GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R (rev. 1.0) Pro Reviews

When we think of affordable motherboards we tend to think of motherboards that do not have the performance of their higher end, more expensive siblings. In some cases we would be correct, in the case of the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R motherboard we were totally wrong. This motherboard not only has SATA 3.0, USB 3.0, and USB Power III, this motherboard also overclocks and performs just as good as well as the higher cost motherboards. Lets not forget the upgrade ability of the LGA 1366 platform, we can move on to the newer hex-core as a drop in upgrade. The overall layout of the motherboard we consider to be fairly decent this time around. Which is unusual from Gigabyte when it pertains to the upper PCI-E expansion ports. The only complaints we have with this motherboard is the placement of the EPS CPU power plug and how the X58A-UD3R does a continuous three time reboot every time it was turned off. Having a price point on or around the $209 USD mark makes this a sweet deal no matter how you look at it.

Given that it costs £83 less than the cheapest SATA 6Gbps, USB 3 motherboard from Asus that we've reviewed, the P6X58D Premium, and £109 less than Gigabyte's own GA-X58A-UD7, the GA-X58A-UD3R is also a fantastic bargain, leaving you with more cash to spend on the CPU, graphics card and cooling hardware. If you're building a Core i7 PC, then this board should be top of your shopping list.

We’re happy to say that the UD3R (rev 2) lived up to our expectations after we'd applied the latest BIOS. The board proved to be quick at stock speeds and eminently overclockable; when combined with its keen price these factors make the board extremely attractive.

Intel's LGA1366 processors are expensive enough on their own, so any money you can save on a compatible motherboard is very welcome. The Gigabyte X58A-UD3R does just that by undercutting most X58 boards at the same time as delivering the latest features including SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0. With a BIOS tweak it might approach perfection.

The only con I could find was that the driver disk was hard to use due to glitches on the autorun executable and so I opted to download drivers from Gigabyte's website instead. Otherwise, everything worked like a charm, overclocking was smooth and easy, but had the ability to go in-depth for fine tuning and high overclocks. This is a great board and a bargain at the price they are offering it for online at the time of writing.

A busy board with a hatful of valuable features, and at an affordable price too.

We liked the senior model Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5 (rev. 2.0) but we must confess the junior Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R (rev. 2.0) wins our sympathies now. It is inexpensive and but formally positioned as an entry-level product because it is actually just as good as the senior model and surpasses products from other manufacturers.

The GIGABYTE X58A-UD3R offers good performance and nice features for the price. It may be a tad fussy, but once it works it works well. Definitely worth considering in your rig.

Next, Gigabyte's X58A-UD3R is, as its naming convention indicates, targeted at those hoping to shave costs by opting for fewer features. That did not stop Gigabyte from dishing out its usual barrage of additional storage controllers. It made for a crowded board, but less so than the higher end models which squeezed even more features. For what you get, the price of S$365 appears decent value, though we weren't that impressed with its performance, which was mostly average.

Overall, the X58A-UD3R is modest overclocker with high-end features for a low-end cost (comparable to current market prices). At $210, the board really targeted at overclockers and enthusiasts looking to move up to six-core Gultowns and SATA/USB 3.0 devices. This board should work very well with those high-end components and give users the highest performance speeds modern CPUs and storage devices can offer.

In a word, we'd categorize the Gigabyte X58A-UD3R's performance as "excellent." USB 3 is great, the combo USB2/eSATA ports work well, and both the Marvell and Intel ICH10R controllers turned in solid numbers. Admittedly, the JMicron chips aren't so great—we'd prefer to see Gigabyte use other solutions on the market—but the board allows each controller to be configured for IDE or AHCI individually. That makes it much easier to fine-tune devices for optimum performance.