Gigabyte EX58-UD4P

[PAGETITLE=Introduction][Top Ad] Shortly after Intel launched their Core i7 processors, we posted a review taking a look at Gigabyte's first motherboard to support the new CPUs, the EX58-UD5. At that time, we weren't too sure what to expect from the competition, but despite that, we were more than satisfied by what the board offered, in both features and overclocking-ability. Since that time, not too much has changed in the X58 space, but we do have course have many more models to choose from than ever before, and from a wide-variety of vendors. This past CES, one board to catch our eye was Gigabyte's own EX58-UD4P. The main reason was because it was feature-packed, and was to sport an affordable price. Those two features remain intact with the launched model. Before we jump into the specifics of the UD4P, I'll briefly mention that if you are looking to build an i7 machine and would like to do so as cheaply as possible, another option is Gigabyte's EX58-UD3R. This board is essentially a scaled-down version of the UD4P, but retails for just under $200, making it one of the most affordable offerings available. It's worth taking a look if multi-GPU and overclocking aren't that important to you. Closer Look at Gigabyte's EX58-UD4P. As mentioned above, the UD3R board is Gigabyte's least-expensive X58 offering currently, but their UD4P doesn't suffer from high-pricing either, at $260 (available for less through mail-in rebates at some e-tailers). But at that price, this is still a mid-range offering, so we should be able to expect features and performance typical of such boards. Being part of their Ultra Durable series, the UD4P offers a slew of features that aim to deliver ultimate stability, incredible overclocking, great thermals and security anyone can be proud of. Noteable features include the 2oz of copper used in the PCB (this feature has also been carried over to their GPU line), a 12+2+2 phase power solution, Dual BIOS and much more. Essentially, Gigabyte wants to make sure their UD boards deliver everything you need, and they do a pretty fair job of that. If you are familiar with Gigabyte's motherboard offerings, then this one won't come off as too much of a surprise. The color scheme is similar to their other EX58 boards, and for the most part, it's one that will be liked or hated. I don't mind it... the light hues are somewhat refreshing. From a component standpoint, the board lacks nothing. Aside from having eight S-ATA ports, there are six fan ports, allowing for pretty-much any type of air-cooling setup you could possibly want. As you'd expect, most of the peripheral connectivity takes place at the bottom right-hand corner. Here are the eight S-ATA ports, along with the ATX chassis connectors, IDE connector, USB/FireWire connectors and also the BIOS battery. Gigabyte proudly supports both dual and triple-GPU configurations on the UD4P. In a three-way configuration, the space is going to be extremely limited, with the bottom GPU likely to hang over the edge of the board, so if you are planning to go that route, make sure your chassis has sufficient spacing. Aside from the PCI-E 16x slots, we also have two legacy PCI slots in addition to a PCI-E 4x and 1x. Don't expect to fit much in the 1x slot though, except for an incredibly short card. Like most other X58 boards, this one supports up to 24GB of DDR3 memory, but I'm willing to bet most will stick to a more modest 3x2GB configuration. Found beside the DIMM slots are on-board power and reset switches, for those running the machine outside of a chassis. As mentioned earlier, this board features a robust power solution in the form of a 12+2+2 phase configuration. I'm unsure what the extra phases do, but if I had to guess, two are devoted to the QPI bus while the other two are devoted to the memory. Gigabyte prides themselves on being overclocking-friendly, so it's no surprise to see such a configuration. For I/O connectivity, the board offers two PS/2 ports, S/PDIF and 7.1 audio, FireWire, eight USB and a single LAN. There's also a CLR CMOS button available in case an overclock happens to disagree in the worst possible way. In way of accessories, Gigabyte includes manuals and the driver CD, an I/O protector, SLI bridge connectors, an E-SATA add-in peripheral, S-ATA and IDE cables, and also a bracket used to secure your SLI bridges (thanks to a reader for pointing that out in our UD5 review). When all said and done, the UD4P lives up to what the Ultra Durable series is all about, and nothing seems to be lacking. Aside from the board's features, the accessories included don't disappoint, so your new build shouldn't be lacking anything. So how about the BIOS? Don't worry, that's up next. [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Checking Out the BIOS][Top Ad] In the past, I've mentioned that I've not been too keen on Gigabyte's BIOS', because I've found them too clunky and difficult to navigate, and that some of their competitors (namely ASUS) implement a few convenience features that make overclocking and handling the BIOS in general much more enjoyable. The BIOS on the UD4P doesn't change too much, but the overclocking menu is found first, so that's a huge plus. One thing's clear... Gigabyte's BIOS' are capable of heavy overclocking. This is proven by the numerous OC events they host where records are broken. I do wish some improvements would be made to make it easier to navigate though. My biggest complaint is that fact that you cannot save and reload profiles on the UD4P*... that's a big problem, especially if you want to flick between stock and OC'd settings on the fly. For a board that so readily welcomes overclocking, that feature to me should be a no-brainer. * Correction to this statement is on the final page of the article. I'll let the pictures below speak for themselves, since everyone's seen a BIOS before and they aren't all too different. You'll be happy to know that Gigabyte does unlock countless overclocking features though, and the depth is so great that only a very select few will ever venture that far into what the board truly offers. Again, I do think the BIOS here could use a few improvements, but one thing's for sure... it's packed. If it offers enough to please the most hardcore overclockers, it's hard to bad-mouth it! With that look out of the way, let's proceed into our testing methodology and follow with our results. [PAGEBREAK][PAGETITLE=Test System & Methodology] At Techgage, we strive to make sure our results are as accurate as possible. Our testing is rigorous and time-consuming, but we feel the effort is worth it. In an attempt to leave no question unanswered, this page contains not only our testbed specifications, but also a fully-detailed look at how we conduct our testing. If there is a bit of information that we've omitted, or you wish to offer thoughts or suggest changes, please feel free to shoot us an e-mail or post in our forums. Test System. The table below lists our machine's hardware, which remains unchanged throughout all testing, with the exception of the motherboard. Each board used for the sake of comparison is also listed here, along with the BIOS version used. In addition, each one of the URLs in this table can be clicked to view the respective review of that product, or if a review doesn't exist, you will be led to the product on the manufacturer's website. Component Model Processor Intel Core i7 Extreme 965 - Quad-Core, 3.2GHz, 1.25v Motherboards ASUS P6T Deluxe - X58-based, 0804 BIOS (11/04/08) ASUS Rampage II Extreme - X58-based, 0705 BIOS (11/21/08) EVGA X58 SLI - X58-based, SZ21 BIOS (03/04/09) Gigabyte EX58-UD4P - X58-based, F6 BIOS (02/26/09) Gigabyte EX58-UD5 - X58-based, F4b BIOS (11/14/08) Intel DX58SO - X58-based, 2786 BIOS (11/12/08) Memory OCZ Gold 3x2GB - DDR3-1333 7-7-7-20-1T, 1.60v Graphics Palit Radeon HD 4870 512MB (Catalyst 8.10) Audio On-Board Audio Storage Intel X-25M 80GB SSD (OS) Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200.11 (Secondary, Output Drive) Power Supply Corsair HX1000W Chassis SilverStone TJ10 Full-Tower Display Gateway XHD3000 30" Cooling Thermalright TRUE Black 120 Et cetera Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit When preparing our testbeds for any type of performance testing, we follow these guidelines: General Guidelines No power-saving options are enabled in the motherboard's BIOS. Internet is disabled. No Virus Scanner or Firewall is installed. The OS is kept clean; no scrap files are left in between runs. Hard drives affected are defragged with Diskeeper 2008 prior to a fresh benchmarking run. Machine has proper airflow and the room temperature is 80°F (27°C) or less. Windows Vista Optimizations User Account Control (UAC) and screen saver are disabled. Windows Defender, Firewall, Security Center, Search, Sidebar and Updates are disabled. To aide with the goal of keeping accurate and repeatable results, we alter certain services in Windows Vista from starting up at boot. This is due to the fact that these services have the tendency to start up in the background without notice, potentially causing slightly inaccurate results. Disabling "Windows Search" turns off the OS' indexing which can at times utilize the hard drive and memory more than we'd like. Application Benchmarks. When benchmarking a graphics card or processor, performance is expected to scale in a certain manner, but that's not the case with motherboards. Since motherboards tend to only be as fast as the hardware installed on them, we don't run an exhaustive collection of benchmarks for the sake of avoiding redundancy. For the most part, one motherboard with an equal chipset to another should offer close to equal performance. Our primary goal with motherboard-related benchmarking is to see if one motherboard is lacking in a certain area when compared to the rest. These discrepancies, if they exist, are usually caused by lackluster components on the board itself, which is why higher-end motherboards tend to see slightly better results than the more...

Gigabyte EX58-UD4P

Page 289 –

Rob Williams