TechRadar Verdict
A good value Bulldozer-ready motherboard with excellent extras, but it may be surpassed later
Pros
- +
Good value
- +
Excellent features for the price
- +
Back-up Bios
- +
Bulldozer supported
Cons
- -
Single card graphics only
- -
Bulldozer delayed
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Looking to build a new PC based around an AMD Phenom processor? No, us neither, but that's not the point about AMD's recent refresh of its motherboard chipsets. What makes them interesting is the news that they bring: boards such as this 970A-UD3 from Gigabyte are ready for the soon-to-be-launched Bulldozer CPUs.
Unfortunately, Bulldozer is a completely new chip and almost inevitably ran into manufacturing problems. So it's been delayed rather beyond the original summer launch date.
Despite many structural similarities, the AMD 970 chipset isn't as fast as the higher end 990X and 990FX. The differences are perhaps over-amplified in the PCMark result, although in real life you won't be missing out on much performance by opting for this board.