Gigabyte 880GMA-UD2H review

One of the cheapest USB3 and SATA III enabled motherboards we've ever reviewed and a great choice for building a capable and compact PC.
Written By K.G. Orphanides
Published on 25 August 2010

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Gigabyte 880GMA-UD2H
Our rating
Reviewed price £76 inc VAT

Despite being a compact microATX board, Gigabytes 880GMA-UD2H packs in plenty of features. As well as USB3 and SATA III, it has two PCI-E x16 slots, but theyre so close together that inserting a dual-height graphics card in one will prevent you from putting anything in the other. Theres also a PCI-E x1 slot and a PCI slot. Typically for a microATX board, everythings a little cramped, so you’ll need to take care and plan your build carefully. There are five SATA III connectors and an IDE connector for PATA hard disks.

Gigabyte 880GMA-UD2H
At the back there are two USB3 ports and four USB ports – up to six more USB ports on brackets or front panel connectors can be added via three onboard headers. Theres also an eSATA port and a FireWire port, along with an internal FireWire header. A PS/2 port means that you dont have to connect both mouse and keyboard to one of your precious USB ports. The onboard ATI Radeon HD 4250 graphics processor has DVI, VGA and HDMI outputs, while the Realtek audio processor can output 7.1 surround sound from six analogue stereo ports or an optical S/PDIF output.

A score of 102 in our benchmark tests is about what we’d expect from an AM3 board. At £76, the 880GMA-UD2H isnt as much of a bargain as Asuss M4A785D-M Pro, which performed a little better in our tests and costs £20 less, but youll be hard-pressed to find an AM3 motherboard with SATA III and USB3 for less. However, unless you’re building a compact system, the extra upgradability of the Asus M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 ATX board wins it by a hair.

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