14 DAY TRIAL // After the introduction of the 990FXA-UD7 and UD5, Gigabyte has added a new AM3+ motherboard built using the 990FX chipset to its lineup, the 990FXA-UD3 which targets users with lower budgets.
The board features about the same PCB layout as its more powerful brothers, but this has now been fitted with just four PCI Express x16 slots, and only two of these run at X16 speeds.
The other two are limited at x4 and aren't suitable for installing graphics cards. As a result the 990FXA-UD3 can accommodate only 2-way SLI and CrossFireX multi-GPU setups, compared to the 3-way capabilities of the UD5.
In addition to the four PCI Express x16 slots, the 990FXA-UD3 also carries a pair of PCI-E x1 slot and a legacy PCI 32-bit socket.
Storage is provided by six SATA 6Gbps ports, which are driven by the AMD SB950 south bridge controller, while the two eSATA ports found on the rear I/O bracket are powered by a pair of Marvell 88SE9172 ICs.
The two eSATA connectors are accompanied by a PS/2 port, eight USB 2.0 ports, a pair of USB 3.0 ports, a FireWire connector, a Gigabit Ethernet port and 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out.
Two additional USB 3.0 connectors can be routed to the front panel thanks to an on-board USB 3.0 header which is placed near the left margin of the board. The motherboard also carries pin headers for six USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire port and a serial port.
CPU power is provided by a 8+2 PWM, but this uses regular MOSFETs rather than DrMOS transistors found in the UD7 and UD5.
The Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 is expected to become available shortly after Computex 2011, but its price hasn't been announced yet.
However, the motherboard was listed by an online retailed from New Zealand for approximately $219 US. (via VR-Zone)