Home | Forums | Article Search | Subscribe & Shop | Contact Us | Log Out Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 Email This Print This View My Personal Library Heavy Gear March 2009 • Vol.9 Issue 3 Page(s) 44 in print issue Add To My Personal Library Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 GA-EX58-UD5 $299 Gigabyte www.gigabyte-usa.com CPU Rating: 3.5 Specs: Socket 1366; Chipset: Intel X58 Express; Max memory: 24GB (DDR3-800/1066/1333/2100+); Audio: Realtek ALC889A HD codec; Dual Gigabit LAN; RAID 0, 1, 5, 10; eSATA (with adapter); Slots: 3 PCI-E x16, 1 PCI-E x4, 1 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI 2.2; CrossFireX and SLI support Immediately following the introduction of Intel’s Core i7, motherboard manufacturers were at the ready with a full lineup of enthusiast products built around the companion chipset for the Core i7, the X58 Express. And although Giga-byte’s GA-EX58-UD5 is also targeted at enthusiasts, its sub-$300 street price makes it more accessible than many other X58 Express-based boards. The GA-EX58-UD5’s price positions somewhere in the middle of the X58 Express motherboard market, but its features set it apart. This board supports a host of high-end features, such as 3-Way SLI and CrossFireX, dual Gigabit LAN, and numerous RAID modes. Its BIOS is rife with overclocking options. The GA-EX58-UD5’s layout is also quite good, with virtually all of its major connectors and headers color-coded and positioned around the edges of the board. Gigabyte also outfits the GA-EX58-UD5 with dual BIOS chips, an elaborate cooling apparatus with heatpipes, and 2 ounces of copper insulating layers within the PCB, which the company claims reduces circuit impedance and increases power efficiency. The GA-EX58-UD5’s BIOS is well-organized and designed with overclockers in mind. The M.I.T. (MB Intelligent Tweaker) holds all of the frequency, multiplier, and voltage manipulation tools, and Gigabyte includes its Windows-based Easy Tune 6 overclocking application with this board. Overclocking the GA-EX58-UD5 proved to be very easy, as I was able to hit a 182MHz base clock with no voltage tweaking. Performance with the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 was also quite good. With a Core i7 965 Extreme and 3GB of Corsair DDR3, this board posted a score of 6821 PCMarks in PCMark Vantage and 15,820 points in a multithreaded Cine-bench R10 run. It also put up 198.55 FPS in a low-res Crysis CPU benchmark. Stability was also rock-solid throughout testing. This is a great motherboard for those interested in building a new ma-chine around one of Intel’s new Core i7 processors. by Marco Chiappetta  User Reviews Be the first to write a review of this product Want more information about a topic you found of interest while reading this article? Type a word or phrase that identifies the topic and click "Search" to find relevant articles from within our editorial database. Enter A Subject (key words or a phrase): ALL Words (‘digital’ AND ‘photography’) ANY Words (‘digital’ OR ‘photography’) Exact Match ('digital photography'- all words MUST appear together) Home      Copyright & Legal Information      Privacy Policy      Site Map      Contact Us Copyright © 2010 Sandhills Publishing Company U.S.A. All rights reserved.