Gigabyte X58A-UD3R Intel X58 LGA 1366 Motherboard Review

Gigabyte X58A-UD3R Intel X58 LGA 1366 Motherboard Review
Author: Frank Stroupe
Pages:
  1. Introduction
  2. Specifications / Features
  3. A Closer Look
  4. Installation
  5. The BIOS
  6. Features / Overclocking
  7. Testing - Benchmarks
  8. Testing - Futuremark / Photoshop
  9. Testing - Gaming
  10. Conclusions

In late 2008, Intel released the LGA 1366 Core i7 900 Series Bloomfield processors and the X58 Express chipset to accommodate them. Just over a year ago I reviewed the Intel Core i7 920 processor and a few X58 motherboards. I was and still am impressed with the awesome power and new features of LGA 1366, especially the incredible bandwidth attained by triple channel memory.

But to be honest, I had pretty much written LGA 1366 as the right technology released at the wrong time. Intel and partners released this excellent processor/chipset combination right in the middle of a global economic meltdown. It is now a year later, and though things appear to have stabilized, the future is still pretty uncertain.

And in the meantime, Intel released the LGA 1156 family of processors and chipsets. This took the best of the LGA 1366 technology a few steps farther, among other advancements completely eliminating the Northbridge. The latest LGA 1156 processors have been built with the brand new 32nm manufacturing process and advanced the technology even further with on-die graphics processing.

So in the back of my mind I had decided we had probably seen the last of the LGA 1366. A shame too, as there are other new technologies coming online, SuperSpeed USB 3, and SATA 6GB/s, and I figured the only way a Bloomfield user would get to use them would be by expansion cards.

Then just last weekend I was chatting with a friend that had attended CES, who told me that Intel was working on a new LGA 1366 processor line, a six-core monster using 32nm…yeah, I know, I’m behind the times, the gossip about the new processors started back in Nov-Dec, but I was busy “fixing up” a “fixer-upper” house and moving during that time.

Anyway, I got a little excited, hoping that maybe LGA 1366 wasn’t dead, just in hibernation. The very next day, lo and behold, our friends at Gigabyte placed a cool little gem into my hands…a brand new LGA 1366 motherboard, complete with onboard SATA 6GB/s and USB 3. Today I will be looking at the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R, the entry-level model of their three new X58 motherboards, which appear to be designated differently from the older models by an “A” after the X58 in their name, and ending with an “R” rather than the usual “P”. Will this be the board of the future? Read on to see!

Special thanks to Gigabyte for providing us with the X58A-UD3R Intel X58 LGA 1366 Motherboard to review.

Packaging:

The X58A-UD3R is in a colorful box nearly completely covered with specs and features.

Gigabyte X58A-UD3R Intel X58 LGA 1366 Motherboard Gigabyte X58A-UD3R Intel X58 LGA 1366 Motherboard

Inside, the board is inside a static proof bag and protected from the bundle by a cardboard divider.

Gigabyte X58A-UD3R Intel X58 LGA 1366 Motherboard Gigabyte X58A-UD3R Intel X58 LGA 1366 Motherboard


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  • Jon Tseng

    How can the board be “laid out well” if the two x16 slots are side by side.

    This effectively hamstrings any dual-GPU solution above a Radeon 4850. It's completely illogical.

    ???

  • Patrick

    Your overclocking results graphs should either go to zero on the dependent axis or include results from another setup for comparison. Without doing one of the two, the bar graph picture tells us nothing at best, and is misleading at worst.

    Sorry to harp, but I just want to help. Your review is very useful and well done otherwise.

  • BurninSun

    The article is incorrect. the 2 x16 slots are slots 3 & 5, for a 3 way SLI, add in slot #7 running at x8. Slot #4 is a spare x8 that generally gets covered by the primary video card.

  • http://www.testfreaks.com/blog/news/news-for-saturday-february-27th-2010/ News for Saturday February 27th 2010

    [...] Gigabyte X58A-UD3R Intel X58 LGA 1366 Motherboard Review @ ThinkComputers.org [...]

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  • studnia

    Do you know if VT-d is working on this mobo? X58 chipset have this feature but sometimes it doesn't work. I'd like buy this mobo and install ESXi 4 (or XEN) with VT-d (VMDirectPath). Anybody test VT-d on this motherboard?

    Sorry for my bad english

  • studnia

    Do you know if VT-d is working on this mobo? X58 chipset have this feature but sometimes it doesn't work. I'd like buy this mobo and install ESXi 4 (or XEN) with VT-d (VMDirectPath). Anybody test VT-d on this motherboard?

    Sorry for my bad english

  • Doug

    Yes, I have ESXi 4.0 Update 1 installed on this motherboard. Can't get ESXi to recognize RAID — keeps seeing the individual disks, but ESXi is running great, including a 64-bit VM, so VT-d is working.

  • Marian

    Was on-board LAN interface working with ESXi 4.0 ?

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  • Jules S

    I Have this board know and i cant get windows 7 to install! really anoying. please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Redhorse

    Windows 7 installer freezes with the hard disk and optical drive hooked up to the Southbridge-powered SATA ports. Workaround: install Windows 7 with the drives connected to the Gigabyte SATA2 controller. After the successful installation the Southbridge-powered ports work.

  • Redhorse

    Windows 7 installer freezes with the hard disk and optical drive hooked up to the Southbridge-powered SATA ports. Workaround: install Windows 7 with the drives connected to the Gigabyte SATA2 controller. After the successful installation the Southbridge-powered ports work.

  • http://www.regcleanerscompared.com RegCure

    Thanks for the info. I was just about to buy one of these boards and I'm sure I would have came across this problem.

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  • andwork

    VT-d is for directed I/O, a feature of the chipset used to map hardware directly to virtual machine, it's not the same as VT, the CPU feature used to run 64 bit virtual machine.
    So, your answers is not correct.

  • andwork

    it seems that VT-d is not supported in this board.
    See there: http://www.vm-help.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13...

  • QED

    Before you run out and buy one of these, google the MB and the terms “High pitched noise, or “whine”.
    This board and it’s next two higher (UD5 & UD7) priced x58 cousins have been having problems with a VERY ANNOYING whine, sort of like a cat fight. Most folks think it’s the chokes. Gigabyte has been releasing bios updates to cure a hardware problem. To date, no cure despite revision 2 releases of the board. Google the board before you buy. There are videos on youtube of the problems.

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