3; Right: GA-970A-UD3
*Images courtesy of MyDrivers
At first glance these two motherboards look very similar as both sport GIGABYTE’s “classic” blue PCB with white, baby blue and grey accents. Possible the most visible difference is that the GA-970A-D3 is slightly narrower than it’s GA-970A-UD3, “Ultra Durable”, counter part. Both have your standard AM3+ socket, 4 four DDR3 DIMM slots and a similar heat sink design. The higher-end GA-970A-UD3 sports a 8+2 power phase design with a decent MOSFET heat sink, while the GA-970A-D3 uses a 4+1 power phase design with no MOSFET heat sink. If you’re looking to overclock using the 970 chipset, the GA-970A-UD3 is your board.
Also, both of these motherboards feature an identical PCI slot layout with 2x physical PCIe 2.0 x16 slots (wired to x16 and x4), 3x PCIe 2.0 x1 slots and 2x legacy PCI slots. If you’re looking for CrossFire or SLI support, these boards are not for you as neither is officially supported.
Left: GA-970A-UD3; Right: GA-970A-D3
When it comes to on-board connectivity, both of these boards are quite similar. Both feature 6x SATA3 6.0 Gbps ports, 3x USB 2.0 internal headers, a single COM header and four fan headers. The GA-970A-UD3 outdoes the the GA-970A-D3 by offering a USB 3.0 and IEEE 1394 internal headers in addition to the common connections. Moving around back we have a nearly identical I/O with a combo PS/2 port, 8x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0, 8-channel audio with optical S/PDIF-out and gigabit LAN. The GA-970A-UD3 sweetens the deal, albeit slightly, by adding a IEEE 1394 port on the back.
Overall, the GA-970A-UD3 is clearly the superior board as not only does it have a strong feature set, it also has a power phase design that will please almost any overclocker. Alternatively, the GA-970A-D3 won’t be a great overclocking board, but the features offered are sure to make it a great budget-friendly option. No word on when these will hit North American shelves, or at what price, but we expect to see them in the coming weeks. For more images and retail shots of these boards, head over to MyDrivers!
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
There is a mistake in the picture, both MB have the same name, GA-970A-UD3??
LOL You are reason. Left is GA-970A-UD3 and right is GA-970A-D3.