Gigabyte EX58-UD3R Motherboard Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

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Gigabyte EX58-UD3R Motherboard Review - The Gigabyte EX58-UD3R represents a budget X58 motherboard, if there is such a thing. While the feature set is somewhat limited when compared to other more robust X58 boards, the EX58-UD3R's performance and overclockability is anything but limited.

The Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R is one of the least expensive Intel X58 chipset motherboards you can purchase at Newegg. Only two are less costly after the MIR is figured in. Considering the low price for an Intel Core i7 motherboard, the GA-EX58-UD3R’s tremendous stability shown, and its great benchmark scoring, we would be foolish to not suggest this board to a seasoned hardware enthusiast.
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Thanks for the read guys. Just cements what I already knew when I recommend this board to others.
I picked this up from Microcenter first week of February for 184.99, was 40 bucks cheaper than the Asus P6T.

Odd about all the "extra" voltages you had to tweak though. Only thing I changed on mine is Bclock at 200, lowered multi to 19 for 3.8, my CPU voltage is 1.3, QPI @ 1.35 and Ram at 1.66 .Oh, and though I can run windows fine at 4 GHZ its not stable unless I up the vcore more so I run at 3.8 for everyday. I am still running the BIOS my board shipped with, the F3. Mine has been solid as a rock since day 1.
 
I got this board.

I'm stuck at 200bclk, but it's because of QPI.

If I could get to 210, 220, I'd be elated.
 
Looks nice, but I'm a bit surprised it doesn't have an e-sata port (or did I miss that?).
That's the only thing that it's missing, AFAICT. I know esata cards are cheap, but it'd be nice if it had one built in. With that said, i like the firewire connector. SLI doesn't matter to me, but I'm sure it's a major bonus for many readers.

One thing is for sure, by the time I decide to build a new system, i7 will be on my list. MB prices, until recently, were too high for me to justify them.
 
nilepez said:
Looks nice, but I'm a bit surprised it doesn't have an e-sata port (or did I miss that?).
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Just pick this up, you don't need an eSATA card, this interfaces w/ your onboard SATA.
 
Not really that impressed, I built alot of machine with this board, and the 1.6 version is the current model, not the one shown here.
 
I'd probably pass up this MB just because it didn't have an eSATA port. I always use up all my internal eSATA and IDE ports over the life of the machine so I don't like those adapter type eSATA type interfaces. An eSATA PCI card would be a slightly better solution though I would rather just buy a different board with both 1394 and eSATA.
 
Don't know if this is unique to Gigabyte, but I don't get the whole 3-channel, 4-slot memory thing.
If you want dual channel mode, you have to use slots 1 and 2 or 1 and 4
If you want triple channel mode, you have to use slots 1,2 and 4.
What's the point of slot 3 if you can't configure 2 sets of dual channel slots?

Dumb...:rolleyes:
 
gathagan said:
Don't know if this is unique to Gigabyte, but I don't get the whole 3-channel, 4-slot memory thing.
If you want dual channel mode, you have to use slots 1 and 2 or 1 and 4
If you want triple channel mode, you have to use slots 1,2 and 4.
What's the point of slot 3 if you can't configure 2 sets of dual channel slots?

Dumb...:rolleyes:
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If you read the manual, you get tripple channel mode even when using all 4 dimms.

How stupid would that be if you were forced to use dual channel mode when you could be using tripple channel mode.

dumber.... :rolleyes:

But thanks for playing.
 
Must admit my opinion of Gigabyte motherboards has been heading downwards as of late due to my experiences with my EX58-DS4.

I had a real case of driver hell with the onboard Realtek LAN; having to choose between next to no throughput or continual dropouts was not ideal. I also really object to Gigabyte's marketing of having made all their X58 boards SLI compliant, as they clearly left the DS4 out of this upgrade - given I how much I paid for the motherboard at launch, I expected better treatment. When I asked their "technical" support about this, I was shoved off with a "feature is not available on this motherboard". Clearly.

To make this post in some way productive I suppose all I can say is agree that yes, it's a good series of motherboards; pity about some of the decisions made along the process (NIC component choice) of designing it and the company behind it ("All X58" motherboards does not equal "all X58" motherboards re gaining SLI support).
 
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I bought this board when i built my I7 rig a month ago, after a few weeks I had an infinite reboot loop which it would power up for 2 seconds then reboot over and over again until you unplugged it. I thought it was the power supply so i ordered a new more expensive one after getting the same thing I looked on newegg.com and saw that there were others who had the same problem. Contacted gigabyte's they told me i needed to update my bios, I asked how could i do that when you cant get it to power up for longer than 2 seconds they had no answer. I replaced it with EVGA X58 SLI LE that cost $50 more due to my refusal to replace broken shit with the same broken shit and would recommend the EVGA board to anyone that wants a slick reliable board.
 
bytemebish said:
I bought this board when i built my I7 rig a month ago, after a few weeks I had an infinite reboot loop which it would power up for 2 seconds then reboot over and over again until you unplugged it. I thought it was the power supply so i ordered a new more expensive one after getting the same thing I looked on newegg.com and saw that there were others who had the same problem. Contacted gigabyte's they told me i needed to update my bios, I asked how could i do that when you cant get it to power up for longer than 2 seconds they had no answer. I replaced it with EVGA X58 SLI LE that cost $50 more due to my refusal to replace broken shit with the same broken shit and would recommend the EVGA board to anyone that wants a slick reliable board.
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Did you drop a jumper on the cmos reset?

If you get a really nasty o/c you can put into that endless reboot loop, but it's not broken, it's just using your settings.
 
bytemebish said:
I bought this board when i built my I7 rig a month ago, after a few weeks I had an infinite reboot loop which it would power up for 2 seconds then reboot over and over again until you unplugged it. I thought it was the power supply so i ordered a new more expensive one after getting the same thing I looked on newegg.com and saw that there were others who had the same problem. Contacted gigabyte's they told me i needed to update my bios, I asked how could i do that when you cant get it to power up for longer than 2 seconds they had no answer. I replaced it with EVGA X58 SLI LE that cost $50 more due to my refusal to replace broken shit with the same broken shit and would recommend the EVGA board to anyone that wants a slick reliable board.
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Well my problems with mobos were reversed. The Gigabyte was so easy to build and setup that it was almost boring. Never had any problems or glitches. Now the EVGA X58 that I have took me 2 RMAs before I got one that worked.
 
Only having 4 memory slots is making it quite right away a deal breaker. I would also liked built in e-sata ports. Though I like how Gigabyte puts their nternal sata ports. I think there are simply just better motherboards, cheap or not.
 
R0N1 said:
Only having 4 memory slots is making it quite right away a deal breaker. I would also liked built in e-sata ports. Though I like how Gigabyte puts their nternal sata ports. I think there are simply just better motherboards, cheap or not.
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Depends on the how you gauge design.

MSI has a better layout for a similiar price, but their bios and o/c'n are up to snuff.

Everything is a compromise between features and money.
 
obiwansotti said:
If you read the manual, you get tripple channel mode even when using all 4 dimms.

How stupid would that be if you were forced to use dual channel mode when you could be using tripple channel mode.

dumber.... :rolleyes:

But thanks for playing.
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I read the manual before I posted.
Slots 2 and 3 share a controller channel, but the manual specifies using slot 2 if you only have 3 sticks of RAM.
That would infer some sort of deficiency regarding slot 3.

Yes, you are correct that you get triple channel mode with 4 slots occupied, but that is counter-productive.
One channel's bandwidth is split between two slots while the bandwidth of the other two channels is not.
I doubt you would get identical performance from all 3 channels in that situation.

Thanks for your input, though...
 
gathagan said:
I read the manual before I posted.
Slots 2 and 3 share a controller channel, but the manual specifies using slot 2 if you only have 3 sticks of RAM.
That would infer some sort of deficiency regarding slot 3.

Yes, you are correct that you get triple channel mode with 4 slots occupied, but that is counter-productive.
One channel's bandwidth is split between two slots while the bandwidth of the other two channels is not.
I doubt you would get identical performance from all 3 channels in that situation.

Thanks for your input, though...
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Why would it do that?

That's like saying you only get half the bandwidth if you have two sticks of memory in a single channel board that has two slots.

The simple fact is there isn't a penalty for going with 4 dimms in that configuration, or at least the penatly is much smaller then dropping to 2 channel mode, wich is what you argued for.

If you want 6 slots so you can throw 12GB or ram at the thing, fine this isn't the board for you. But your initial bitch was that you could go 2 double dimm x 2 channel wich was wrong.
 
I've normally always purchased Gigabyte Mobos but I went for graphics this time around with the i7. I really like the layout and this is my 2nd place winner. I went with the Evga X58 for the triple SLI on the last build. I'm still running a 6 yr old Gigabyte board with Dual Bios and a P4 w/ Hyper Threading for mail and word processing, never had even a hiccup so Gigabyte has my full respect. :D
 
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