GIGABYTE Super4 A75-UD4H Socket FM1 Motherboard Review

By Dan Stoltz

GIGABYTE A75-UD4H

GIGABYTE A75-UD4H Motherboard Layout

When it comes to enthusiast computer components GIGABYTE is definitely a household name. With more than 20 years of experience in the industry, GIGABYTE has a pretty good idea of what makes the industry tick. Today we have one of AMD A75 motherboards from GIGABYTE’s “Super4” collection. The GIGABYTE A75-UD4H is designed for AMD APU (Accelerated Processing Unit) and takes advantage of the new AMD Socket FM1 as well as the AMD A75 chipset.

GIGABYTE has a number of AMD A75 motherboards available ranging in price from $82.99 for the GIGABYTE A75M-S2V up to $114.99 for the A75-UD4H. All five of the GIGABYTE A75 motherboards currently have a $10.00 rebate attached to them as well as free shipping at Newegg.com.

Each of the five boards above is packed with different features, and GIGABYTE is sure to have one that will fit your needs if the A75-UD4H isn’t quite right for you. Three of the boards are micro-ATX, while the remaining two are full ATX motherboards. The GIGABYTE A75-UD4 is of the full ATX flavor and happens to be the top offering from GIGABYTE’s AMD A75 product line up. Some of the technology that makes the GIGABYTE A75-UD4H the board that it is, comes from the AMD A8-3850 APU. The AMD A-series APU’s feature a discrete level Graphics card built into the chip. The A8-3850 we will be using today features an AMD Radeon HD 6550D that takes full advantage of Microsoft DirectX 11 graphics. If you want to check out the technology that comprises the AMD A8-3850 you can check out the full review of it here, or the AMD A6-3650 review if that APU fits your needs better.

When you combine the AMD A-Series APU with another AMD discrete level graphics card you can combine it with the onboard graphics for better performance. This isn’t CrossfireX as we know it, though its remarkably similar and marketed as AMD Dual Graphics. Not all AMD graphics cards will work with AMD Dual Graphics, looking at the chart below from AMD, we can see that it is a rather limited selection of discrete graphics cards that will work. It would be nice if we could use some of the higher end cards in AMD Dual Graphics card configurations, though we probably wouldn’t see much of a boost if any using a graphics card like the AMD Radeon HD 6800 series or higher. Though, it would be fun to see how they would work together.

AMD Dual Graphics Capable Cards

The AMD Dual Graphics may not be CrossFireX, the GIGABYTE A75-UD4H does support CrossFireX. It is limited to an x8,x8 configuration, but we haven’t seen anything that has missed out on the bandwidth. Perhaps if you were to run a pair of cards like the AMD Radeon HD 6990’s you may see a slight drop in scaling performance compared to an AMD FX-8150 in a AMD 990FX motherboard. Though, why would anyone run a pair of $700.00+ graphics cards in a platform that is designed to be easy on the wallet?

It was mentioned above about the GIGABYTE A75-UD4H being part of the GIGABYTE Super4 collection of motherboards. What exactly does that mean though? The first part is Super Safe. All of the Super4 motherboards have a number of features designed to keep your hardware, software, and data safer. If you have ever managed to botch a BIOS flash, or simply had your BIOS become corrupted, you know that it can be a nightmare to solve. Each of the Super4 motherboards runs DualBIOS. The traditional USB port design has one fuse per group of ports, the GIGABYTE Super4 motherboards dedicate one fuse to each port. If one fuse goes, you don’t lose all of the ports in that block of USB ports.

The second phase of the Super4 is Super Speed. The Super Speed consists of Ultra Durable 3 Classic, which uses 2 ounces of copper for the power and ground layers. This will dramatically lower the system temperatures by creating a more efficient dissipation of heat from the high temperature areas like the CPU socket. We also have 3x USB Power Boost, this gives the GIGABYTE A75-UD4H better compatibility as well as extra power for the high power USB devices. We also have the GIGABYTE On/Off Charge technology that will charge USB devices such as your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch even when the computer is shut down.

The remaining two phases of the GIGABYTE Super4 class of motherboards is Super Savings, and Super Sound. The Super Savings motherboards are built with top quality components to ensure your system is running at peak efficiency. The Super Sound motherboards all feature high quaility 7.1 surround sound audio and is backed by a proprietary converter that can achieve a 108dB noise ration playback quality.

GIGABYTE A75-UD4H Socket FM1 A75 Motherboard Specifications:

APU FM1 Socket:
-AMD A series & E2 series processors
Chipset AMD A75 chipset
Memory 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 64 GB of system memory
Dual channel memory architecture
Support for DDR3 2400(OC)/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory module
Onboard Graphics APU:
-1 x D-Sub port
-1 x DVI-D port, supporting a maximum resolution of 2560×1600
-1 x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920×1200
-1 x DisplayPort, supporting a maximum resolution of 2560×1600
Audio Realtek ALC889 codec
High Definition Audio
2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
Support for Dolby Home Theater
Support for S/PDIF Out
LAN 1 x Realtek RTL8111E chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Expansion Slots 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)
1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8)
3 x PCI Express x1 slots
2 x PCI slots
Multi-Graphics Technology Support for AMD Dual Graphics technology
Only A series APU support AMD Dual Graphics.
Support for AMD CrossFireX technology
Storage Interface hipset:

5 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors supporting up to 5 SATA 6Gb/s devices
1 x eSATA 6Gb/s port on the back panel supporting up to 1 SATA 6Gb/s device
Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, and JBOD
USB Chipset:
-Up to 10 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 8 ports available through the internal USB headers)
-Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (available through the internal USB headers)
2 x Etron EJ168 chips:
-Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports on the back panel
IEEE 1394 VIA VT6308 chip:
-Up to 2 IEEE 1394a ports
Internal I/O Connectors 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
5 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
1 x APU fan header
2 x system fan headers
1 x power fan header
1 x front panel header
1 x front panel audio header
1 x S/PDIF Out header
4 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
2 x USB 3.0/2.0 headers
1 x IEEE 1394a header
1 x serial port header
1 x Trusted Platform Module (TPM) header
1 x clearing CMOS jumper
Back Panel Connectors 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
1 x D-Sub port
1 x DVI-D port
1 x HDMI port
1 x DisplayPort
1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
2 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
4 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
1 x IEEE 1394a header
1 x eSATA 6Gb/s port
1 x RJ-45 port
6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone)
I/O Controller iTE IT8720 chip
H/W Monitoring System voltage detection

APU/System temperature detection

APU/System/Power fan speed detection

APU overheating warning

APU/System/Power fan fail warning

APU/System fan speed control
BIOS 2 x 32 Mbit flash
Use of licensed AWARD BIOS
Support for DualBIOS
PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.4, ACPI 1.0b
Unique Features Support for @BIOS
Support for Q-Flash
Support for Xpress BIOS Rescue
Support for Download Center

Support for Xpress Install
Support for Xpress Recovery2
Support for EasyTune
Support for Smart Recovery
Support for Auto Green
Support for ON/OFF Charge
Support for 3TB+ Unlock
Support for Q-Share
Form Factor ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 24.4cm

Comments are closed.