ASUS F1A75-V Pro vs. Gigabyte GA-A75-UD4H – Llano at ~$120
by Ian Cutress on November 7, 2011 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gigabyte
- Asus
- A75
Both ASUS and Gigabyte are well known for their large ranges of motherboards in all chipsets—ASUS tends to go from the standard to Pro, Evo, Deluxe, TUF and ROG, whereas Gigabyte usually from the UD2 to the UD5/7/9, both depending on the enthusiast level of the chipset. Both the A75-UD4H and F1A75-V Pro here are near the top end for A75 and Llano, being fully featured ATX boards, and only the mini-ITX A75 boards cost substantially more.
ASUS F1A75-V Pro
Overall, there is not a lot wrong with this ASUS board. The benchmarks on a whole perform relatively well with one exception, DPC Latency, but it falls within recommended levels as long as the AI Suite software is not running.
The ASUS uses all six SATA 6 Gbps from the FCH internally, as well as another from an ASMedia controller. Unfortunately, this other SATA 6 from the controller gets blocked by a full length GPU. In terms of layout, the second PCIe x16 is actually limited to x4, giving any dual-GPU CrossFireX users a bottleneck in certain scenarios.
The fan control software is some of the best we have seen, and the BIOS is top notch in terms of usability and features. This is all wrapped in a three year warranty, and the board is available for under $120.
Gigabyte GA-A75-UD4H
There are arguably more concerns with the Gigabyte board in our tests, initially resulting in memory issues with our kits of memory. With the Gigabyte board you do not get a graphical BIOS implementation, any serious fan control, or auto overclock options; it also has fewer SATA ports, but there is a Firewire port, a TPM header, and x8/x8 support for dual discrete GPU systems (despite this being an APU platform).
Over our whole range of graphics tests, the Gigabyte, on average, does not perform as well as the ASUS board, but on our CPU tests it does edge ahead in almost all areas, except the video transcoding test.
The Gigabyte board does sport their DualBIOS technology in case of BIOS corruption, and they had more SATA cables included in the media sample I was sent. As with the ASUS board, Gigabyte gives their product a three year warranty.
Conclusion
When talking about motherboards in this price range, there is usually very little to separate them in terms of hardware. One or the other may sport a single different controller, or use different implementations to get better results. Ultimately, each of the ASUS and Gigabyte boards, inter alia, has their pros and cons:
| ASUS F1A75-V Pro | Gigabyte GA-A75-UD4H | |
| PCIe Lanes | x16/x4 | x8/x8 |
| Dual BIOS | No | Yes |
| Firewire Header | No | Yes |
| Better DPC Latency | 397 | 170 |
| Better OC Results | No | Yes |
| Auto CPU OC Options | Yes | No |
| Better Fan Controls | Yes | No |
| Graphical BIOS | Yes | No |
| SATA 6 Gbps | 6 + 1 (ASMedia) | 5 |
With a lot of users wanting a lot of options, for $120 it seems you are not going to cover everything in the A75 market from the two largest motherboard manufacturers, so it is hard to give a nod either way. Personally, if it were between these two boards (users should note that A75 ATX boards from other manufacturers are available), if I were a single GPU gamer (or looking to CFX with the APU), or looking for a quiet system with enough HDDs, I would go for the ASUS board for its functionality. If I were a dual AMD discrete GPU gamer, an overclocker, or wanting to work with onboard audio, I would splash for the Gigabyte board.
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DanNeely - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
"It should be noted that, according to the Gigabyte website, the DVI-D does not support D-Sub by adaptor, and that when on integrated graphics, the connector cannot be changed while the motherboard is powered up."This sort of no plug and play nonsense is a throwback to the 90s, and has no business on a modern board.
Oberst - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
This is quite misleading, as both mobos use a DVI-D. So also both do not support D-Sub via adapter, Gigabyte is just the only manufacturer that clearly stresses this issue, all others assume that you know what the difference between DVI-D and DVI-I is.Also no word is left, that the gigabyte board is capable of Dual Link DVI, while the asus only allows single link, which enables only a limited range of display resolutions. As Dual Link on Llano boards is not very common, that would surely be some important fact to mention.
I'm also not quite sure, what gigabyte means with "All integrated graphics ports do not support Hot plug. If you want to change to another graphics port when the computer is on, be sure to turn off the computer first." Maybe just a false translation, meaning you have to reboot the system, when changing the output (as the display driver doesn't switch the output automatically, you have to do that manually in the driver or by rebooting).
DanNeely - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
It's the no-hotplug part that apalled me, I should've trimmed the 1st part of the sentence away to be clearer but was in a rush for the shower by the time I finished reading the articel.Oberst - Tuesday, November 8, 2011 - link
I'm not sure if that is really that strict as this statement shows. The Gigabyte translations are often not very good and the real meaning is quite different to the written text.When you change your display from DVI to DP, you have to do a reboot as the driver won't switch automatically. That's because you could just pull out a plug by hitting the cable accidentally. So the driver holds the primary output on the plug that was used before, only a reboot initiates a rescan of the displays and switches to another one.
So maybe gigabyte wanted to express this. That would definitely be something to try out. But i can't imagine that you cannot plug in a second monitor on a running system, that would really be some strange behavior.
Googer - Sunday, November 13, 2011 - link
Use a displayport adapter If you need DUAL LINK DVI connection on the ASUS board.Etern205 - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link
Yea, DVI-D doesn't support DVI to VGA adapter as there is no 4 analog pins on that DVI port. Also even if it doesn't have that 4 pin, the adapter still won't fit as the analog ground (that horizontal pin) on the adapter is a tad wider.Etern205 - Wednesday, November 9, 2011 - link
My mistake, looks like there is a DVI-D to VGA adapter and it's not the DVI to VGA adapter I was mentioning.DVI-D to VGA adapter
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
DVI to VGA adapter
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
cjs150 - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
Really like layout of Gigabyte board. Although this is more of a problem with M-ATX boards I have struggled recently with fitting both graphics card with waterblock and a air cooler over the memory (fits but is incredibly tight) so seeing the PCIEx1 slot above the PCIex16 is a good move.What are all those legacy PCI slots doing there? What do people use them for? Across 5 computers at home I use 2 - I for a really old RAID card and one for a TV tuner. Is there really any need for them now?
Recently I have seen a board with right angled 24 pin ATX socket. Please can this become standard
Golgatha - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
PCI is for your old sound card. Now if you're building new, there is no need for PCI to exist.Taft12 - Monday, November 7, 2011 - link
IDE controller, RS-232 card... Me and many like me still need a PCI slot, and Asus and Gigabyte's market research shows the same.PCI will still be with us for many years to come yet.