Conclusion

Despite numerous critical comments we made about Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P mainboard, there is nothing serious that you should be concerned about. I can even say that the board barely has any drawbacks at all: it is very well built, has excellent PCB layout and technical characteristics, works impeccably in nominal mode and overclocks CPUs very well. If we add here a number of Gigabyte’s brand name functions and technologies, the board will be almost ideal. Unfortunately, the word “almost” is still there. There are no serious drawbacks, but numerous little issues do spoil the remarkable impression from this solution a little bit.

Let’s sum up all the little things we have pointed out throughout the review of Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P:

• No connector for the rear system case fan;
• No power LEDs;
• Some BIOS settings are hidden behind Ctrl-F1 key combination;
• HyperTransport bus frequency needs to be calculated manually;
• “CPU NB VID Control” voltage is not displayed anywhere;
• No parameter to increase the HyperTransport bus voltage;
• Insufficient functionality of the EasyTune6 utility in terms of voltage control;
• All memory timings will need to be adjusted manually, even if you only need to change one of them;
• The loaded BIOS settings profile will usually kick in only on second try;
• Limited QFlash functionality;
• The board doesn’t report resetting the parameters or switching to reserve BIOS chip;
• Insufficient and inexact information about the POST status;
• Clearing CMOS resets date and time.

Frankly speaking, I feel awkward listing small things like that. I am sure you will agree that these are not real drawbacks. These are small issues and imperfections that can cause minor inconveniences, but will not develop into anything serious. Of course, but why are there so many of them? I could probably compare this mainboard to a chair: it is big, beautiful, reliable, and pretty comfortable at first glance, but it is not sanded and lacquered, so the splinters…

Numerous “splinters” like that, which we have encountered during our work with Gigabyte MA790XT-UD4P mainboard do not let us award it with a winning title. We would rank it as B+ (with A high), or A- at best. And if we disregarded all small issues we found, the board would be a real beauty.