Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 Motherboard Review

Performance Analysis

The GA-X58A-UD7 is one of the fastest X58 motherboards in our Media Benchmarks at its BIOS defaults, achieving an overall score of 2,080 points. Its minimum frame rate of 31fps in Crysis is a touch on the slow side, but when overclocked this rose to 41fps, which is a far more respectable frame rate.

We did however measure a significant performance difference between the various SATA controllers on the board, which is worth bearing in mind when setting up your drives. For example, while the ICH10R Southbridge and Marvell 9128 controllers read at an average of 245/246MB/sec respectively the Gigabyte SATA2 ports are much slower, reading at just 177MB/sec.

Therefore, despite having ten internal SATA ports, only eight of these are really worth using. Given that eight SATA ports will be enough for anything bar a server, you have to wonder why Gigabyte included its own controller in the first place.

Conclusion

While the GA-X58A-UD7 ticks many of the right boxes for a high-end Core i7 motherboard, with its excellent performance, great features and lots of overclocking potential, we also have to question some of Gigabyte’s decisions. Our main problem is with the massively oversized chipset heatsink - it just doesn’t provide enough of a benefit, especially as it may impede airflow through your case.

The chipset waterblock barely makes contact with the component that it’s supposed to be cooling. Four SATA controllers is also an excessive number by anybody’s standard.

This is all the more problematic when you consider that the GA-X58A-UD3R (a full review of which is coming soon) has exactly the same core features, including SATA 6Gbps and USB 3 support, yet is significantly cheaper. Ironically, Gigabyte has priced the GA-X58A-UD7 out of the market with one of its own motherboards.

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• -
• -
• 5/10

• Overall
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• x
• x
• x
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• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

Score Guide