Review: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5 LGA 1366 Motherboard

[Trace]

A new story entry has been added:

Review: Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5 LGA 1366 Motherboard

By: Trace Hagan

The latest arrival from Gigabyte is a GA-X58A-UD5 1366 motherboard. Gigabyte has long been known for their 2 ounce of copper per board promise. Lately, Gigabyte's boards have been breaking Futuremark Vantage records. So what does this board hold in store for a Core-i7 980x? Read on to find out just how well this performs.

[mDust]

Originally Posted by Trace

The color scheme isn't my favorite, but it isn't terrible at the same time. It is better than some boards I have seen.

Exactly. It's bad when someone who is partially colorblind, such as myself, can plainly see that colored pieces have been drawn out of a hat before being placed on a board. This board has a color-theme at least. But orange SATA cables, Gigabyte?..Were they on sale?

This board was in my 'final 3' when I was looking for a new i7 board. One of the GENE's big brothers beat it out in my comparisons though...Rampage III Formula, which is probably the board this should have been benched against.

[Blibbax]

These boards have a great reputation, and it looks like this one lives up to it...

I actually quite like orange and blue colour schemes, as it happens too

I liked the review too, though one thing - the scales on the graphs are somewhat misleading, espcially when there are only two values being displayed. While I am sure this is not the case here, these are like the scales you see in adverts where one manufacturer is trying to make some advantages look huge and some disadvantages seem insignificant.

As most people don't have access to expensive edition CPUs, it would be nice to see some test of maximum base clock too.

[mDust]

Originally Posted by Blibbax

I liked the review too, though one thing - the scales on the graphs are somewhat misleading, espcially when there are only two values being displayed. While I am sure this is not the case here, these are like the scales you see in adverts where one manufacturer is trying to make some advantages look huge and some disadvantages seem insignificant.

As most people don't have access to expensive edition CPUs, it would be nice to see some test of maximum base clock too.

Yeah, the scales are probably messed up because there are only 2 boards so there is only going to be a high and a low. This means that TBCS needs to con more boards out of all the manufacturers to review them next to each other. I know this isn't a review site, but after someone mods the perfect case, they need to know the perfect hardware to go inside it!

Maximum base clock? Are you meaning overclocked lower-end CPUs? I don't think the benches were performed with this chip overclocked.

[Blibbax]

Originally Posted by mDust

Yeah, the scales are probably messed up because there are only 2 boards so there is only going to be a high and a low. This means that TBCS needs to con more boards out of all the manufacturers to review them next to each other. I know this isn't a review site, but after someone mods the perfect case, they need to know the perfect hardware to go inside it!

Maximum base clock? Are you meaning overclocked lower-end CPUs? I don't think the benches were performed with this chip overclocked.

Sorry, I meant in the overclocking page - you only test the board's overclocking ability with an EE CPU - so for all you know this board could have a base clock ceiling of 150mhz. Not saying it does, just would be nice to see some kind of test of how far it will go, as this is perhaps more important for the average user who doesn't have an unlocked multiplier to play with.

[mDust]

Originally Posted by Blibbax

Sorry, I meant in the overclocking page - you only test the board's overclocking ability with an EE CPU - so for all you know this board could have a base clock ceiling of 150mhz. Not saying it does, just would be nice to see some kind of test of how far it will go, as this is perhaps more important for the average user who doesn't have an unlocked multiplier to play with.

Good point. I'm sure the board would be willing to clock faster than the chip would. C'mon Trace, hook us up with a maxed out bclock if you still have this hardware set up. You know you want to!

[TheGreatSatan]

I didn't see a video card in the specs?

[Trace]

It was a 9800GTX+

I will test the max bclock for you guys tomorrow! I apologize that I left it out

[BS Mods]

Nice job on the review.

I'm with you on the orange cables...wtf??

It's like wearing a blue suit with big orange clown shoes on

[msmrx57]

Another great review. Unfortunately this is out of my $ rangefor awhile.

Personally I like the blue/orange combo. It reminds me of the Gulf Oil race carsfrom the 60's and 70's. Not that I'm that old, just love old race cars.