Not to get too personal, but is there anyone else out there playing with their Zambezi? I have been since about three days since their release and have come to a few conclusions about the Bulldozer CPUs. First is that the chip has suffered more from broken expectations than it has from performance. Looked at objectively, there are a number of positives for the Bulldozer. After all it is priced appropriately, overclocks like a bat out of hell, and excels at heavily threaded applications (I look forward to your letters).

As we sit ostensibly on the verge of the new and hopefully improved incarnation of the Bulldozer architecture, I thought we would take a look at a high-end home for the Bulldozer chip to get the most out of it. AMD has reportedly announced that it will be sticking with the AM3+ socket for Piledriver, and talk of a new 1090/1070 chipset has gone quiet for some time. Gigabyte was quick out of the gates with what it intended to be the definitive enthusiast board. Wth a slick looking black and gold color scheme and aimed entirely at the overclocking, multi-GPU crowd, a feature set that would make the most rabid computer OCD nerd drool, the 990-FXA-UD7 is also the only AM3+ board with native 4-way Crossfire and SLI capability. In a bit of a wrinkle, there are two almost identical versions of this board with the exception of one BIOS feature, but what a difference that single feature makes to the enthusiast. So I will wrap up my ramblings and present you with a look at the Gigabyte GA-990-FXA-UD7.