Layout
The Gigabyte X99-UD4 comes with an ATX form factor,
which makes the board fit in the vast majority of cases. Having a look at the
design reveals, there is a black matte PCB and there are four grey DIMM slots.
As soon as the board is up and running you will notice the orange backlight with
the PCH cooler, which actually looks pretty decent. On another note you can have
a look at the sheer number of features and additional chips on this motherboard
and you will notice, that there aren't too many. On one hand, this is helping
keep the board clean and on the other hand this is one of the cheapest X99
boards you can buy.
Gigabyte equipped the X99-UD with a digital 6+4 phase power design.
There is a total of six phases to stably supply the CPU with power and there are
Chips from International Rectifier controling the signals. In the case of the
DIMM slots there are four more phases which are also controlled by chips from
International Rectifier.
Totally you'll find eight DIMM-slots on the Gigabyte X99-UD4.
Officially supported are memory clock speeds of up to DDR4-3000MHz and more. If all
the slots are equipped with 8 Gigabyte modules, you can have a maximum of 64
Gigabyte memory on this motherboard. There is also enough space around the CPU
socket, to install large CPU coolers.
Southbridge as well as current converters are
being held at adequate temperatures via two passive cooling blocks. Booth blocks
are rather well-sized and they've been connected to eachother using a heatpipe. Apart
from that the cooling blocks have been very well manufactured. On top of that,
the PCH cooler received a backlight, which in our opinion looks really nice.