GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD5 AMD 890FX Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

The performance of the GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD5 was definitely solid but it wasn’t mind blowing. Perhaps if I had tested the GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD5 prior to the ASUS Crosshair IV Formula I would have a different perspective. I think we may have been spoiled by the performance of the ASUS Crosshair IV Formula early on. With that being said, I don’t see any problems with the GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD5. The performance was great, overclocking was easy, and the layout works great.

One feature that I really liked was the placement of the onboard power and reset switches. Most of the boards that I have looked at place the switches along the bottom edge of the motherboard which is fine unless, of course, you are running multiple graphics cards. Then the switches in that location become more difficult to access because they are blocked. On the GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD5, the switches are placed near the top of the board between the memory and 24 pin power plug. This makes them very easy to access regardless of how many graphics cards you are running.

When I looked at the GIGABYTE 880GMA-UD2H recently I had one issue with it, and that was the SATA ports being perpendicular to the motherboard. That isn’t an issue with the GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD5. On the GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD5 all of the SATA ports come straight off of the edge of the board so there will be no clearance issues.

Throughout the testing today we compared the GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD5 to the ASUS Crosshair IV Formula. Despite my board preferences the GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD5 fell ever so slightly behind the ASUS Crosshair IV Formula. Although, there is one area that the GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD5 fell behind in that is a good place to be lower: the price. Currently you can find the GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD5 for as little as $179.99 while the ASUS Crosshair IV Formula is sitting at a heftier price of $224.85. The question that arises is, is the extra $45.00 worth the ever so slight performance increase? Personally, I would rather put that money toward something with a much more noticeable gain, like the next level of graphics card or processor. As with all of GIGABYTE’s motherboards, the 890FXA-UD5 is backed by a three year warranty in the U.S.A. and Canada.

Legit Bottom Line: The GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD5 may not have been the fastest AMD 890FX based board that we have tested, but the performance difference is near negligible. The lower cost of the GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD5 is anything but negligible!