GIGABYTE X299 Designare EX Motherboard Review

UEFI Features

GIGABYTE bundled the latest version of their UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) implementation with the X299 Designare EX motherboard. The UEFI offers full keyboard and mouse support while using the BIOS pages. By default, the user sees the Easy mode interface when entering the UEFI. The Classic mode screens accessible via the Classic button at the upper right corner of the screen or by hitting the F2 function key. Classic mode screens can be set for the default user interface via the UEFI BIOS tab as well.

GIGABYTE's UEFI is both responsive and easy to use with almost no lag or questionable click-space evident anywhere. The UEFI is designed in an intuitive manner so that both novice and advance users can quickly find what they are looking for. The Easy Mode screen lays out everything in a highly readable format, while the Classic mode tabbed layout displays as you would expect from a traditional BIOS. GIGABYTE also gives you the ability to taken screen captures from within the BIOS by pressing the F12 key with those screen-caps saved in a 1024×768 bitmap format to an attached USB device.

UEFI Notable Features

GIGABYTE continued to revise their UEFI with the X299 motherboard series. The UEFI splits its features across two modes – Easy mode and Classic mode. Easy mode displays various system information and statistics in a tile interface while the Classic mode interface is more reminiscent of the traditional tabbed layout. GIGABYTE enhanced their UEFI with a graphical fan tuning interface, a full featured LED configuration interface (RGB Fusion), a graphical BIOS flash interface, and several functional enhancements specific to the Skylake-X and Kaby Lake-X processor lines.

Easy Mode interface

The Easy Mode interface organizes system data and settings into tiles across the page in an easy-to-read manner for those users who do not want to be bothered with the labyrinth of the Classic mode tabbed interface. Most commonly used settings, including boot sequence, EZ OC, and Smart Fan 5, are readily accessible from within the Easy Mode page.

Classic mode interface

The Classic mode interface offers advanced users access to the more traditional tabbed interface with its logically grouped system settings and configuration features. GIGABYTE enhanced this interface with popout side and bottom menus. The right side popout menu displays real-time system statistics, including CPU, memory, and voltage settings. The bottom pop out menu displays a quick menu interface for accessing Easy Mode, the UEFI language settings, Q-Flash, and Smart Fan functions.

Q-Flash settings page

The Q-Flash settings page gives the user a GUI for updating the board's BIOS as well as saving the current BIOS to an attached USB device. The Q-Flash configuration page is accessed by clicking on the Smart Fan button in the pop out menu within the Classic mode interface, the Smart Fan button in the upper right corner of the Easy Mode interface, or pressing the F8 function key.

Smart Fan 5 configuration page

The Smart Fan 5 configuration page allows for graphical configuration of fan operation based on predefined threshold levels. The page offers an easy to user visualization with settings available for setting tiered fan speeds based on tied temperature thresholds, as well as temperature-based warning and fan fail warning configuration. The Smart Fan configuration page is accessed by clicking on the Smart Fan button in the pop out menu or clicking the Smart Fan 5 Settings link on the M.I.T. tab within the Classic mode interface, or the Smart Fan button in the upper right corner of the Easy Mode interface.

Easy mode, Save Profiles popup

Easy mode, Load Profiles popup

GIGABYTE allows for storing up to eight UEFI profiles through the Save Profiles and Load Profiles functions within the Easy Mode interface (via function keys) and the Save & Exit tab in the Classic mode interface. The saved profiles contain all user configured settings from the UEFI, and can be saved to or restored from any attached storage device. The Save Profiles popup can be accessed by pressing the F3 function key. The Load Profiles popup can be invoked by pressing the F4 function key.

Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Frequency Settings page

The Advanced Frequency Settings page accessed from the link on the M.I.T. tab houses the settings controlling the CPU and memory ratio settings. GIGABYTE enhanced this page by including bus speed settings for the PCIe bus, allowing for independent PCIe bus frequency setting from that of the CPU BCLK frequency.

Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Frequency Settings page, Advanced CPU Core Settings page

The Advanced CPU Core Settings page, accessed via the the link on Advanced Frequency Settings page, contains Expert-level CPU settings, including the Flex Ratio and Turbo ratio control settings. Introduced for the Intel X-series processors is the AVX Offset and AVX 512 settings, giving the user the ability to reduce the CPU core ratio when running programs using the AVX and/or AVX 512 instruction sets. This is to reduce processor heat since AVX processing is some of the most processor intensive operations. The Turbo Residency Tweak LUTX settings allow for user configuration of the Turbo residency settings. The CLR (MESH) Ratio settings configures the core interconnect bus frequency. Intel replaced their Uncore / Ring bus with a Mesh-based architecture with the X-series processors.

Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Frequency Settings page, Advanced CPU Core Settings page continued

Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Frequency Settings page, Advanced CPU Core Settings page continued

The Turbo Per Core Limit Control settings allow for per core ratio ceilings when Turbo mode is active. The Intel(R) Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 setting controls the Turbo Boost 3 technology built into the X-series processors, allowing for two cores to run at speeds faster than the others under high utilization scenarios. Similarly, the Intel(R) Speed Shift Technology allows for the cores to run faster and ramp up to full speed more quickly for better system response to high utilization scenarios. GIGABYTE enhanced the Enhanced Multi-Core Performance setting that forces all cores to run at the Turbo Boost 3.0 speed, instead of just two cores. This functionality is disabled when set to Auto and must be set to Enabled to become functional.

Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Voltage Settings page

Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Voltage Settings, CPU Core Voltage Control page

The CPU Core Voltage Control page, accessed via the the link on Advanced Voltage Control Settings page, houses CPU-specific voltage settings for all CPU-integrated subsystems. Intel X-series CPU-specific settings include the CPU Mesh Voltage option, which controls the voltage for the mesh-based processor interconnect architecture.

Classic mode, Peripherals tab

The Peripherals tab centralizes control settings for all motherboard integrated components (read as non-CPU). New additions to this page, introduced by GIGABYTE to the HDET platform with the X299 chipset UEFI, include the RGB Fusion settings for fine-grain control over the integrated RGB LEDs.

Classic mode, Peripherals tab, RGB Fusion page

The RGB Fusion settings page, access from the link on the Peripherals tab, give the user a graphical interface from which to configure operating mode and color of the board's integrated RGB LEDs as well as RGB/RGBW LED strips connected to the RGBW 12V header. The UEFI integrated interface allows for setting the LED activity to one of five modes as well as in a multitude of colors. Supported modes included Pulse Mode, Color Cycle, Static Mode, Flash Mode, and Double Flash.

Classic mode, Peripherals tab, SATA And RST Configuration page

Classic mode, Peripherals tab, SATA And RST Configuration page, iRSTe settings

With the X-series processors and X299 board line, GIGABYTE exposed additional Intel RAID-based functionality to support the VROC functionality integrated into the processors and chipset. The SATA Mode Selection setting was further enhanced with a setting for Optane-enabled RAID mode (named Intel RST With Intel Optane System Acceleration) with an Optane-enabled M.2 drive installed into one of the on board M.2 ports.

Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Memory Settings page

Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Memory Settings, Channel Memory Sub Timings page

The Channel X Memory Sub Timings pages house channel specific memory timing settings for the board. There are a total of four pages, one each for the A / B / C / D memory channels.

Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Voltage Settings, Advanced Power Settings page

The Advanced Power Settings page houses processor VRM settings, controlling the current operation state of the digital power delivery system.

Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Voltage Settings, Chipset Voltage Control page

The Chipset Voltage Control page houses teh Intel X299 Chipset-related voltage settings.

Classic mode, M.I.T. tab, Advanced Voltage Settings, DRAM Voltage Control page

The DRAM Voltage Control page houses all memory-related voltage settings for all channel sets (both the A/B and C/D channel sets).

Classic mode, Save & Exit tab

The Save & Exit tab contains the Boot Override options as well as the save and load profile options while the user is in Classic mode.