Gigabyte EX58-Extreme Motherboard Review
Everyone knows who Gigabyte is and what they do, so an introduction is not necessary. Therefore we will proceed with the review on the GA-EX58-EXTREME Motherboard developed by Gigabyte.
The GA-EX58-EXTREME is the latest high performance X58-Express Series motherboard from Gigabyte to take advantage of the awesome power of Intel’s Core i7 processors and the Intel X58 Express chipset. Taking advantage of the Core i7 processor is exactly what Gigabyte has done by including some awesome features such as QPI interface, 3 channel DDR3 support, 3 Way SLI and CrossFireX support, Ultra Durable 3 technology and some sizable overclocking features, the EX58-EXTREME is no doubt an exciting motherboard that brings to the table some amazing performance.
First thing I noticed about this motherboard is the heavy weight, it’s really heavy for a PCB. (printed circuit board). Further investigations has revealed that Gigabyte has designed a totally new printed circuit board. Within the layers of the PCB I discovered they included two layers of thick copper sheeting, both layers were double the normal thickness. Gigabytes engineers done this to lower the impedance (resistance) which lowers overall temperature and extends PCB component life. Gigabyte calls this configuration Ultra Durable 3 technology, which means the motherboard components run cooler and do it with less power. They also added top of the line Japanese Solid Capacitors boasting 50,000 hours of operation, Ferrite core chokes with higher energy efficiency rather than less efficient iron core chokes. Gigabyte used a Hybrid Silent-Pipe which is a fusion thermal solution that combines liquid cooling, screen cooling and external heat sink to provide 30% cooler thermal performance. The Silent-Pipe 2 system takes up a PCI slot but it is well worth it for the extra cooling that it provides.
Along the right side of the motherboard there are ten SATA ports all lined up dress right dress in line formation, this design directs cables off to the side of the motherboard. There’s six standard SATA connectors for hard drives and four SATA connectors for hardware RAID. That’s plenty of flexibility to design your machine. Just below those SATA ports is a small LED POST, which shows alphanumerical codes to inform you which part of the boot went off path. Two fan headers also reside along this side of the board. In the top right hand corner of the board you will see a power and reset button (ideal for overclockers) along with a bank of surface-mounted LEDs.
Power and Reset buttons
The CPU socket has a large amount of space around it to install a large after market CPU cooler such as the Thermalright cooler we reviewed here or the Coolermaster Hyper Z600 CPU cooler and plenty of solid capacitors on all four sides. Surrounding the LGA-1366 Socket is Gigabyte’s chipset cooler which is the most interesting part of this area. A heatpipe is channeled out across the board, connecting the power regulation with a heatsink on the northbridge, and to the NT200 and southbridge chips which has the Ultra Durable 3 logo on it. The Northbridge is covered by a water block with two heatpipes leading out to two heatsinks that cover the RDS (on) MOSFETs.
Gigabyte EX58-EXTREME Silent-Pipe II Installed
Hybrid SilentPipe II Installed Logo Side
Hybrid SilentPipe II
Expansion slots receive a nice treatment as there is plenty of room here, has three PCI Express slots for three video cards in SLI mode or Crossfire mode. Also there are two PCI slots in between the three PCI Express x16 slots, a PCI Express x4 slot and a PCI Express x1 slot. Onboard sound is provided by the venerable Realtek ALC 889A CODEC , has 108DB SNR and support for Dolby Home Theater.
Expansion Slots
Moving on to the I/O panel one nice feature that stands out is the CLR CMOS button, which allows the user to quickly clear the CMOS on a failed boot with the push of a button. No doubt the CLR CMOS button is a nice feature for overclocking enthusiast. There are two PS/2 ports (Mouse and Keyboard), SPDIF Out and Coaxial port along with six audio jacks for the onboard sound which makes 7.1 surround sound available (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone). Gigabyte added Two RJ45 jacks for the onboard LAN controlled by two Realtek 8111D PHY controllers to support Teaming. Finally there are eight USB 2.0 ports with room for four more via the USB brackets connected to the internal USB headers
Gigabyte EX58-EXTREME IO Panel
Gigabyte uses a modified version of the Phoenix AwardBIOS on this motherboard which is a popular choice for many makers. The BIOS is split into MB Intelligent Tweaker, Standard CMOS Features, Advanced BIOS Features, Integrated Peripherals, Power Management Setup, PC Health Status, and the default settings. The Motherboard Intelligent BIOS is where all the tweaking and overclocking is done.
Final Conclusion
I have no problem recommending the Gigabyte EX58-EXTREME motherboard to enthusiasts wanting the best possible performance and functionality available for the Intel Core i7 system. Due to the 3-way SLI/CrossFireX capability and With the innumerable array of settings and BIOS configuration options there is plenty for overclockers to salivate over. Gamers and high performance enthusists will love the 3-way SLI and CrossFireX capabilty. Being able to amp up the Tri Channel DDR3 to 24GB will no doubt please potential buyers and with ten total SATA ports for your hard drives, will close the deal for sure. What you get with the Gigabyte EX-58 Extreme is a first class high quality, feature laden motherboard. The only draw back I could find with this motherboard is the price, it’s not cheap. All in all there are few motherboards that fall in this elite category, the choice all depends on your needs.
