Warning about Gigabyte 790GX/790X-SB750 series boards.

I have been having a fair amount of trouble with the Gigabyte MA790GP-DS4H and doing a little bit of reading it seems that this whole generation of Gigabyte boards (with the possible exception of those based on 790FX) are really flaky.

But, in the absence of many reviews (other than Newegg feedback) I thought it might be worth posting something here as a warning.

Despite a promising start and a few overclocking records, the MA790GP-DS4H has (as of the latest BIOS update) non-functional ACC, flaky HDD support (especially for RAID), is extremely picky about memory and has inadequate cooling for anybody using the onboard GPU.

The MA790X-DS4 appears even worse as it shares most of the MA790GP-DS4H's problems as well as having a nasty tendency to catch fire.

The possible exception is the MA790GP-UD4H, but with so few reviews it's hard to tell.

most likely why its no longer on newegg. i was going to get one but now im glad i didnt.

I am using a Gigabyte MA790X-UD4 and it works well. The NB/Mosfet heatsink gets pretty hot, but overall I have had a good experience with it. I had to make sure my HDD's were set in native IDE to boot XP correctly. This is an XP issue though, not related to the motherboard. ACC did not enable my 4th core on the 720, so I could understand that it might not be working. Other 790 boards appear to unlock the 4th core with ACC.

Side Note: The DS4 (infamous for spontaneously combusting) did not have a Mosfet heatsink, which ultimately led to some fires. This is an isolated issue with that board alone.

and has inadequate cooling for anybody using the onboard GPU

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I'll need to check my temps more thoroughly, but this may be a problem on my 780G board as well. The graphics tend to freeze or crash completely after a couple hours of gaming or DXVA video playback, and I have not as of yet been able to achieve a successful overclock of the graphics system... go much above the 500mhz stock value and it'll bomb out pretty quickly, whereas many other boards seem to be able to get the onboard GPU up into the 700-800mhz range with no troubles. In my unscientific tests, I've found that the northbridge gets 'really freakin hot'.

I haven't tried ACC or RAID, so I wouldn't know about those.

I've never had an issue with my DS4H.

The MA790GP-DS4H is different from the MA790X-DS4. Your board has a mosfet heatsink, whereas the DS4 does not and is susceptible to overheating.

squads said:

The MA790GP-DS4H is different from the MA790X-DS4. Your board has a mosfet heatsink, whereas the DS4 does not and is susceptible to overheating.

Click to expand...

Yea, but the op was talking about the DS4H

duly noted

I guess im not the only one disappointed with this board. the bios is very strange and windows never loads the same way twice. I have been able to overclock it to 3500 easily but thats as far as i want to go. does anyone think there will be any motherboards that will support phenom 2 in the future, or was this a bad upgrade choice?