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Thread: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

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    Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    like, on their website, they literally don't even explain the core technology behind UD, it's pretty much just "ULTRA PROTECTION L337" garbage. Are there any outside sources that have confirmed that UD, y'know, actually does anything?

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    Re: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    my m/b also has this "feature" but usually manufacturers just use buzzwords to gain attention. However gigabyte is a top brand and I canno fault them.
    Last edited by dacads; 10-09-2012 at 11:24 AM.

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    Re: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    Yeah, it's a just a sort of brand name, it doesn't mean that their products as fundamentally different to any of their major competitors.

    Just go by the features that you actually need.

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    Pork & Beans Powerup Phage's Avatar
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    Re: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    I think the claim is more copper in the PCB ?
    Society's to blame,
    Or possibly Atari.

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    Not a good person scaryjim's Avatar
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    Re: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    Gigabyte's Ultra Durable branding basically a way to distinguish their high-end boards from the lower end (like MSI's "Military Class 3" branding). There are a host of features that are meant to be present on a UD branded boards, including a higher proportion of copper in the PCB, all-solid capacitors, no doubt some kind of fancy choke in the power regulation - and the combination of those features is meant to make the motherboard more reliable than a standard, non-UD Gigabyte board.

    Whether it makes it better than any other brand's similarly priced board ... hard to say, really. You'll find people online who never touch Gigabyte because of bad experiences with their baords, in teh same way you find people who feel the same way about ASUS, MSI, HP Laptops (that's my "never again" purchase), XFX graphics cards ... basically someone somewhere will have had a bad experience with every component under the sun.

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    Re: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    Here's their tech spec page http://www.gigabyte.com/microsite/98...-durable-1.htm

    I used one of these for a mates build. Perfectly good motherboard. As for the claims; Well I'm always suspicious of unlabelled axis' on graphs, but basically they've swapped all the little 1p parts you need to bolt onto a board to make it work for 2p versions. Which is almost exactly what you do to make an "Ultra overclocker" board too, funnily enough. The 2x copper substrate, nice idea, sure it doesn't do any damage, but 0.035mm of copper will not revolutionise your computing experience.

    Ultra durable. No. A Challenger II is ultra durable. NORAD is ultra durable. These are just some pretty nice mid range motherboards.

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    Not a good person scaryjim's Avatar
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    Re: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    Oooh, I got it almost all right That was off the top of my head, too. Clearly, I should be a motherboard manufacturer's advertising exec

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    Re: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    I seem to remember when they first started the Extra copper in the board feature, They sang it praises saying it would help cooling.

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    Re: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    Always good to see people jumping on the 'it's marketing bandwagon' without doing any research

    Nice link Chuck, but even that doesn't seem to explain all the Ultra-Durable range - they should update the page.

    UD1 = Was used to show it used solid state caps
    UD2 = Has ferrite core chokes
    UD3 = More copper / layers in the PCB
    UD4 = An added fibreglass material on the PCB to help against humidity and a few other things. They have components that handle ESD better and a surge protection chip built in.
    UD5 = Uses IR3550 PowIRstage ICs. Higher Amp rating, so less phases needed which means lower power requirements. Also obviously cooler.

    AnAndTech points out this about UD5:

    The other issue, which will hit all users, is the cost of implementing such a technology. It does not come cheap. While at Computex, I was quoted that for the high-end motherboards that will initially use these ICs, the power delivery sub-system alone can cost as much as a low-end consumer motherboard. That means on designs such as the X79S-UP5, the power delivery section could cost as much as $80 of the boards overall cost to build.
    The price difference between them can be huge, so buy what you need. All have their advantages in their own way, it's not just marketing.
    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    And by trying to force me to like small pants, they've alienated me.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    Always good to see people jumping on the 'it's marketing bandwagon' without doing any research

    Nice link Chuck, but even that doesn't seem to explain all the Ultra-Durable range - they should update the page.

    UD1 = Was used to show it used solid state caps
    UD2 = Has ferrite core chokes
    UD3 = More copper / layers in the PCB
    UD4 = An added fibreglass material on the PCB to help against humidity and a few other things. They have components that handle ESD better and a surge protection chip built in.
    UD5 = Uses IR3550 PowIRstage ICs. Higher Amp rating, so less phases needed which means lower power requirements. Also obviously cooler.

    AnAndTech points out this about UD5:



    The price difference between them can be huge, so buy what you need. All have their advantages in their own way, it's not just marketing.
    So what about UD7?
    I have a UD5 Board, had no idea that's what it was about I just got it for the internal and external i/o. I always thought that was just the number they used to differentiate the different boards inthe range.

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    Re: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    Quote Originally Posted by Biscuit View Post
    So what about UD7?
    AFAIK, there is no Ultra Durable 7. Do you mean the seven series?

    Ultra Durable 5 has only just been released: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6231/g...e-c606-chipset

    Quote Originally Posted by Biscuit View Post
    I have a UD5 Board, had no idea that's what it was about I just got it for the internal and external i/o. I always thought that was just the number they used to differentiate the different boards inthe range.
    For the most part that's what they do, but the higher the number the more low level features it has although these often go hand in hand with the 'class' of board. For example, you don't tend to find UD5 on a low end office / normal home user mobo.

    edit - I just found this god awful video that I had to share
    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    And by trying to force me to like small pants, they've alienated me.

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    Re: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    It's still marketing the sooner we stop being cattle the better..the fact is you get what you pay for so there'll be better/more features as you climb up.

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    Re: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    AFAIK, there is no Ultra Durable 7. Do you mean the seven series?

    Ultra Durable 5 has only just been released: http://www.anandtech.com/show/6231/g...e-c606-chipset
    There may not be an 'Ultra Durable 7' category, but UD7 (and UD9, for that matter) boards do exist.
    Kalniel: "Nice review Tarinder - would it be possible to get a picture of the case when the components are installed (with the side off obviously)?"
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    for all intents it seems to be the same card minus some gays name on it and a shielded cover ? with OEM added to it - GoNz0.

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    Re: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    Quote Originally Posted by Terbinator View Post
    There may not be an 'Ultra Durable 7' category, but UD7 (and UD9, for that matter) boards do exist.
    Yes, the UD7 and 9 are out there, but that's their series. Nothing to do with Ultra Durable.

    Bad naming on behalf of Gigabyte.
    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    And by trying to force me to like small pants, they've alienated me.

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    Re: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    I have no doubt that the majority of features that are implemented on motherboards do have some advantage over a board without them but, You have to ask if it will benefit you.

    For example, Gigabyte were the first people(iirc) to produce boards with 'dual bios' and it was of benefit to people who might be flashing to the latest bios revisions. However, To a normal end user it would be of little or no benefit at all.
    Nowdays in my opinion 'dual bios' is pretty much pointless as you can recover a bad flash using a USB stick.

    The only things I really want as a feature on a new board or graphics card are solid Caps as I've had boards with leaking caps before.

    Even if they could produce a motherboard with a guaranteed life of 10 years, I'd not bother buying it as I upgrade at 5 years.

    I think what you have to ask yourself is what you need from a board and then buy one that fills those requirements.

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    The Old Fox csgohan4's Avatar
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    Re: Is Gigabyte's Ultra Durable whatever just buzzwordy crap?

    All Gimmicks mostly like the high durability claims. However it will make your board more sellable when you sell it.
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