Gigabyte X58-USB3 Intel X58 Motherboard Review

X58-USB3 Overview
The design and styling of the X58-USB3 is like many Gigabyte boards in the past.  They have used a blue PCB with white a blue styling on the components.  There are large heatsinks covering up parts of the board that will get hot.  The one in the center of the board has the Gigabyte logo on it.

Gigabyte X58-USB3 Intel X58 Motherboard Gigabyte X58-USB3 Intel X58 Motherboard

Moving up to the CPU socket we can see that this motherboard uses a 6 phase power design with Japanese solid capacitors and Ferrite core chokes.  Power comes in to the CPU via the 8pin connector towards the top of the board.  There is a good amount of room here, enough to fit large CPU coolers without any issues.

Gigabyte X58-USB3 Intel X58 Motherboard Gigabyte X58-USB3 Intel X58 Motherboard

Moving over to the DDR3 slots there are 6 total (3 blue and 3 white).  This board supports DDR3 up to 2200MHz.  You can also see the 24pin ATX power connector and a single 3pin fan connector.  Down from all that you have 6 SATA II connectors, which can be configured in RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10.  There is also another 3pin fan connector towards the bottom of the board.

Gigabyte X58-USB3 Intel X58 Motherboard Gigabyte X58-USB3 Intel X58 Motherboard

Look at the connectors on the bottom on of board there is your front panel connectors, 3 USB 2.0 headers and a 4pin fan connector.  The red-coded F_USB1 header is the one that supports Gigabyte’s ON/OFF charging technology.  As far as expansion slots go you have 3 PCI-E x1 slots, 3 PCI-E x16 slots and a single PCI slot.  The PCI-E x16 slots support both CrossFireX and SLI.

Gigabyte X58-USB3 Intel X58 Motherboard Gigabyte X58-USB3 Intel X58 Motherboard

Looking at the rear I/O starting at the left you have the keyboard and mouse PS/2 ports, coaxial S/PDIF port, 4 USB 2.0 ports, 2 USB 3.0 ports, Ethernet port, 2 more USB 2.0 ports, and the audio connections.  Some of the things missing that I am used to seeing is a clear CMOS button, firewire and eSATA ports.  Some people miss those, but if you don’t need them it saves you money.

Gigabyte X58-USB3 Intel X58 Motherboard Gigabyte X58-USB3 Intel X58 Motherboard

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