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This is my somewhat indepth review of the GIGABYTE EX58-EXTREME X58 Motherboard after owning, using and overclocking it for the last two weeks:
My new i7 system specs are in my signature below. I made the upgrade from a Q6600 (3.6GHz) & Asus Maximus II Formular (P45) & 4x2gb Corsair Dominator PC2-8500 DDR2 system that was the best and most stable system I've ever built. The CPU/Mobo/RAM were the only items that were upgraded in the move to i7; all other components were moved over. This was my first ever GIGABYTE board and I was hesitant to go with a brand I had not used before - but the ASUS X58 Rampage II Extreme board was going for well over $400 at launch so I went with this one, which I was able to get for about $260'ish after live.com cashback @ 30%.
The actual build was very uneventful and went very smoothly. Once built and OS installed, it took me no more than 15-20 minutes of fiddling with the BIOS to get the i7 920 to run stable at 3.6GHz. It was surprisingly easy to do. The next day, I tried 3.8 and 4.0GHz but neither were stable so I ran it at 3.6GHz @1.275v (ave. 38* idle) for the next week prime95 stable. This week, I got some time to play around with it more and am running it at 4.0GHz @ 1.325v (ave. 43* idle) . . . it is NOT Prime95 stable (Prime will bluescreen pretty much within seconds) but it works fine for me everyday usage. I have CPU voltage at 1.325v because moving it to 1.35v or 1.36v doesn't seem to help stability. Will continue to tweak it to see if I can get it stable at 4.0GHz . . . if not, I'll just have to settle for 3.6GHz.
That's the long-winded intro. The reason I wanted to make this post is to point out my observations about this board (both good and bad) so that anyone considering it can get some insight.
THE GOOD:
* It's a good looking board - a nice blue/white design that is a welcomed change from the now popular all black PCB. Some have said this board is butt ugly but I like it.
* The BIOS is very nice and easy to use. As I said above, it didn't take me much time to get familiar with it and to get my 920 to 3.6GHz Prime95 stable - which was a pleasant surprise for me given that it was a whole new system based on an entirely new architecture. All in all, it's a pretty stable and solid overclocking motherboard.
* Lots of SATA ports. There are 10 SATA ports total and all of them support RAID - but there are 4 that support native RAID without having to install any Windows drivers. Best of all, these SATA connectors are placed properly (at the edge of the mobo, facing toward the front of the case) so that they WON'T interfere with the installatio of longer graphics cards.
THE NEUTRAL:
* The Northbridge cooling setup. I don't watercool but those who do will benefit from the built-in watercooling on the NB. Part of the reason I got the Extreme model instead of the next model down (the UD5) was for the extra NB "Hybrid Silent-Pipe". I now say that the ONLY reason to by the Extreme version is if you want to watercool - no one else should buy it for any other reason (see below).
THE BAD:
* The Northbridge cooling setup: whether the extra NB "Hybrid Silent-Pipe" cools the NB any better is debateable . . . but what is NOT debateable is that installing it WILL render your top two PCIe slots completely UNUSABLE!!! That means that my X-Fi Titanium, which would have gone into that top PCIe 1X slot, won't fit there. It won't even fit in the next slot down b/c the NB heatsink actually blocks that slot too!!!
* PCI slot placement/design: to use my 2x 4870x2 in CrossfireX, I have to place the two GPU's in the top two blue PCIe 16x slots - which then covers up both of the white PCI slots completely. My X-Fi now must go in the orange PCIe 8X slot at the very bottom - which means that (with the Hybrid Silent-Pipe installed), this is ALL the expansion cards that I'll be able to fit in this system!
* CrossFireX setup: with the two 4870x2's in the blue 16X PCIe slots, they are RIGHT next to each other (whereas my previous ASUS MIIF allowed for some space and more "breathing room" between the cards). This means that the lower card pretty much blocks the cool air intake for the top card, kind of suffocating it. I didn't record the GPU temps from my ASUS MIIF system so I don't have hard numbers but I'd have to think the Gigabyte CFX setup HAS to run hotter!
* Push-pins on the NB/SB heatsinks: both NB/SB heatsinks are fastened via pushpins instead of screws. Maybe they work just as well . . . but I'd much prefer the screw method on a $350 board!
* RAM clearance w/ TRUE 120: having my TRUE 120 in a push/pull setup prevents me from using more than 6GB of Corsair Dominator RAM. If I want to go with 12GB, the front 120mm fan will interfere with the first RAM slot - so I'd have to use the normal (shorter) RAM . . . Corsair's DHX or Dominator (or any other tall RAM) will not fit in the first RAM slot!!! This is a real pisser!!!
THE PROBLEMS/THINGS I HATE:
* This system takes noticeably longer to boot into Windows than ANY I've ever had. From POST to Vista log-on, the wait is annoyingly long. Doesn't matter if its stock speed, overclocked, warm or cold boot - it takes (what seems to be) several minutes to get to the Vista password log-on screen!!! [edit: this was caused by a conflict with my 4870x2 CrossFireX setup; this has now been fixed after some reconfiguration of CFX.]
* I cannot (easily) wake the system from sleep/hibernation. Attempting to wake the system from sleep with a keyboard or mouse click (or even reset button) results in the computer powering up indefinitely with no video signal whatsoever. This will go on for as long as I want to leave it. The ONLY way to successfully wake the computer is to hit a key, wait for it to power on, hang without a video signal, then hold the power button down for 4 seconds, completely power down and then power back up. After another agonizingly slow boot up, it will eventually resume the system to its previous state before it went to sleep.
* Tech support = unhelpful. I called Gigabyte Tech Support and after 30 minutes on the phone with them, the only advice I was given was to wait for a new BIOS and HOPE that it'll fix these problems.
EDIT: Both Extreme boards I had eventually had one or more SATA ports go bad. Some would work part of the time and some just went away altogether. You'll know if/when you have this problem when you boot to find one or more of your SATA drives missing. Multiple reboots sometime got them back and a couple of the ports never worked again.
SUMMARY:
This is a pretty nice board that is very easy to overclock. It's pretty stable when OC'ed and does have a lot of nice features. The Extreme version is ONLY beneficial to people with watercooling. All others should just save themselves the $40-$50 and get the UD5 version without the Hybrid Silent-Pipe NB cooler. For a $350 price point, I think there are several things that could've been better designed (push-pins on heatsinks, RAM clearance, CrossFireX setup, etc.).
As for me, if the next BIOS release doesn't resolve the boot up and resume from suspend issues, I'll most likely pull everything out and go with an ASUS Rampage II Extreme after all!!!
Moral of story: I should've just stuck with a brand that I know and trust!!!
My new i7 system specs are in my signature below. I made the upgrade from a Q6600 (3.6GHz) & Asus Maximus II Formular (P45) & 4x2gb Corsair Dominator PC2-8500 DDR2 system that was the best and most stable system I've ever built. The CPU/Mobo/RAM were the only items that were upgraded in the move to i7; all other components were moved over. This was my first ever GIGABYTE board and I was hesitant to go with a brand I had not used before - but the ASUS X58 Rampage II Extreme board was going for well over $400 at launch so I went with this one, which I was able to get for about $260'ish after live.com cashback @ 30%.
The actual build was very uneventful and went very smoothly. Once built and OS installed, it took me no more than 15-20 minutes of fiddling with the BIOS to get the i7 920 to run stable at 3.6GHz. It was surprisingly easy to do. The next day, I tried 3.8 and 4.0GHz but neither were stable so I ran it at 3.6GHz @1.275v (ave. 38* idle) for the next week prime95 stable. This week, I got some time to play around with it more and am running it at 4.0GHz @ 1.325v (ave. 43* idle) . . . it is NOT Prime95 stable (Prime will bluescreen pretty much within seconds) but it works fine for me everyday usage. I have CPU voltage at 1.325v because moving it to 1.35v or 1.36v doesn't seem to help stability. Will continue to tweak it to see if I can get it stable at 4.0GHz . . . if not, I'll just have to settle for 3.6GHz.
That's the long-winded intro. The reason I wanted to make this post is to point out my observations about this board (both good and bad) so that anyone considering it can get some insight.
THE GOOD:
* It's a good looking board - a nice blue/white design that is a welcomed change from the now popular all black PCB. Some have said this board is butt ugly but I like it.
* The BIOS is very nice and easy to use. As I said above, it didn't take me much time to get familiar with it and to get my 920 to 3.6GHz Prime95 stable - which was a pleasant surprise for me given that it was a whole new system based on an entirely new architecture. All in all, it's a pretty stable and solid overclocking motherboard.
* Lots of SATA ports. There are 10 SATA ports total and all of them support RAID - but there are 4 that support native RAID without having to install any Windows drivers. Best of all, these SATA connectors are placed properly (at the edge of the mobo, facing toward the front of the case) so that they WON'T interfere with the installatio of longer graphics cards.
THE NEUTRAL:
* The Northbridge cooling setup. I don't watercool but those who do will benefit from the built-in watercooling on the NB. Part of the reason I got the Extreme model instead of the next model down (the UD5) was for the extra NB "Hybrid Silent-Pipe". I now say that the ONLY reason to by the Extreme version is if you want to watercool - no one else should buy it for any other reason (see below).
THE BAD:
* The Northbridge cooling setup: whether the extra NB "Hybrid Silent-Pipe" cools the NB any better is debateable . . . but what is NOT debateable is that installing it WILL render your top two PCIe slots completely UNUSABLE!!! That means that my X-Fi Titanium, which would have gone into that top PCIe 1X slot, won't fit there. It won't even fit in the next slot down b/c the NB heatsink actually blocks that slot too!!!
* PCI slot placement/design: to use my 2x 4870x2 in CrossfireX, I have to place the two GPU's in the top two blue PCIe 16x slots - which then covers up both of the white PCI slots completely. My X-Fi now must go in the orange PCIe 8X slot at the very bottom - which means that (with the Hybrid Silent-Pipe installed), this is ALL the expansion cards that I'll be able to fit in this system!
* CrossFireX setup: with the two 4870x2's in the blue 16X PCIe slots, they are RIGHT next to each other (whereas my previous ASUS MIIF allowed for some space and more "breathing room" between the cards). This means that the lower card pretty much blocks the cool air intake for the top card, kind of suffocating it. I didn't record the GPU temps from my ASUS MIIF system so I don't have hard numbers but I'd have to think the Gigabyte CFX setup HAS to run hotter!
* Push-pins on the NB/SB heatsinks: both NB/SB heatsinks are fastened via pushpins instead of screws. Maybe they work just as well . . . but I'd much prefer the screw method on a $350 board!
* RAM clearance w/ TRUE 120: having my TRUE 120 in a push/pull setup prevents me from using more than 6GB of Corsair Dominator RAM. If I want to go with 12GB, the front 120mm fan will interfere with the first RAM slot - so I'd have to use the normal (shorter) RAM . . . Corsair's DHX or Dominator (or any other tall RAM) will not fit in the first RAM slot!!! This is a real pisser!!!
THE PROBLEMS/THINGS I HATE:
* This system takes noticeably longer to boot into Windows than ANY I've ever had. From POST to Vista log-on, the wait is annoyingly long. Doesn't matter if its stock speed, overclocked, warm or cold boot - it takes (what seems to be) several minutes to get to the Vista password log-on screen!!! [edit: this was caused by a conflict with my 4870x2 CrossFireX setup; this has now been fixed after some reconfiguration of CFX.]
* I cannot (easily) wake the system from sleep/hibernation. Attempting to wake the system from sleep with a keyboard or mouse click (or even reset button) results in the computer powering up indefinitely with no video signal whatsoever. This will go on for as long as I want to leave it. The ONLY way to successfully wake the computer is to hit a key, wait for it to power on, hang without a video signal, then hold the power button down for 4 seconds, completely power down and then power back up. After another agonizingly slow boot up, it will eventually resume the system to its previous state before it went to sleep.
* Tech support = unhelpful. I called Gigabyte Tech Support and after 30 minutes on the phone with them, the only advice I was given was to wait for a new BIOS and HOPE that it'll fix these problems.
EDIT: Both Extreme boards I had eventually had one or more SATA ports go bad. Some would work part of the time and some just went away altogether. You'll know if/when you have this problem when you boot to find one or more of your SATA drives missing. Multiple reboots sometime got them back and a couple of the ports never worked again.
SUMMARY:
This is a pretty nice board that is very easy to overclock. It's pretty stable when OC'ed and does have a lot of nice features. The Extreme version is ONLY beneficial to people with watercooling. All others should just save themselves the $40-$50 and get the UD5 version without the Hybrid Silent-Pipe NB cooler. For a $350 price point, I think there are several things that could've been better designed (push-pins on heatsinks, RAM clearance, CrossFireX setup, etc.).
As for me, if the next BIOS release doesn't resolve the boot up and resume from suspend issues, I'll most likely pull everything out and go with an ASUS Rampage II Extreme after all!!!
Moral of story: I should've just stuck with a brand that I know and trust!!!
while it has an included X-Fi card, there are just too many BIOS tweaks and little gadgets for my needs.