Looking for feedback on a Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 motherboard

[greeners]

Had a motherboard fail on me today and I have been hunting around for a replacement.

I saw the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 mentioned on Tom's Hardware and thought I would ask here to see if anyone had tried it for mining.

It has Expansion 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 (x16, x8) and 3 x  PCI Express x1 so potential of running 5 GPUs.

Thanks!

[dreamwatcher]

I am using a earlier model of the Gigabyte UD3 series to mine now, and it works just fine. I have used various Gigabyte products through the years and never had a bad experience.

The UD3 line is Gigabyte's series that uses higher quality parts and normally offer a 3 year warranty.

Just a reminder, if you go 4+ GPU, use at least a couple of extenders that have the extra power connection (The ones with the Molex plug). PCI-E spec dictates that PCI-E slots supply up to 75 watts of power and once you get in the 4+ gpu range, you can cause some serious damage to your MB if the all GPUs are taking advantage that spec rather than just pulling all the heavy current requirements from their auxiliary power connectors.

[greeners]

Thanks mate!

[flatronw]

You should be aware that generally Gigabyte M/boards have problems with booting from Linux based USB sticks. This is well documented on this Forum. There are many various ways around it but it seems to be a recurring problem that is never 100% solved. There are enough issue's in setting up a miner with-out being sidetracked with Boot problems.
If you can be 100% sure you will never ever want to use a Linux USB boot stick then it is not an issue.

[LittleDigger]

Had a motherboard fail on me today and I have been hunting around for a replacement.

I saw the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 mentioned on Tom's Hardware and thought I would ask here to see if anyone had tried it for mining.

It has Expansion 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 (x16, x8) and 3 x  PCI Express x1 so potential of running 5 GPUs.

Thanks!

It took me a long time time figure out how to get Ubuntu to boot from a USB on a gigabyte board but when I did I posted it here

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=90858.0

Not sure the first format is neccesary, and I think the need to go into the boot menu every time you boot up with the stick is what trips people up.

[flatronw]

Had a motherboard fail on me today and I have been hunting around for a replacement.

I saw the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 mentioned on Tom's Hardware and thought I would ask here to see if anyone had tried it for mining.

It has Expansion 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 (x16, x8) and 3 x  PCI Express x1 so potential of running 5 GPUs.

Thanks!

It took me a long time time figure out how to get Ubuntu to boot from a USB on a gigabyte board but when I did I posted it here

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=90858.0

Not sure the first format is neccesary, and I think the need to go into the boot menu every time you boot up with the stick is what trips people up.

Right, what I understand from your link is that even after all that messing about, the Gigabyte board in question will still not boot from a Linux USB stick without "user-intervention".
Lets be clear -- even if you have the Bios set to "Re-Start on reconnection of AC power" it will not Boot by itself when AC power come back on. Somebody has to be there to play with the Bios to the damn thing to Boot up into Linux!! I am just checking the Calender I believe it is the year 2012

Another interesting quirk from the Gigabyte boys in Taipei is the latest F8 Bios for the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5
(see this link https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88672.0  if you fancy plugging USB Windows Boot sticks with ATIFlash on them into that one).

With all the well documented issues, why would a Noob want to deal with one of these Gigabyte boards when there so many other reliable options??

[greeners]

I'll give the board a go and see how it does. 

I can always repurpose the board for a Freenas server if it ends up being a problem child.

[LittleDigger]

Had a motherboard fail on me today and I have been hunting around for a replacement.

I saw the Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 mentioned on Tom's Hardware and thought I would ask here to see if anyone had tried it for mining.

It has Expansion 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 (x16, x8) and 3 x  PCI Express x1 so potential of running 5 GPUs.

Thanks!

It took me a long time time figure out how to get Ubuntu to boot from a USB on a gigabyte board but when I did I posted it here

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=90858.0

Not sure the first format is neccesary, and I think the need to go into the boot menu every time you boot up with the stick is what trips people up.

Right, what I understand from your link is that even after all that messing about, the Gigabyte board in question will still not boot from a Linux USB stick without "user-intervention".
Lets be clear -- even if you have the Bios set to "Re-Start on reconnection of AC power" it will not Boot by itself when AC power come back on. Somebody has to be there to play with the Bios to the damn thing to Boot up into Linux!! I am just checking the Calender I believe it is the year 2012

Another interesting quirk from the Gigabyte boys in Taipei is the latest F8 Bios for the Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5
(see this link https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88672.0  if you fancy plugging USB Windows Boot sticks with ATIFlash on them into that one).

With all the well documented issues, why would a Noob want to deal with one of these Gigabyte boards when there so many other reliable options??

The board that I have, a GA-MA78GM-US2H, is sold and waiting to upgrade a computer.. Two Asus F1A55-M-LX-PLUS's are inbound.. I consider it most fortunate that I didn't buy Gigabyte for my first experimental rigs.. Still I wanted to make sure I knew how to do what needed to be done so those rigs would be online ASAP, and that meant dealing with the gigabyte board.. Of course when BFL pumps out ASICS GPU mining will be pretty much obsolete anyway.