Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P Motherboard Review – AMD 770

Board Layout

Looking at the full board we see the familiar Gigabyte blue that we have been used to seeing for years. The layout on the board was actually quite good, with no real issues. Let’s take a closer look…

The top right of the board is where we find our dimm slots. The Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P has 4 dimm slots that support up to 16GB of DDR3 memory in dual channel configuration at speeds of DDR3 800, 1066, 1333 and 1600 (overclocked). Just to the right of the dimm slots is the 24-pin power connector that is placed perfectly at the edge of the board.

The bottom right of the board is fairly packed with goodies. We have the southbridge, which is covered by a heatsink. To the right of the SB, we have our IDE connector, which is powered by the southbridge. To the bottom left of the IDE connector we find our six SATA connectors which are also powered by the southbridge. These connections support RAID in 0, 1 and 0+1 modes. Underneath the SATA connections we find our front panel pin connections that are color coded, which really helps in setup. To the left of the pins, we have a floppy connector. We also have a couple of USB headers here in this area.

Here is a little closer look at the pins and SATA connections on the bottom right corner.

The bottom left corner is the location of our expansion slots. The Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P has two legacy PCI slots, four x1 PCIE slots and one X16 slot that conforms to the PCI Express 2.0 standard. With only one X16 slot, there are no possibilities to upgrade to a dual card solution.

The audio on the board is powered by the Realtek ALC888 which provides 7.1 Hi Def audio. LAN is powered by the Realtek 8111C/D(L) chips and supports gigabit speeds.

The top right of the board is where our CPU socket is. It is clear of all obstructions, and should not have any problems with an aftermarket cooling solution. The 8-pin 12v power connector is located in a little bit of an awkward position. We prefer this to be at the edge of the board. You can also see the large heatsink that sits on top of our Northbridge. We had no issues with heat while testing the board.

Here is a little closer look at the 8-pin connector.

The back I/O panel has the following connections:

1. 1 x PS/2 keyboard port
2. 1 x PS/2 mouse port
3. 1 x coaxial S/PDIF Out connector
4. 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
5. 8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
6. 2 x IEEE 1394a ports
7. 1 x RJ-45 port
8. 6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone)

That is the entire layout of the board… let’s look at the bundle and BIOS next!