**Linus Tech Tips Review: Gigabyte Ultra Durable 4 Plus APU Motherboard**

The Gigabyte Ultra Durable 4 Plus is an AMD-based motherboard designed for enthusiasts who want to overclock their platform. The board features a Nichicon Pro Audio Capacitor, onboard gain switches that allow for selective amplification of the audio signal, and a gold shield over the audio processor. While the benefits of these features are not directly related to improved audio quality, they do reduce electrical interference and provide additional protection against damage.

The motherboard also includes an isolated PCB section, which has become a popular method among motherboard manufacturers to minimize electromagnetic interference. This design choice is aimed at reducing radio-frequency interference (RFI) and electrostatic discharge (ESD) shocks. The board's gold-plated 7.1 audio ports are designed to improve the durability of the connectors over time.

The rear I/O section features a USB 2 connector with a separate power source, designed to minimize power fluctuations. This feature is particularly useful for users who connect external devices such as an ODAC or file E10, which require stable power supply. The motherboard also includes four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, PS/2 keyboard and mouse combo port, VGA DVI HDMI gigabit Ethernet, and optical audio out.

One of the unique features of this board is its onboard graphics capabilities. With a CAVAR Apu installed, the motherboard supports 4K output at 30 Hz, which is still great for setting up a media playback box for 4K TVs. The APU's HDMI 1.48 connector provides a stable and high-bandwidth interface for the graphics card.

**Overclocking Performance**

In our overclocked performance test, we applied 1.52V to the CAVAR Apu, which resulted in significant improvements over the stock numbers. The CPU was running at 4.4 GHz, while the graphics core was clocked at 900 MHz. With this setup, we achieved impressive results in various benchmarks.

The star swarm benchmark showed a huge improvement due to the ability to overclock the graphics core. Similarly, when we overclocked the memory in Thief, we saw significant jumps in performance. When combining these two aspects of overclocking, the platform becomes even more critical for enthusiasts who want to squeeze every last bit of performance out of their CAVAR Apu.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, the Gigabyte Ultra Durable 4 Plus is a solid choice for enthusiasts who want to build an AMD-based system. With its unique features such as onboard graphics capabilities and overclocking-friendly design, it's an excellent platform for those who want to push the limits of their CAVAR Apu. While the pricing of this board may be higher than some other options, the benefits it provides make it a worthwhile investment for enthusiasts.

**Specifications**

* Motherboard Form Factor: ATX

* Chipset: AMD APU (CAVAR)

* CPU Overclocking: Supported

* GPU Overclocking: Supported

* RAM Support: DDR4

* Storage Support: SATA 6Gb/s, M.2 NVMe

* Audio Support: High-quality audio with onboard gain switches

* I/O Ports: USB 2, USB 3, PS/2, VGA DVI HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, Optical Audio Out

**Recommendation**

If you're in the market for a CAVAR-based system and want to overclock your platform, the Gigabyte Ultra Durable 4 Plus is an excellent choice. Its unique features and solid design make it a great option for enthusiasts who want to push the limits of their APU. With its competitive pricing and impressive performance, this motherboard is definitely worth considering.

**Disclaimer**

The author of this review cannot be held responsible for any damage caused by overclocking or improper use of the motherboard. Always follow proper safety precautions when working with electronic components, and consult the user manual before attempting to overclock your system.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwith its Factory tuning and data center DNA an Intel 730 series SSD is an amazing choice for gamers and performance enthusiasts all right so this is about as expensive as it gets for a motherboard that's intended for a platform that's all about the performance of its onboard Graphics the question then is how can you justify it when motherboards all pretty much perform the same if you look at purey puu or video card benchmarks well for one thing it looks better with gigabyte signature matte black PCB and vibrant green accent G1 series color scheme and for another it has more features than most other fm2 plus boards some that on the Intel motherboard side of things you'd have to spend another 40 bucks on a G1 sniper z5s if you wanted to get more on those later though first we'll do what's included in the box and a physical tour of the board so inside you find an IO shield for cables and a manual that's it for the board at its heart we find an fm2 plus socket with support for the latest AMD cavar apus and last generation fm2 based apus as well the vrm power delivery and cooling setup around it is fairly mundane but amd's latest CPUs aren't the power Hogs that the old ones were so it's not a concern at all speaking of power the 8 Pin and 24 pin connectors are in their ideal location for easy Cable Management in most cases and over here we've got four slots for dual Channel DDR3 RAM with support for up to 2400 MHz RAM and with support for or XMP memory profiles the board actually supports up to 64 gigs of RAM with theoretical 16 gig unbuffered dims front USB 3 is over on the right hand Edge the year's a self Bridge heat SN down here that covers up your chipset and you've got sata 3 ports kind of positioned around it in a location that I guess is not really ideal but it's not bad either because all the ones coming straight out of the board are going to be out of the way of a dual slot graphics card in the bottom slot and next to it you've only got PCI slots most PCI cards aren't that long we've also got gigabyte signature dual bios down here with two physical chips so even if you brick it in the middle of a flash you are still good to go and finally you've got two front usb2 connectors to go along with that front USB 3 I'd say the PCI slot layout is actually very good it's Crossfire compatible but not SLI this board is and you can install up to two dual slot graphics cards with two pcie 1X slots and one PCI slot left which is a great mix for what I would call like an entry-level performance oriented board the fan headers are located here here here and here I'm a little bit disappointed that we don't have any down at the bottom of the board but it's your mileage may vary depending on the layout of your case and now I think we got to get into the sound implementation which actually takes up most of the space on gigabytes webpage for this board it features a realtech ALC 898 codec which is quite similar to the alc889 that Tom's Hardware tested against a $2,000 DAC and found it to perform quite similarly so we can't criticize their choice of components here they've also included an isolated PCB section which has become a popular method of reducing electrical interference among motherboard manufacturers and it's also designed to reduce interference with a gold shield over the audio processor I haven't seen it demonstrated that these type of shields provide a tangible benefit but hey it's there looks cool couldn't be bad so there you go stuff you're more likely to notice in actual use is gigabytes use of nichon pro audio capacitors they're onboard gain switches that allow you to select either a 2 and 1/2x or 6X amplification mode and their upgradable opamp socket most people will never use this last feature and it's not something I really even really recommend messing around with but if you want to try out different op amps and see how they color the output sound then you've got that flexibility moving up to the rear iio we find the goldplated 7.1 audio ports please note this doesn't improve audio quality directly but it can make the ports last longer over time after many insertions and the last audio Centric feature on the board which isn't directly related to the onboard audio but may be important for folks using external Dack such as an odac or a file E10 and that's a special USB 2 connector right here on the back with gold plating which in in itself doesn't matter at all but more importantly a separate power source that's designed to minimize power flu fluctuations fluctuations on the back we've also got the usual IO so we've got four USB 2.0 ports in addition to the audio one 2 USB 3.0 ports PS2 keyboard mouse combo Port VGA DVI HDMI gigabit Ethernet and of course the audio ports that I mentioned before including optical audio out it should be noted that onboard Graphics is something special on amd's latest platform and over its HDMI 1.48 connector with a cavar Apu installed the board will support 4K output but only at 30 HZ which is still great if you're looking to set up a media Playback box for your 4K TV and the last interesting point about the board before we get into our overclocked performance test are the things that unfortunately I can't validate but what I will say is that if gigabytes Ultra durable 4 plus design does improve the board's resiliency against high humidity and electrostatic discharge shocks then that's something you would want on your board so now without further Ado I'm going to hand this off to Luke who took this board for a spin to give us an idea of what we can achieve by overclocking both the CPU and GPU component of a cavar Apu can we justify a gaming Centric board on this value optimized platform I guess we'll find out all right guys if we're if we're reviewing a graphics card we review it overclocked and we recommend that everyone overclocks their graphics card on the way show we talked about this a lot and everything but we're not that aggressive about it with CPUs and there's a reason for that but with this what we're overclocking is an APU it is both graphics and processor in the same thing and we highly suggest overclocking it and that is why these numbers are going to be overclocked we're running the system at 4.4 GHz on the processor side on the graphic side it's running at 900 MHz and we applied 1.52 5 volts to it to get these numbers I could probably get that voltage number lower just I'm preparing for the W show right now and don't have a ton of time as you can see with our star swarm and benchmarks there's a really big Improvement due to being able to overclock the graphics core that much it's a really big really big jump over the stock numbers and then in Thief when we're overclocking memory which is actually completely different you see huge jumps again if you combine those two it's even more overclocking on this platform is very important if you're buying a cavar Apu I almost said CPU there if you're buying a cavar Apu you need to overclock your platform so that was fun guys like and share this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it and leave a comment on the Linus Tech tips Forum Linked In the video description if you want to discuss this product you want to know the pricing of this product or you have any constructive criticism for me and my team also Linked In the video description is our support link with options to buy cool t-shirts like this one give us a monthly contribution or give us a kickback whenever you buy random junk on Amazon check it out if you enjoy our videos it helps us out a whole bunch and as always guys thank you for watching and don't forget to subscribewith its Factory tuning and data center DNA an Intel 730 series SSD is an amazing choice for gamers and performance enthusiasts all right so this is about as expensive as it gets for a motherboard that's intended for a platform that's all about the performance of its onboard Graphics the question then is how can you justify it when motherboards all pretty much perform the same if you look at purey puu or video card benchmarks well for one thing it looks better with gigabyte signature matte black PCB and vibrant green accent G1 series color scheme and for another it has more features than most other fm2 plus boards some that on the Intel motherboard side of things you'd have to spend another 40 bucks on a G1 sniper z5s if you wanted to get more on those later though first we'll do what's included in the box and a physical tour of the board so inside you find an IO shield for cables and a manual that's it for the board at its heart we find an fm2 plus socket with support for the latest AMD cavar apus and last generation fm2 based apus as well the vrm power delivery and cooling setup around it is fairly mundane but amd's latest CPUs aren't the power Hogs that the old ones were so it's not a concern at all speaking of power the 8 Pin and 24 pin connectors are in their ideal location for easy Cable Management in most cases and over here we've got four slots for dual Channel DDR3 RAM with support for up to 2400 MHz RAM and with support for or XMP memory profiles the board actually supports up to 64 gigs of RAM with theoretical 16 gig unbuffered dims front USB 3 is over on the right hand Edge the year's a self Bridge heat SN down here that covers up your chipset and you've got sata 3 ports kind of positioned around it in a location that I guess is not really ideal but it's not bad either because all the ones coming straight out of the board are going to be out of the way of a dual slot graphics card in the bottom slot and next to it you've only got PCI slots most PCI cards aren't that long we've also got gigabyte signature dual bios down here with two physical chips so even if you brick it in the middle of a flash you are still good to go and finally you've got two front usb2 connectors to go along with that front USB 3 I'd say the PCI slot layout is actually very good it's Crossfire compatible but not SLI this board is and you can install up to two dual slot graphics cards with two pcie 1X slots and one PCI slot left which is a great mix for what I would call like an entry-level performance oriented board the fan headers are located here here here and here I'm a little bit disappointed that we don't have any down at the bottom of the board but it's your mileage may vary depending on the layout of your case and now I think we got to get into the sound implementation which actually takes up most of the space on gigabytes webpage for this board it features a realtech ALC 898 codec which is quite similar to the alc889 that Tom's Hardware tested against a $2,000 DAC and found it to perform quite similarly so we can't criticize their choice of components here they've also included an isolated PCB section which has become a popular method of reducing electrical interference among motherboard manufacturers and it's also designed to reduce interference with a gold shield over the audio processor I haven't seen it demonstrated that these type of shields provide a tangible benefit but hey it's there looks cool couldn't be bad so there you go stuff you're more likely to notice in actual use is gigabytes use of nichon pro audio capacitors they're onboard gain switches that allow you to select either a 2 and 1/2x or 6X amplification mode and their upgradable opamp socket most people will never use this last feature and it's not something I really even really recommend messing around with but if you want to try out different op amps and see how they color the output sound then you've got that flexibility moving up to the rear iio we find the goldplated 7.1 audio ports please note this doesn't improve audio quality directly but it can make the ports last longer over time after many insertions and the last audio Centric feature on the board which isn't directly related to the onboard audio but may be important for folks using external Dack such as an odac or a file E10 and that's a special USB 2 connector right here on the back with gold plating which in in itself doesn't matter at all but more importantly a separate power source that's designed to minimize power flu fluctuations fluctuations on the back we've also got the usual IO so we've got four USB 2.0 ports in addition to the audio one 2 USB 3.0 ports PS2 keyboard mouse combo Port VGA DVI HDMI gigabit Ethernet and of course the audio ports that I mentioned before including optical audio out it should be noted that onboard Graphics is something special on amd's latest platform and over its HDMI 1.48 connector with a cavar Apu installed the board will support 4K output but only at 30 HZ which is still great if you're looking to set up a media Playback box for your 4K TV and the last interesting point about the board before we get into our overclocked performance test are the things that unfortunately I can't validate but what I will say is that if gigabytes Ultra durable 4 plus design does improve the board's resiliency against high humidity and electrostatic discharge shocks then that's something you would want on your board so now without further Ado I'm going to hand this off to Luke who took this board for a spin to give us an idea of what we can achieve by overclocking both the CPU and GPU component of a cavar Apu can we justify a gaming Centric board on this value optimized platform I guess we'll find out all right guys if we're if we're reviewing a graphics card we review it overclocked and we recommend that everyone overclocks their graphics card on the way show we talked about this a lot and everything but we're not that aggressive about it with CPUs and there's a reason for that but with this what we're overclocking is an APU it is both graphics and processor in the same thing and we highly suggest overclocking it and that is why these numbers are going to be overclocked we're running the system at 4.4 GHz on the processor side on the graphic side it's running at 900 MHz and we applied 1.52 5 volts to it to get these numbers I could probably get that voltage number lower just I'm preparing for the W show right now and don't have a ton of time as you can see with our star swarm and benchmarks there's a really big Improvement due to being able to overclock the graphics core that much it's a really big really big jump over the stock numbers and then in Thief when we're overclocking memory which is actually completely different you see huge jumps again if you combine those two it's even more overclocking on this platform is very important if you're buying a cavar Apu I almost said CPU there if you're buying a cavar Apu you need to overclock your platform so that was fun guys like and share this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it and leave a comment on the Linus Tech tips Forum Linked In the video description if you want to discuss this product you want to know the pricing of this product or you have any constructive criticism for me and my team also Linked In the video description is our support link with options to buy cool t-shirts like this one give us a monthly contribution or give us a kickback whenever you buy random junk on Amazon check it out if you enjoy our videos it helps us out a whole bunch and as always guys thank you for watching and don't forget to subscribe\n"