Don’t be fooled by the EX58-UD3R’s low price tag: this is a very powerful motherboard. With an extremely robust BIOS that’s loaded with adjustable settings, a solid feature set, and low price tag, the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R is an excellent solution for enthusiasts on a budget looking to build an inexpensive Core i7 system.
The motherboard’s BIOS is probably its strongest feature. Gigabyte basically borrows the same BIOS they use on more powerful motherboards, which means that you’ve got all the settings you’d ever need to properly overclock your processor. Base clock speeds top out at 1200MHz, well beyond what you can reasonably expect to get when OC’ing. Gigabyte also provides tons of voltage options, with voltage increments as little as 20mV. With such fine voltage control you can literally eke every last MHz out of your processor and memory.
In terms of features, the EX58-UD3R’s eight-phase power and SilentPipe cooling on the North Bridge ran relatively cool in our testing, even when OC’ing. The two ounces of copper in the ground and power layers of the PCB likely contribute to this. The motherboard also supports CrossFire. Just about the only thing you may miss are the extra DIMM slots and some of the other convenience features you get on more expensive motherboards such as built-in buttons for clearing CMOS or integrated power/reset buttons.
We weren’t sold on the placement of the IDE connector. At its current location, it could impede airflow to longer dual-slot video cards when running two cards for SLI or CrossFire. Keep in mind that this isn’t as big of an issue for Radeon 4870 cards as it is for GeForce 9800 GTX+ and GTX 260/280, as the 4870’s fan isn’t directly blocked by the IDE cable like the GeForce boards are. This would be an issue though for dual Radeon 4870 X2 users running Quad CrossFire.
The easiest solution is to simply use all SATA-based drives.
Overall though you’d be hard-pressed to beat Gigabyte’s GA-EX58-UD3R. For the money it’s a pretty good value. Sure, you will have to make some compromises, but in the end you’ll be pleased with the board’s performance, price, and stability. And the bottom line is those are the three features that count the most when it comes to choosing a motherboard. In each of these cases the GA-EX58-UD3R delivers in spades.
ATI Radeon HD 5570 Performance Preview
The Radeon 5570 fuses ATI's 400-shader Redwood graphics core with a low-profile board design, giving you the guts of the 5670 in a package that's similar to the 5450. How does the final product compare to ATI's other sub-$100 offerings, as well as the GeForce 9600 GT and Radeon 4670. You'll have to read today's article to find out!
ATI Radeon 5450 Performance Preview
With prices ranging from $49-$59, ATI's Radeon 5450 brings DX11 and Eyefinity to the entry-level price bracket for the first time. But how does it perform? Find out in today's article!
Mass Effect 2 PC Review
BioWare's latest chapter in the Mass Effect series has earned overwhelmingly positive praise on consoles, but is the game still enjoyable on the PC? Find out in today's review!
AMD's New Year CPUs: Athlon II X4 635, Athlon II X3 440, Athlon II X2 255, & Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition Tested
Ready to pull the trigger on a new budget CPU? If so, you'll be glad you waited, as today AMD's providing a free 100MHz speed bump on their latest dual, triple, and quad-core Athlon II CPUs. But that's not all. For the tweakers out there that love to OC, AMD's brought back the Phenom II X2. The 555 Black Edition is AMD's fastest dual-core yet, and it's based on AMD's new C3 Rev. See how the new CPUs OC and perform in today's article!
Gigabyte USB 3.0 Boards Compared: P55A-UD6 and X58A-UD7
Promising transfer rates up to 10X higher than USB 2.0, next-generation USB 3.0 devices should offer considerably more speed to get things done. The same applies for SATA 6Gb/sec. But does the substance live up to the hype? Yes and no. Join us as we take a look at both of these technologies in Gigabyte's latest motherboards for the P55 and X58 platforms!
NVIDIA GF100 'Fermi' Graphics Architecture Overview
With DX11, 512 shaders, and a 384-bit memory interface, NVIDIA's next-generation GF100 GPU certainly looks impressive at first glance. It doesn't stop there though. NVIDIA's significantly upped their tessellation performance with GF100's new PolyMorph engines, and thanks to a tweaked ROP subsystem, the new GPU should deliver improved 8xAA performance as well. Join us as we take a closer look inside GF100's new architecture in this article!
ATI Radeon HD 5670 Performance Preview
Priced at $99 and offering features like DirectX 11 and Eyefinity, ATI's Radeon 5670 is poised to take over the heart of the mainstream graphics market. But is it powerful enough to displace the Radeon 4850 and 4770? How well does it OC? Find out in today's article!
Building a Core i7-920 Gaming Rig
With his Core 2 Extreme X6800 PC beginning to show signs of age, Vandy just finished upgrading his primary gaming rig to Core i7 over the holidays. With dual GeForce GTX 275s, and his Core i7-920 OC'ed to 4GHz, it's a pretty powerful performer. Read about the rest of the components used inside!
Intel Core i5-661 'Clarkdale' Performance Preview
With a 3.33GHz stock clock speed, integrated DX10 graphics core, and 32-nm manufacturing process, Intel's Core i5-661 is designed to make Core 2 Duo obsolete. But does it accomplish its mission? See how it performs with and without its integrated graphics in today's article!
Top Games of 2010
Because multiple blockbuster games were pushed back from Q4'09 to 2010, the next few months should be pretty busy for gamers. Games like Splinter Cell Conviction, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Supreme Commander 2, Mass Effect 2, and BioShock 2 are all expected within the first 3 months of 2010. Hopefully next year we'll also see the debut of games like id Software's RAGE and StarCraft 2. Join us as Vandy highlights some of the most anticipated games of next year in this article!
Ballistics Report
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
SU
furl
