Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P P45 Motherboard Review

BIOS Rundown

When we reviewed the high-end EP45-DQ6 and EP45T-EXTREME motherboards, we noted that GIGABYTE had made some marked improvements in the BIOS department, both in terms of layout and functionality. Well we are pleased to report that these improvements have made their way to this new mainstream model.


The initial selection screen should be broadly familiar to anyone who has used an Award-based motherboard in the past, and it conveniently lists the GIGABYTE-specific MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) section as the first option.


When you open the M.I.T. section you are greeted with the essential CPU and memory clock control options: CPU multiplier, front side bus, PCI-E bus, northbridge latch, memory multiplier, etc. As you scroll down, the motherboard voltage options are revealed, and nearly every voltage setting that a serious overclocker needs is present and accounted for. We say nearly every voltage option, because the CPU Reference2 setting is missing. The more perceptive among you should quickly notice the two newest options that have made their way into this BIOS, namely the Load-Line Calibration (LLC) and ICH Core (ie: southbridge) voltage settings. ICH Core is not particularly important, at least we have never had to tweak it on any P45 motherboard, but LLC is a terrific feature that eliminates droopage on the CPU vCORE. We are pleased to see that GIGABYTE is listening to user demands, and we will take a closer look at this feature in our Voltage Regulation section.

Now not only are there a lot of voltage options, but the individual adjustments are extremely liberal as you can see below:


What can we say? This is an overclocking friendly BIOS and these abundant voltage options should satisfy everyone. Just make sure that you use these voltages sensibly, as Gigabyte have provided enough leeway for you to damage any and all components.

Now you may have noticed the “Advanced Timing Control” option in the third screenshot, this is where most of the advanced memory settings are located:


This sub-menu gives you access to some of the important sub-timings, but most importantly reveals four more sub-menus. In the “Timings Settings” menus, you get access to the Static tRead Value, which is Gigabyte’s word for the all-important tRD or Performance Level. If you are particularly knowledgeable, you can also tweak the tRD phase adjustment and the DIMM Clock Skews. In the “Driving Settings” menus, we can adjust the memory driving strength, which is a very rare option to find in most BIOSes. Gigabyte has wisely chosen to provide Drive Strength Profiles (667/800/1066/OC-1200/OC-1333), which takes the guess work out of these fairly obscure options.

By adding all these extra options, Gigabyte has definitely outfitted the mainstream EP45-UD3P with some elite settings, and it should satisfy all but the most fanatical BIOS tweakers.


Here we have the Advanced BIOS Features section, which allows you to set boot device priority, enable/disable Intel’s various CPU-specific technologies, and tweak a few other boot-up related settings. The Integrated Peripherals section allows you to enable/disable all of the various onboard devices (RAID, audio, USB, FireWire, LAN, etc).


The PC Health Status section is a slight disappointment as there is a lack of voltages and temperatures being reported. Having said that, nearly all motherboards on the market right now lack thorough temperature and voltage readouts. The second screen enables/disables the Infineon Trusted Platform Module (TPM), and we can’t help but wonder why they did not simply add this option to the Integrated Peripherals section.


This last screenshot is of the Q-Flash utility which is accessed via the F8 key. Since Q-Flash is built right into the BIOS and it can read files directly from a USB flash drive, BIOS flashing is now a simple and quick procedure. We have never experienced an issue with this well implemented tool, and it has certainly made our lives a little less stressful.

Overall, Gigabyte have done a great job with this BIOS. The MB Intelligent Tweaker section is simply superb and aside from the missing CPU Reference2 option, it has every feature that we would expect in a motherboard of this caliber. On a side note, as we stated in our EP45-DQ6 review, we do still find the BIOS to be a bit sluggish at times, occasionally hesitating to scroll up or down without any discernible cause.