Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5 X58 Motherboard Review

A Closer Look at the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5

At first glance, the overall layout is very positive. The ATX power connector, the floppy connector, and the SATA ports are all intelligently located at the edge of the motherboard, which is both convenient and functional. There is a large amount of room between all three physical PCI-E x16 slots, which should allow the use of just about any aftermarket VGA cooling solution. Due to its position near the northbridge cooler, the PCI-E x1 slot cannot accept longer cards, but that is a non-issue for the vast majority of consumers. The 8-pin CPU power connector is well-positioned layout-wise, but it can be somewhat difficult to access as your fingers are jammed in between the heatpipe and the back of an I/O module. Overall though, the designers have done a commendable job with the EX58-UD5's layout.

Now let’s take a closer look at the individual sections:


As you can see, the general CPU socket area on this motherboard is relatively unobstructed and the northbridge and mosfet coolers are all low profile. This should ensure compatibility with any size air cooler or water block without issue. However, those utilizing more extreme sub-zero forms of cooling may encounter some difficulty during the insulation process due to the significant number of solid capacitors that surround the socket area. A quick fix to this problem is simply removing the entire metal retention module with a 3mm allen wrench, which is something that you could not do with the past LGA775 unit.

This motherboard comes with a twelve-phase power design consisting of Low RDS(on) MOSFETs per channel and high-quality sealed R80 ferrite core chokes. Assuming a design of 30 amps per phase, as we seen on some past Gigabyte motherboards, this PWM can handle even the most highly-clocked Core i7 processor and should provide stable voltage regulation.

The cooling system on the EX58-UD5 is an elegant design, with thick heatpipes running from the MOSFETs heatsinks to the northbridge cooler. There is also another hidden flat heatpipe connecting the northbridge cooler to the impressive southbridge heatsink. We will be testing the efficacy of this new cooling system in a later section.


No matter what you think of the baby blue colour, everyone is in agreement that these new blue & white memory slots are a huge improvement over the past yellow & red or ghastly pink & lime green themes. The memory slots have the same spacing as we have seen on all other six slot motherboards, which is to say that you will not want to use any memory modules with abnormally thick heatspreaders. Gigabyte have outfitted this model with a three-phase power design for the memory, which should ensure stable voltages to your precious DDR3 modules. We can also see the perfectly located 24-pin ATX power connector

Next we have one of the impressive five system fan headers, the backlit onboard power button, and the reset switch. Lastly, we have the sweet-looking ACPI LED display, which illuminates according to how many power phases are in use.


Here we get a good look at the stylish and huge southbridge cooler, which is held down by push-pins. Starting from the left, we see one of the two grey FireWire headers, the two yellow USB headers, and the colour-coded front panel header. At the bottom, there is the debug LED display and the impressive ten 90-degree SATA II ports. The four white SATA ports are capable of RAID 0/1/JBOD and are controlled by two JMicron 322 storage processors. The six blue ports come from the ICH10R southbridge and support RAID 0/1/5/10. We really are not too keen on the placement of the IDE port, since it is blocked when a full-length card is installed in the third PCI-E x16 slot. We definitely would have rather seen the floppy port in that location, since few would mind losing access to that relic.

The overall expansion slot layout and assortment is excellent. There are three full-sized PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots, one PCI-E x4 slots, one PCI-E x1 slot, and two legacy PCI slots. As is the case on nearly every motherboard on the market, if you install dual-slot graphics cards in any of the PCI-E x16 slots, you automatically lose access to the slot directly under it. In this case it would be the legacy PCI slot(s) or the floppy port. It should be noted that only the two blue PCI-E x16 slots support a full 16 electrical PCI-E lanes each, while the orange PCI-E x16 slot is limited to x8. The PCI-E x4 slot can fit full-length cards, and can accept graphics cards if you are so inclined. We wouldn't recommend gaming from an x4 slot, but it could be used to host a card who's sole function is folding.

By now it should be needless to say that the EX58-UD5 support both 3-way SLI and 3-way CrossFireX, which obviously makes it highly desirable among gamers and benchmarkers with healthy bank accounts. When utilizing multiple graphics cards, the PCI-E x16 slots can operate in a x16/x8/x8 or x16/x16/x1 configuration. If Gigabyte outfitted the EX58-UD5 with one additional PCI-E x16 slot, then four-way CrossFireX would have been an option via the X58's x8/x8/x8/x8 configuration capabilities.


Starting from left to right, we have the two Realtek 8111D Gigabyte LAN controller chips, which run on the PCI-Express bus, and the Realtek ALC889A High Definition Audio codec. Next there is the ITE IT8720F chip I/O controller, which is responsible for hardware monitoring, fan speed management, and it supplies the legacy floppy support and PS/2 ports. Lastly, we see the two 8Mbit BIOS chips.

Next is a closer look at the finned northbridge cooler, which features a pretty thick base. Although it may look a little underwhelming, the X58 IOH runs a fair bit cooler than previous chipsets and this heatsink should prove to be more than capable. By the way, notice the well-hidden heatpipe which connects the northbridge and southbridge coolers. To the left of the NB heatsink you may spot the five Temperature Alert LEDs which indicate the approximate temperature level of the chipset.


As you can see, the rear I/O panel is quite busy. From left to right, there are the PS/2 ports, optical and coaxial S/PDIF connectors, FireWire port, clear CMOS button, eight USB ports, two Gigabit LAN ports, and the six audio jacks. The MOSFET heatsink reaches to the back of the motherboard and allows hot air to vent out. The only gripe we have is the fact that only one type of FireWire connector is present, while we have seen both 4-pin and 6-pin types present and accounted for on cheaper models like the EX58-UD3R.


On the back on the motherboard we can spot the large metal backplate behind the CPU socket area. This is a new design feature specified by Intel to ensure that heavy cooling solutions would not bend and potentially damage the PCB or even the CPU socket itself. This was obviously a wise choice since the Core i7's high Thermal Design Power (TDP) requires hefty heatsinks to keep temperatures in check, particularly when overclocking. It is also interesting to note that Gigabyte have placed a number of MOSFETs on the back of the motherboard, serving both the processor and the X58 chipset.