Gigabyte X58A-UD7 Motherboard Review

Conclusion

Extreme is a good description of what this board has to offer. The performance was on par with its competition which is as much as you can ask for with modern motherboards given how little room there is with regards to improving performance. The features on the board include everything you could think of and then some. USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s are the two big features but some of the smaller features like the board layout and the I/O options are also quite nice. I really dig the dual-purpose eSATA/USB2.0 ports, they are an excellent idea.

When installing the board you’ll notice a few things but the first thing I noticed was how heavy the board physically is. The thick plated copper heatsink linking the mosfets and north/south bridges has some heft to it. In a joking manner I mentioned to a friend that in the hands of Oddjob it would make a great weapon. That isn’t too far from the truth though and it could only get better with an E-ATX version to enable 4 double-slot cards. That however is a pipe dream as I imagine that market is incredibly tiny.

Priced at $349.99 at Newegg the board is a bit on the expensive side but it does come packed with features which does help warrant its price. The board also comes with a 3 year warranty without any stipulations for registering the board so if you do purchase it 2nd hand you are covered. When browsing around for boards you have to give credit to Gigabyte for sticking to a uniform color scheme across all their boards. The X58A-UD7 looks quite pretty with it’s baby blue and white accents and the dark heatsink snaking across the PCB. Factor in the excellent performance and the easy overclocking and the X58A-UD7 is the real deal.

Gigabyte’s entire line of X58-based motherboards are ready to support the new generation of Intel 32nm 6-core processors, so you can rest assured that this board will support the upcoming Intel Core i7 980X Extreme Edition processor.

Legit Bottom Line: If you are looking for a board that leaves nothing out regardless of price then look no further.