Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 LGA1366 Motherboard Review

A Closer Look at the X58A-UD7

Without further ado, here is the X58A-UD7 in all its glory:


At first glance, the overall layout is quite positive. The 8-pin CPU power connector, 24-pin ATX power connector, power-on button, floppy connector, SATA ports, USB and FireWire headers are located on the edge of the motherboard, which is both convenient and functional. Ideally the IDE connector would also be on the edge, but there simply isn't any room left. While the four physical PCI-E x16 slots are a welcome addition, we would have liked to see greater spacing between them so that four dual-slot graphics cards could be used on this motherboard. When it comes to the overall theme, it is business as usual for this Gigabyte model, with the now widely recognized blue and white colour scheme.


Without question the centerpiece of this motherboard is Gigabyte's new 24-phase power design. While 24-phases may be overkill on a motherboard like the P55-UD6, it is definitely welcome on this motherboard since highly overclockable six-core Westmere chips are right around the corner. The benefit of having this advanced PWM is that the load gets spread across many MOSFETs, resulting in lower temperatures and potentially greater reliability as well.

A new design element to all X58A motherboards is the sleek black LOTES socket mechanism, which matches the chrome black cooling system.


The aluminium finned MOSFET heatsinks are attached to the northbridge cooler via a thick heatpipe. There is also another hidden flat heatpipe connecting the northbridge cooler to the impressive southbridge heatsink, but we'll take a look at that later. Under the MOSFET heatsinks are a newer generation of MOSFET ICs, which run cooler and have a much lower profile.


The baby blue & white 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 the 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 twelve phase LEDs, which illuminates according to how many power phases are in use, and the five frequency/overclock LEDs.


As you can see, Gigabyte have really outfitted this motherboard with an impressive variety of LEDs for every critical component. There are overvoltage LEDs, overclock LEDs, temperature indicator LEDs, and phase LEDs.


Here we get a good look at the large southbridge cooler, which is held down by push-pins, and the ten 90-degree SATA ports. The six blue SATA 3Gb/s ports come from the ICH10R southbridge and support RAID 0/1/5/10. The Marvell 9128 controller feeds the rightmost white SATA ports, which are SATA 6Gb/s capable and support RAID 0/1. The other two white ports are controlled by Gigabyte's proprietary SATA2 RAID chip, they operate at 3Gb/s and support JBOD and RAID 0/1.

We obviously removed the entire cooling system to expose the chips other the southbridge, so click here if you want to see what the cooling system looks like off of the motherboard.


Gigabyte have outfitted this model with a handy debug LED and colour-coded front panel header. A Gigabyte trademark, the X58A-UD7 features two physical BIOS chips ensuring instant recovery in the case of an improper BIOS update or a nasty virus.