If you are visually impaired and are having difficulty navigating this site, please call our Customer Support line via our toll free number (800) 390-1119.

Newegg.com - A great place to buy computers, computer parts, electronics, software, accessories, and DVDs online. With great prices, fast shipping, and top-rated customer service - once you know, you Newegg.

If you are reading this message, Please click this link to reload this page.(Do not use your browser's "Refresh" button). Please email us if you're running the latest version of your browser and you still see this message.

Newegg.com - Computers, Computer Parts and Electronics

My Account

MyNeweggReviewsHelp & Info  
topNavRowBottom  
GIGABYTE GA-EX58-EXTREME Intel Motherboards
Customer Reviews for GIGABYTE GA-EX58-EXTREME LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Newegg.com's Product Ratings and Reviews feature enables Newegg.com customers to help each other make informed buying decisions. Learn More

Currently Unavailable

Review Summary (73 Reviews): Rating + 4
OverallLast 2 WeeksLast 6 Months
Excellent Rating + 5 37ReviewsExcellent
newegg
50%
Good Rating + 4 11ReviewsGood
newegg
15%
Average Rating + 3 2ReviewsAverage
newegg
3%
Poor Rating + 2 7ReviewsPoor
newegg
10%
Very Poor Rating + 1 16ReviewsVery Poor
newegg
22%
Filter Results     apply changes
     
Reviewer Product Review
Judgedredd
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/22/2009 3:32:29 PM

Rating + 5 Best X58 board out there


Pros: This motherboard's quality grabs your attention the moment you unpack it,
It supports both Crossfire and SLI. It has 3 PCI Express slots two of which run at 16X
water block for northbridge is a Plus for those of us useing water
I have always used Gigabyte. i have tryed the ASUS boards but they just dont compare to Gigabyte

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: Processors ----------- Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 965 Nehalem 3.2GHz @ 4.0Ghz / Watercooled Swiftech Apogee GTZ Extreme Performance CPU Waterblock

motherboard --------- GIGABYTE GA-EX58-EXTREME
Memory -------------- CORSAIR DOMINATOR 12GB (6 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 Triple Channel Kit
Video Cards --------- 2 BFG Tech GeForce GTX 280 PCI Express 2.0 in SLI Mode
Hard Drive ----------- 6 Western Digital RE2 160GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb
DVD-Drive ----------- 2 PLEXTOR Blu-Ray DVD Combo Super Multi Drive SATA Internal
Powesuppy ---------- Ultra X3 1000 Watt
Case ----------------- Thermaltake Armor+ Black
Cooling -------------- Thermaltake Bigwater 780E
Soundcard ----------- Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro
OS -------------------- Windows Vista 64 bit

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/16/2009 10:22:36 AM

Rating + 5 Great Board


Pros: This board is great. It gives you all the features your looking for. The Hybrid Silent Pipe cooling system they supply you with is also very efficient. Ive never had a problem with this motherboard (this is my second one). Gigabyte supplies you with alot of apps on the installation CD. Overclocking is fairly easy due to the extensive options that are presented to you on this board. Recommend the Zalman CNPS9900LED CPU Fan if your going to overclock.

Cons: I think Gigabyte shouldve placed the sata ports at a different angle. If you have a small case, they can be hard to get to.

Other Thoughts: I recommend this board to ANY overclocker. If you just want a solid motherboard for your i7, go with the UD5, but if you want to overclock, this is definetly the best board out there. Gigabyte scored big with this one, even though i think they could drop the price =)

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Chicago
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/11/2009 2:18:40 PM

Rating + 5 Lots of Searching led to this


Pros: Well made, lots of SATA and other inputs, the water cooling northbridge is nice. All in all a very nice motherboard and overclocking is very easily doable.

Cons: Not a lot. Runs a little on the warm side.

Other Thoughts: Core i7 965
Gigabyte ex58 extreme
Corsair Dominator GT 6gb at 2000
coolermaster V8 (works very well)
OCZ 120gb Vertex SSD
visiontek 4870x2
Dell 30 inch

5 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/26/2009 4:34:43 PM

Rating + 5 This board make overclocking simple


Pros: This board is great. The EasyTune6 software makes it simple to tweak and tune your system. I have a very stable overclock now running my i7-940 at 3.3GHz. I can run Prime95 for any amount of time with CPU temp of 46. I will continue to juice this system. I believe I will be able to push it to near 3.9GHz.

Cons: Don't forget that if the machine reboots due to an unstable overclock the BIOS will roll back to the secondary BIOS which is an older rev. When this happens in my case the RAID5 is unrecognized until I get it back on the F6 BIOS. Not really a problem if you are aware of it.

Other Thoughts: Gigabyte EX58-EXTREME
Intel i7-940
Cooler Master ATCS 840 Full Tower Black
Corsair Dominator 12GB DDR3 1600
MSI N9800GT GeForce 9800 GT 512MB
Raid0 (2X 300GB WD VelociRaptor)
Raid5 (4X WD Caviar Black 1TB)
Corsiar 1000W
Cooler Master V10 Hybrid CPU Cooler

Currently running with a moderate overclock of 3.3GHz.
At 3.3GHz I can run Prime95 for any period of time with a CPU temp of 46c

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/26/2009 3:30:05 PM

Rating + 2 No customer support


Pros: Beautiful specs on paper, lacking big time in memory support,seems to be the black sheep as far as any kind of suupport is concerned,if you need the cutting edge ....go for it. I called GT for about .75 cents in misplaced equiptment and they prefered to have a motherboard returned rather than just send me the .75 cent screws that I needed to to secure their cooler to the motherboard,No response to this is needed by Giigabyte because I have already sent the motherboard back for gigabyte to have it as a snack with their meals.

Cons: NO PROS DUE TO TECH SUPPORT.YOUR MOTHERBOARD IS GONE DUE TO YOUR OWN ARROGANT SUPPORT.

Other Thoughts: There has to be some reason this manuf has become a paria,either due to tech problems,or their just too good that every one hates them.I have only used gb motherbqards in the past so evaluating all the others will be fun.

3 out of 16 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

TurdFerg74
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
4/14/2009 10:52:28 AM

Rating + 5 Ridiculously Fast


Pros: - Good Layout - All my legacy parts transferred over fine

- Screaming Performance - I have an i7 940 that I have not OC'd and it smokes most machines I have seen or built, and definitely is the quickest in this price range.

- Innovative Design - The north bridge cooling system is phenomenal. Hard to see in the pictures but this board has a massive heat sink that ends up affixing in one of your cases PCI slots, and the convection cooling system cools everything around the processor efficiently and quietly.

- Features - On Board LCD POST display helps t/s any issues, numerous LEDs to show components are working correctly, on board power/reset switch. Already has water block installed on North Bridge in case you want to go the water cooling route. External SATA header has SATAII connector and power supply for plugging in bare (no enclosure) SATA drives. Excellent for IT folk that need to ghost or do recoveries.

Overall, it's the most feature packed board I have purchas

Cons: - v 1.0 - I never like buying anything that has version 1.0 tagged on it, but so far no issues.

- Immediate Board Failure - I got lucky and had a board that would not power up. Tested with another board running the same components worked fine. DOAs happen, not necessarily the fault of Gigabyte. RMA was fairly quick and painless though.

Other Thoughts: My current build

GigaByte EX58 Extreme
Intel Core i7 940 @2.93 Ghz
OCZ 12 GB DDR3 10600
WD Velociraptor 300 GB
XFX GT295 1GB DDR3 Primary
XFX 8800GTX 320 MB (Left over from old system, so I set it up as PhysX only card)
Vista Ultimate 64 Bit
SeaSonic 750 watt PS
Antec P180 Case w/ 4 120mm fans

A thought about the Antec setup, it basically splits the power supply off in it's own compartment at the bottom of the case. Hence, all the cabling runs up into the "Board Compartment" right about where the third video card would reside if I had one.

Something to think about if you are running the P18x series, or a similar design. I had to do a little creative reconfiguring, and the GTX285 card is huge... I had two Samsung 500GB drives striped in my old setup, and the new 285 card is so long, I had to move them down into the PS compartment. Lots of heat down there, but I ended up getting the VelociRaptor (The best drive ever!) and it cut the heat down quite a bit.

8 out of 8 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

godson
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
4/13/2009 1:08:10 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: This board is pretty sick. Got it a week ago so far no complaints . Running stable with air cooling. The Northbridge cooler pretty sweet. Everything was easy to install including the CPU fan and Northbridge cooler. Plenty of Sata ports, and usb. Color of the board is prurrty toooo..
Have a stock cooler my cpu hit 39 deg on load and idols on 25. I am also running TRI SLI with 8800 GTX. BIG FREAKIN CARDS and THEY ALL FIT!!! So you don’t need old cards like the guy that posted two below me and to top it off i have room for nice HEAT SICK AS well.

Cons: This is a personal dislike really. I don’t like how the sata ports are laid out. The ports are parallel (on top of each other) at the end of the board so kind of tricky when removing the sata cable.

Other Thoughts: Haven’t OC trying to get my GTX cards temp lower before doing that. Also i updated the driver on my cards and been getting SLI errors but i had these errors before on my old board and it’s not a gigabyte error it’s on NVDIA side.

The BIOS is in detailed but hey get what you pay for. Also I flashed my BIOS using q-flash to the latest version and it was simple. I'm type person that stuff scares me to death. =X

Defiantly a good board. Before the sli error made crysis l4d, cod1,2,4,5, CSS look like amazing on high graphics.. VMware please don’t get me started.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Ronin15
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
4/11/2009 12:31:18 PM

Rating + 5 Gigabyte is the best


Pros: To the genius that wrote the prior review. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that it would be hard to fit three of nvidias biggest cards into one machine. I don't own this gigabyte product, but I saw this guys review and just had to give gigabyte some props. I own a the GA-X38-DQ6 and as far as I'm concerned Gigabyte makes the best mother boards out there for gaming. There boards are overclocking
monsters!!! You just need to use your thinker and do your homework before you make bad reviews because you failed to realize something. GIGABYTE ROCKS !!!!

Cons: ZERO!!!!

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

disappointed_buyer
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/8/2009 10:03:07 AM

Rating + 1 Please read - wish I'd noticed this before wasting my time -- False Advertising by Gigabyte


Pros: Plenty. Except for one thing that trumps everything good about this board...

Cons: Here's the rub: it's advertised as a 3-way capable SLI...but, after a few go-arounds with Gigabyte's tech people, they just admitted that it's only 3-way capable for small videocards. I have three GTX260 cards. The third one is blocked from fully seating because it's heatsink covers the front panel power switch wire's connection. There you go. Sure, it's 3-way SLI capable...but only if you have an old style video card. That's freaking false advertising!! Very upset with Gigabyte and will NEVER again buy one of their products. I can only hope that this review spares you the wasted time, effort and money.

Other Thoughts: Here's Gigabyte's response to my question (after giving me absurdly dumb responses the first couple of times):

Dear Customer,

The obstruction will occur if using PCIE graphics card models that have extended heatsinks that require two full slots. There is currently no solution other than using a different motherboard or different graphics card in the third slot.

Thank you for using Gigabyte products

13 out of 28 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Bob
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
4/8/2009 7:33:55 AM

Rating + 1 Failed after a week


Pros: None -

Cons: Died after a week. Gigabyte support are useless.
Do your self a favor and look elsewhere.

Other Thoughts: Wish I'd bought from newegg.

4 out of 11 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Bigg
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
4/7/2009 2:32:02 AM

Rating + 5 Credit where Credit is due


Pros: I don't write many reviews and i take them as a grain of salt usually, But this board is underrated too much so i'm here to give it the credit/Respect it deserves. I bought an Asus p6t deluxe Mb from letterletterfly.com (we techs know who) my first mistake of going against the grain i order ton's of parts off new egg but trying to save a buck i got burned. & they clearly had warning of no refund i couldn't even step up and get a better board with more money. they know something right yes them boards are garbage (long story) in short all the reviews you read on P6t ver1 are true with a capital T never again had to sell on eKay after i replaced it for $50 loss. I buy nothing but gigabyte boards in the 60-150 range makes up all my builds with exception of my personal pc i always used evga superb customer service their. I thought why in the hell didn't i go with a gigabyte anyways (low reviews had a say) they done me good so i got the extreeemme X58 & all i can say is Underrated.

Cons: the customer support isn't like evga but is email based my experience w/ their boards haven't been significant enough as a tech i couldn't figure out my self-

Not many O/C tutorials using this board only asus really-

few things like Front audio plug in stupid location as most boards are-

Got to flash bios & download O/c utility off web site because one on disk not compatible with 64bit.

Does seem to take second or so to boot with raid enabled & vista nothing drastic just being picky-


In short their isn't much really just things we techs notice and dislike about certain boards. But in the end what you are reading this review for is NO & NO NO major issues none gigabyte is the my number 1 affordable Mb co. & now high end co. also have yet to have to call them for a replacement on the many pc's i built even my customers know their name & say when they decide to get another build get me the same MB i have in Now I don't want anything else you can pick rest of the parts hm

Other Thoughts: Again i don't write reviews & i let them way very little because people rating systems is off they rate things they already know before they purchase stuff you can read up on and see in pics any good tech does research so i can't respect someone who is claiming life long exp tech and obviously didn't do research from their rating and review

IF YOU AGREE & OWN THIS BOARD AND WORKS BUT DON'T WRITE REVIEWS JUST RATE THIS REVIEW TO GIVE A GREAT BOARD IT'S CREDIT.

I really dislike seeing such a great product being bashed Because of know it all's i have built a lot of machines with gigabyte boards and a few machines with cheap boards like asrock & ecs which surprisingly are rock solid i get people bringing me their old pc with these boards still ticking through harsh conditions much respect. I know their are only 4 manufactures out their & asus makes their own boards & much more why because I DO RESEARCH which more people need to I Do agree when U pay this type of money u should ge

6 out of 10 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Mike
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/27/2009 9:08:19 AM

Rating + 1 Worst motherbord I have seen


Pros: I was able to easily take a 920 chip to 3.85 ghz.

Cons: Way too many to list, here are some. (All of these problems are present even with the default settings in the BIOS) Slow boot. Many times it won't even get to boot the OS, so I have to restart it a few times. HDD light is constantly on, even when there is no hard drive activity. Very poor SATA port placement. I believe that this board is not even close to being worth the price it costs (328.99 USD), with all of these issues. This is my first and last Gigabyte product that I buy.

Other Thoughts: I am not sure if that is normal or not. First time I see it. When I start my computer it turns on and off a few times before it begins booting. Thank you NewEgg, for the fast shipping and for providing some of the best products on the market (not including this one).

2 out of 14 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

WoodburyMan
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/22/2009 9:57:40 AM

Rating + 5 Amazing


Pros: Amazing, dynamicly overclocks the CPU for me automatically. No issues with board itself.

Cons: Does not state for Windows Install in with SATA controller in RAID mode you MUST USE A IDE CD-ROM, otherwise you get a 0x0000007B blue screen in setup. Easy work around once you know what to do.

Other Thoughts: Motherboard weighs A TON, but that's a good thing. Gigabyte's usual odd wording in manual always fun to read.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Bloody
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/19/2009 6:51:02 AM

Rating + 4 Great MB while it lasted


Pros: Mostly easy install, holds everything i needed it to, very fast board.

Cons: Poor layout of PCI-E slots, RAM slots, and SATA ports. with 3x GTX280's installed they sit literally butted up to each other, not to mention make the LED Hex-decimal readout unuseable due to it being completely covered, and make sure you install all your SATA cables prior to installing any graphics cards that are around the size of the GTX series. And as far as RAM goes, they should've known that people that are buying this much of a MB will more than likely be using some very good RAM, thus making the RAM slots a little further from the processor, my Corsair Dominator Barely fit into the first DIMM due to the height of the RAM modules and the size of the Zalman 9700I have installed.

Other Thoughts: After a lengthy install, Vista was giving some random issues, everything worked great once flashed to Bios v. F3, however after about 2 months I get no video output, tried single card setup, tried all three seperately to no avail. LED readout says "Searching for VGA Device" and stops there for about 30 secs then auto-restarts and stops again at the same place. Called Gigabyte and told me to try everything I already had, Diff RAM, diff video cards, clear CMOS and yadda yadda yadda, and finally after 30 mins with the so called technician the solutoin was RMA, that was 1 month ago, still awaiting any response other than product received. Gigabyte RMA service is horrible. Despite all this, it is a great board, I have used gigabyte for years now and this is the first product I have ever had that has had any issues. Dont let one bad review steer you away, this board is great as is gigabyte's quality, i was just unlucky.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/16/2009 5:45:59 PM

Rating + 1


Pros: Very solid looking MB, However was not able to use it, it was DOA.

Cons: Arrived DOA. Im sure it is a good MB if you get a working one. However mine did not work, I hope everyone else has better luck.

2 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Smittybits
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/4/2009 3:38:45 PM

Rating + 4 Broken X58 Chipset Water Block


Pros: Newegg replaced the broken board immediately. Runs great

Cons: Unfortunately the box was missing the I/O shield and CD.

Other Thoughts: Newegg would have replaced it but the board runs so well I voided the replacement in turn I will call Gigabyte to replace the I/O shield and CD as they were not that big of deal to me. This board is so good, I do not like to fix what is not broken.

3 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

JUdgedredd
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/1/2009 2:27:38 PM

Rating + 5 extreme


Pros: Extremely easy to install, setup and use. Migrated from a Gigabyte n680ISLI-DQ6 to this EX58-Extreme

it the best looking gigabyte board i have ever seen , well cooling with waterblock or passive heatsink/heatpipe, SLI/Crossfire huge plus for video-card fence-sitters. Plenty of on-board Sata connectors, reset and power buttons on board were a nice touch.

Cons: 1- no small fan in the passive North Bridge heat sink
2- The PCI Express x16 slots need to be set up like they were no the 680I Dq6 so card are not on top of each other
3 the way PCIE are layed out if you use SLI there boa a PCI slot open

Other Thoughts: This motherboards quality grabs your attention the moment you unpack it,

for all you ASUS fans outh there buy a real motherboard this time say away for the ASUS Garbage

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Utley
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/26/2009 10:28:35 PM

Rating + 2 Review bad experiences before buying this board


Pros: Overclocked my i7 nicely to 3.8ghz without voltage increases. Its a cooling monster, I have liquid cooling that keeps my entire system at 40c at load. The copper waterblock is a dream, and so is the heatsink, which vents the hot air outside the case via thermal radiation. Lots of BIOS options.

Cons: This would be the 4th ex-58 extreme board Ive had to RMA. The first one wouldnt post. The second one wouldnt post either. The 3rd one worked for 3 weeks flawlessly, up until I installed a second video card and tried to run it in SLI. No post after that. Updating the BIOS wouldnt recognize my optical drives and caused me to revert back to F3 (F4 porked it). Waiting on Gigabyte to send me my 4th one. Its getting tiresome. Should have bought the eVGA version.

Other Thoughts: Do your homework before buying this board. Ive had this thing since December 5th '08 and have maybe 3 weeks if not a day more working flawlessly. I wish I could send this back to newegg and get a different board. The next gigabyte ex-58 I get will be the last one.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Hyper
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/26/2009 4:31:57 AM

Rating + 5 Solid


Pros: Very solid board. The chipset cooler works great. Currently have an I7-920 overclocked to 4Ghz 24/7 use.

Cons: none that come to mind...well could use a different color scheme :)

Other Thoughts: the last couple systems I've put togeather where on Gigabyte boards and havent had any trouble with them. Stable and dependable.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Lizoyd
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/24/2009 9:08:08 AM

Rating + 5 Motherboard


Pros: This is a must have MB for all OC's. The quality and design are flawless. User Manual hits on everthing you will need. Superior air cooling system and ready for liquid cooling. Software included for overclocking makes it easy for even the novice.

Cons: Wish there would have been a Buy 1 Get 1 Free sale. ;)

Other Thoughts: It has dual LAN connections that can be set to work as a team, this gives you twice the transmission bandwidth into the PC. Must have a router that supports IEEE 802.3ad LACP standard. The BIOS are rich with settings!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

gtbrettski
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/16/2009 12:20:09 PM

Rating + 4 Stable


Pros: Works, stable. Have not over clocked the cpu yet. Bought many Gigabyte motherboards over the past, have never really had a problem. I also like the energy saver power stuff and all of the trouble shooting LED's on the board.

Cons: One Egg for Audio header. When I use head phones using the front Audio header pins, I get a horrible electrically generated noise through the headphones. It's not the chassis or the PSU, because I had another motherboard using both previously, and did not experience this phenomenon. It's tolerable but very annoying, does not happen if I use the jacks found on the back of the board. Trying to figure out what needs to be grounded

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

UndredKlocked
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/13/2009 11:26:36 PM

Rating + 5 Stable board


Pros: Great stable board, no issues, running I7 920 @ 3.6 so far on air, with 6 gig in tripple channel.. waiting on a asus 295 gtx, should match nicely...

Cons: Heavy...crowded pci slots, with coolers.

Other Thoughts: I read articles about boards x2 cooper not really helping stability... not sure if i agree, maybe i just buying into the marketing, however the board has a lot of other great features.. dont focus on one... oh and dont have to water cool the chipset you can just use the massive heat sink...

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

AAAgueda
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/11/2009 12:04:34 PM

Rating + 5 Outstanding Motherboard


Pros: Outstanding Motherboard!!!

Very Stable, no issues or crashes.

Without overclocking, it offers the fastest performance of this time Feb-2009.

Through overclocking I've reached 3,900 mhz with an Intel CoreI7 920 (2,666 Mhz), by just using the correct RAM and cooling provided with motherboard (Hybrid Silent Pipe 2).

Cons: Hybrid Silent Pipe 2, goes right over the PCIE x1, completely nullifying that slot, another issue caused by the Silent Pipe 2 is that due to it's shape, I was left with little to no space on PCIE x4 to put my TV capture card.

Other Thoughts: It would be nice if Gigabyte would have designed Hybrid Silent Pipe 2, to not take the space of any other slot, but I am sure that their engineers were/are aware of that.
Maybe its up to retailers to tell their customers about it.

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/11/2009 5:06:58 AM

Rating + 1 buyer beware


Pros: pretty board

Cons: Well everything was fine untill i went to power up the board only to find that it was leaking from the integrated waterblock on the chipset. This lead to my first 2 of 3 graphics cards into failure. I called gigabyte only to get the run around and I quote " its not over 30 days old so you must resort to the vendor. Well this is not a new egg problem this is a manufacture problem. But hey what do they really care . They sure won't pay for there mistakes. So thanks for screwing me out of my graphics cards..

Other Thoughts: How about you get some americans in the tech support during normal business hours. Talking to people who have such terrible broken english just fuels the fire. No one likes to have to listen to the toolbag repeat himself over and over only to not understand him.

13 out of 14 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Chip
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
2/10/2009 12:14:47 PM

Rating + 1 Never Gigabyte when it comes to motherboards


Pros: The boards work great....

Cons: for a while. The first 30 gigabyte boards i ever purchased, half broke within a year. The other half eventually broke one by one. We rma'd them however the replacements also began to break. Then gigabyte refused to replace them eventually, even while still in the warranty period. They claim the warranty begins at the date of manufacture, which is not how it was advertised. I have all of the emails back and forth between us if anyone is interested to see them. email me at selling4tehwin at comcast dot net and ill forward them on along with the proof that i purchased this amount.

Other Thoughts: I just want buyers to beware that gigabyte doesn't stand behind their motherboard products. At such a high failure rate you would think they would have appeased my recent final attempt to get some fixed. Another motherboard company that i used for my recent upgrades has worked for a year without one single failure (20 total purchased)

12 out of 15 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Kiteman
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/3/2009 2:07:30 PM

Rating + 4 Great Board!


Pros: Great overclocker
Lots of bells&whistles

Cons: Aluminum block on northbridge chip
1/4" fittings

Other Thoughts: A fantastic board with the option of water cooling the chipset out of the box. Unfortunately, GB used an aluminum block and not copper, as well limiting flow rate by using 1/4" fittings; otherwise I would have given it 5 stars. No reliability problems as others have mentioned.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

met722
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/2/2009 10:03:20 AM

Rating + 5 One sweet mobo


Pros: I love this motherboard.
Pros:
Includes a bracket to hook up external hard drives to internal SATA
Easy overclocking utility
Display in board to show diagnostic codes
Easy install
Good software
Lots of USB ports
Optical and coaxial audio outputs

Cons: Location of SATA ports makes them hard to get to in my case
RAM had to be put in white slots, would not work in blue (Patriot 6gb)n

Other Thoughts: I was going to get the ASUS but it was out of stock so I got this and haven't looked back. There's a lot of little extras with this motherboard that I really like.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

pies
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
2/1/2009 9:19:53 PM

Rating + 5 Best x58 board out there


Pros: What can I saw this board has it all.
Easy over-clocker, three way sli and crossfire x.
Water cooled.
the list goes on and on.
For the people complaining not every companys products can be perfect.
So don't complain because you got a doa suck it up.
and another thing it's called reading your manual give it a try sometime.
Any one looking for an amazing x58 board this is without a doubt it

Cons: Didn't buy from newegg

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Ryanator777
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/29/2009 11:45:51 PM

Rating + 5 Scary yet satisfying.


Pros: After reading every, single, freekin' review for every single i7 motherboard I found that none are perfect. Not one had only glittering reviews. This one was no exception ether. But let me tell you when I got it home hooked it all up and saw all of these colorful LEDs light up on the inside. Awe inspiring. Till this day I have not had a problem and I still look over to my case every time I boot up.

Cons: Distracts from my graphics card...

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

steponz
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/29/2009 9:01:30 PM

Rating + 1 Terrible Board


Pros: None

Cons: Bios's are buggy... performance isn't that great..
Not an easy overclocker.. due to Bios bugs...
My board just died.... Posted and 8B error and now everytime I boot it up it posts the same error and then automatically reboots... it keeps going like this...

Other Thoughts: Tried everything to fix it.. Getting RMA'd Tomorrow.. decided to purchase the ASUS Rampage II Extreme..

4 out of 9 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/29/2009 7:29:11 PM

Rating + 1 Not sure what to say


Pros: Can't say I have any atm....it looks nice.

Cons: I received this motherboard last night and went to install. Mind you I was using an ESD strap and had the mobo on a non-static pad. I couldn't get this mobo to post whatsoever. The troubleshooting steps in manual are a joke. And now I have to pay for shipping to newegg since I recieved a "bad" product.

Other Thoughts: I guess you can't say this a mobo that doesn't perform well and I understand that sometimes you recieve a bad product. But if you are going to pay that amount there should be a better check process before the product leaves the door.

8 out of 10 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Disappointed Man
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: less than 1 day
1/28/2009 7:23:24 PM

Rating + 2 Say No to X58 Giga Mobo


Pros: You won't get Support from Gigabyte once they stop making the x58 series.

They refuse to support my GA-X48T-DQ6 and its less than a year old.

Cons: Super Bad Customer and Technical Support.

They always respond with the word "UNFORTUNATELY"

You have to mix-match Catalyst and Driver to make it work. Updated Drivers don't fix bugs just create new problems. Generally have to roll back Driver to previous to get rid of problem.

Other Thoughts: My Gigabyte Motherboard GA-X48T-DQ6 works okay.
It ability to OverClock is terrible.
Qualified Vender List is never verified. Just what is there is compatible. Doesn't mean they work correctly.

You'll be Sorry to buy a Gigabyte product cause within a year you'll get no support.
Unfortunately, is there favorite word.

2 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

What2be
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/28/2009 2:29:34 PM

Rating + 5 A work of Art...


Pros: After the nightmare with my Asus Rampage II Extreme (memory not showing up, soundblaster pci-e wont fit in first pci-e slot, need bios update for raid card, etc) I was overcome with joy after installing this motherboard. Soundblaster PCI-E Titanium fit in first slot? check.
Can put 2 Nvidia 295's in the pcix16 slots? check, ICP raid controller card in last pci-e slot? check.
All 6 gigs of my triple channel kit showing up in bios? check.
Wonderful board, watercooling hooked right up, board booted, (even had the latest f4 bios) This thing is a dream come true. ASUS needs to get on the ball with their bios updates. Gigabyte is kicking their bu*t. I had a few gigabyte boards in the past, and was happy with them, but nothing to brag about. This MB is something to brag about. Gigabyte did their homework and it shows. GOOD JOB!

Cons: NONE, other than can someone please tell me why that roach ASUS Rampage Extreme II is up for motherboard of the year on newegg and this gigabyte isnt? Go look at all the problems in the asus forums, then check out the gigabyte forums. Enough said.

Other Thoughts: If your fed up with asus like me and are looking for a alternative, look no further, as gigabyte is all that and a bag of chips.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Gina
Tech Level: somewhat low
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/28/2009 1:47:00 PM

Rating + 5 ***Very Nice Motherboard***


Pros: Very sharp motherboard and easy to install all components (just read manual) and extremely easy to overclock with just 2 clicks. Its my second time i setup a PC with this motherboard and was great.

Cons: none.

Other Thoughts: core i7920 @ 3.2 (overclocked)
6MB Corsair Dominator (Triple-channel)
MSI n280GTX
HAF 932 Cooler Master Case
750W SLI Corsair Power Supply

And don't cry like other guys that say their motherboard doesn't work. Just read the manual and connect the correct power supply cable to your video card.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Happy Buyer
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/27/2009 7:16:37 AM

Rating + 5 Sweet Board


Pros: I bought this board when it first came out and have loved it, I have no problem over clocking and it even gives you a bios reset switch on the outside for people that are able to mess up both bios'. I have it in an Antec Skeleton case and it looks awsome with the lights indicating your over clocking of different componets like the CPU, Memory and chipset. I have the 920 proc in it and am able to keep it at 3.6 with the QPI at max and memory at 2000 mhz. Gigabyte has never done me wrong and makes a great motherboard for the over clocker.

Cons: If there are any cons out there is the lack of a picture of the mother board with the chipset cooler attached so be ready for a little extra metal in your case but it does look sweet.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Dexter
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/24/2009 12:10:05 PM

Rating + 1 Very DISAPPOINTED!!! Don't buy this motherboard!!!


Pros: Looks good, but that's about it.

Cons: I wouldn't recommend this product to anyone. I have now had to RMA this motherboard 2 TIMES!! Both times I attempted to install the product with a Core i7 920 CPU and no beep, no video and no access to the BIOS. Board lit up, fan worked but that was it.

Apparently, Gigabyte has been having problems with the board and is suggesting that users check the BIOS version and upgrade, if necessary. Unfortunately, I can't even get to the BIOS, so I can't check it or upgrade it!

As for Gigabyte support, slow, slow, slow. Over three days to respond -- not acceptable. Especially when you are in the middle of an install. They must be overwhelmed with complaints right now and can't keep up with the volume. Whatever their reason, they need to improve the quality of their product.

8 out of 10 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat low
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/17/2009 9:48:36 PM

Rating + 5 Greeeeeaaaaaaaaattttt board


Pros: I had my first board arrive last year and found a broken piece so I sent it back got another one. Setup was great as long as you go by the manual and flashing it with F4 firmware. This thing is fast w/ my i7 running windows 7 beta even with my 3TB on raid 5 is awesome. Got my 920 at 3.2ghz on stock cooler just to try it out. Its my first build.

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: Love the waterblock that is built in on the northbridge along with the silent pipe to overclock it in few years because the i7 is already fast as is on the m/b. Alot of usb and sata input specially w/ the 90deg angle for the one huge gtx260SC.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

EatMorChikn
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
1/15/2009 10:46:49 AM

Rating + 5 Read your manuals


Pros: Extremely easy to install, setup and use. Migrated from a Gigabyte x38-GQ6 to this x58-Extreme and didn't even need to rebang Vista.

Good looking, well cooling with waterblock or passive heatsink/heatpipe, SLI/Crossfire huge plus for video-card fence-sitters. Plenty of on-board Sata connectors, still offers an IDE connector, reset and power buttons on board were a nice touch.

Cons: Price was steep, but you pay for moderninity. End-results do not disappoint. People say this is an overclocker's dream but I can't seem to get it to not lock up on booting Vista x64, but that's probably just the way I'm setting it.

I understood why the pci and pci-e slots are arranged the way they are but I lost almost all the PCI slots and had to give up my tv-tuner once the video cards went in.

Other Thoughts: For those who gave bad reviews, I can't say I've encountered a single one of your errors. The manual had an addendum page that clearly states where to put your DDR3 in for certain setup's depending on how many sticks you use or how many gigs you have. Compared to the problems I have with ASUS over the last 3 years (I'm an online-retailer) with their aweful bios issues, Gigabyte's have won me over. I used to like Intel mobo's but they tended to run a bit hotter than others.

Setup : i7/920 stock 2.66 speed, G-skill 6 gig triple channel kit DDR3/1600 @ 8-8-8-21, 2 - eVGA GTX-260 Superclocked in SLI, 150 GB Raptor boot drive, 4 TB of various other SATA and IDE drives (on pci-raid controller), about 9 drives in total, Kingwin 1050W modular PSU, this mobo, in an X-clio Windtunnel case.

5 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Shopper
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
1/14/2009 7:25:08 PM

Rating + 5 FYI


Pros: This is an installation note for all x58 motherboards..

It is strongly suggested to check with the motherboard manufacturer on tested memory.

Intel QPI specifications for both the 920 and 940 is 133mhz.
Any memory conforming to jdec specs for the i7, and seen by the bios as such, will run at 1066mhz on a 133mhz QPI.

If you can change just the clock speed of the memory in the bios (which will change the memory multiplier) then great..
If not.. you will simply need to change the multiplier manually OR change the QPI bus speed to 166mhz.
It is simply that the anufacturer chose to set base Intel specs, not some fault with the motherboard.

btw.. Changing the QPI clock method will also result in a rather gentle oc of your CPU..

So have fun, and research the issue before negatively rating a product for working exactly as it is supposed to.. =)

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: none

7 out of 10 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/14/2009 11:41:02 AM

Rating + 1 Bad board


Pros: Lots of cool features if they worked. Came in a nice box and thats about it.

Cons: Gigabyte support is not all that great. It took over a week for them to reply to my e-mail. The info provide was not helpful at all. There is no phone support that I know of. This board has numerous bugs.

Other Thoughts: Stay away from this board unless you want to inherit problems. I RMA'd this board back.

7 out of 14 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/13/2009 8:36:33 PM

Rating + 4 Great board


Pros: This board is great and I have had no problems but one. I have not used the water cooling so no comments for that. Reads my 12 GIGs of memory fine. I bought G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7D-4GBHZ - Retail (N82E16820231167)

Cons: I have tried my memory at 777 18 3T at 1600mhz and windows crashes off and on within the first minute so I am disappointed. However I have not set the memory voltage to the specified manufacturer voltage so maybe that will work. I have not tried it yet. If you decide to update your flash do not use @BIOS. I used the QFlash and it seemed to work but upon reboot it would reboot infinitely. I unplugged, pulled cmos battery, and set the jumper for about two hours. Still would not work. Then I pulled all of the memory but one stick and the BIOS posted. Then I set the optimal settings and put all memory back in. GTG

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

KungFuAnomaly
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/13/2009 5:12:47 PM

Rating + 4 As detailed and honest as I can be


Pros: -Good looking mobo that is rock stable when overclocking my i7 920
-Haven't gone too crazy with overclocking yet but went from 2.66Ghz to 3.4Ghz without changing any of the voltages using OCZ3P1600LV3GK memory (bumped from 133x20 to 170x20 and ran Prime95 for 11hr33min blended on all 8 cores with 0 errors)
-Sound is good if you use an optical cable with digital output
-Haven't had any major problems with any apps other than certain games (see cons)

Cons: -If you plan on using the 1x or 4xPCIe slot then forget it if you use the passive cooling instead of water cooling for the northbridge
-Sound is pitiful if you don't use an optical cable (sounds good with optical and my Logitech z5500) not sure if you can use 1xPCIe sound card in the bottom 16xPCIe slot
-Doesn't support 3way SLI unless you have Vista but that's ok when you're running 2xXFX GTX260 Black Edition's
-Now the real problem: I'm not 100% sure if this is an x58 Nvidia problem or just an Nvidia problem but certain games run flawless for hours (STALKER, Dead Space) while other games will hard freeze with the last sound continuously looping (Crysis, HL2)
-I've updated to the F4 BIOS and installed 181.20 GeForce drivers but still no luck. I plan on uninstalling all drivers tonight and reinstalling Safe Mode with AntiV/S turned off to see if that makes a difference
-I was able to finish Crysis after I lowered Res from 1920x1200 to 16xx and turned Shadows to Medium

Other Thoughts: I don't know if the x58 chipset is the problem or if the Nvidia GPU but I'm sure I'll figure it out. I'm sure it's driver related rather than hardware (which is good). Overall it's a very solid motherboard and I'm happy with my purchase.

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/12/2009 4:37:42 PM

Rating + 5 AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Pros: AWESOME. WORKS WITH ALL I7 SPECS

Cons: NONE. FITS ALL EXTRAS IN SLOTS

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

computerguy101
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/11/2009 8:49:30 AM

Rating + 4 Best Board IF......


Pros: Most solid construction and durability you are gonna find in ANY x58 board! Built in waterblock! Great for OCing

Cons: Had a VERY difficult time getting it booted first time.

Other Thoughts: If you can't get it to post try different ram! I tried OCZ 1600 couldn't get it to post, threw some 1333 in and it worked on and off. I had to try differant ram slots several times. Once I got it to boot I flashed the BIOS to the F4 revision immidietly, since then it has been rock solid and boots EVERY time.

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

Ed
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/8/2009 2:00:27 PM

Rating + 1 Very Bad Experience....


Pros: Looks really good on paper and comes in a nice box...

Cons: First board came and I found resistor in the bottom of the box. RMA'ed it and got a new one. The new one worked briefly and then started giving me memory errors. After getting past that problem the board would no longer recognize all the memory. I believe the board has a bad dimm. I'm using Corsair 1600 2gb modules that are new and test fine. The bios for these boards are far from final. I'm not an OC'er but was looking for a board with alot of options thats how I picked it. Before buying this board I'd look at some feedback on various forums and see if you really want to deal with some of the issues. Many online retailers have stopped carrying the extreme version. Newegg gave me great customer service and I'll now be trying the comparable evga mobo since its no longer in stock.

6 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

n
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/7/2009 10:59:39 AM

Rating + 2 good but...


Pros: good solid contruction and nice looking too. 24GB of ram. Plenty of peripherals like usb, firewire, and e-sata. Bought the board for doing some intensive graphic simulation work.

Cons: the two lan ports did not work and had to rma for replacement.

Other Thoughts: Gigabyte was very helpful. I was able to get in touch with the customer service the first time and they help troubleshooting the lan ports which led me to RMA the board to newegg for replacement. However since this board was out of stock, I was able to buy the ASUS board after calling newegg customer service couple of times. Had to pay for S/H for the return. Happy with the customer service on both ends but unhappy that my work was delayed by about a month.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Master Wolfe
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/5/2009 5:58:43 PM

Rating + 2 Eh...


Pros: TEN SATA ports, 'hardware RAID', plenty of BIOS options, purty.

Cons: Gigabyte SATA ports won't recognize hard drives individually, even in Normal (port multiplier) mode. Worthless "hybrid silent pipe" for the north-bridge which blocks PCI-E x1 and x4 slots, and the board runs cooler without it. Apparent bios issues. Bad placement of Floppy and IDE ports. Yeah, I still like to keep a floppy onboard for utility discs.

Other Thoughts: Everything was fine the first couple of weeks, loving the board. Over the last week, when I reboot or start-up, I get BIOS failure warnings. So far it has been able to recover each time, but I'm not going to keep crossing my fingers on it. Returning it for an exchange, which I'll sell. This is the second Gigabyte board I've had issues with in the last 6 months or so, so it seems their quality has declined a bit. Them or Asus are about the only 2 boards I buy, although I'm considering the EVGA as a replacement.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

pnapp1
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/5/2009 11:28:50 AM

Rating + 5 Follow Up Review... I love this board!!!


Pros: For my needs... perfect. System running as follows:

Core i7 920: @ 3.8 GHz (bclk @190 - CPU volts @ 1.35 ) that is all I changed in the bois. everything else is on auto.

Gigabyte EX 58 Extreme: still using F3 bios as I have not had any problems with it.

12 GB Corsair Dominator 1600 RAM: Manual Settings @ 1520MHz 8,8,8,24 T1. 1.64 volts. See other thoughts.

Cons: For my needs... none.

Other Thoughts: This is a quick follow up review from the two other posts I have left here.

This board continues to amaze me.

Every couple of weeks I increase my over clock +10 on my bclk (now @ 190) and let it run for a couple of weeks then push it higher. I have since got my OC up to 3.8 GHz (started @ 3.2 GHz) on a Core i7 920, 100% stable, with little effort. This is not just to see how high I can get it to OC but for everyday use.

My memory is now running @ 1520 MHz as I am trying to get my bclk to the point to match my Corsair Dominator 1600.

I originally started with 6GB Corsair Dominator 1600 but have since bought another 6 GB kit and much to my delight it works perfectly. All 12 GB are recognized and run at rated spec: 8,8,8,24 T1. I know this might have more to do with the Corsair modules and the i7's integrated memory controller but I have read that people have not been able to get it to work with 12 GB. Not me, works fine but I would HIGHLY recommend you get the Corsair Domina

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Jeremy
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
1/1/2009 4:33:44 AM

Rating + 5 Great board- audible tho


Pros: Excellent oc'er, good cooling. Gigabyte does well as usual.

Cons: I read other accounts, and my own board confirmed that this thing squeals a bit (capacitors?). You can hear it under network load. (This is not fan noise)

Other Thoughts: Who cares about a little squeak here and there? It's under your desk.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

WhoShotMyTwinkie
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/29/2008 9:27:48 AM

Rating + 5


Pros: Great Motherboard. I love Gigabyte, my 8 year old 8INXP is still going strong, it was just time to upgrade. I love everything about it, the amount of SATA ports, Tri-SLI support, color scheme, awesome stability, ability to overclock. System booted up right off the bat. Blazing fast!

Cons: None whatsoever. I paid $350 for the 8INXP 8 years ago and that was the best motherboard available at the time, so the $328 was not a big deal to me, not too bad for the stuff you get.

Other Thoughts: i7 920 @ 2.79Ghz (without touching bios)
Silverstone ST70F 700w PSU
G.Skill 1333 DDR3 Tri-Channel Kit (Low latency)
GTX 260/216 (Soon to be GTX 295)

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Henri
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/24/2008 9:36:48 AM

Rating + 4 Nice


Pros: This is my first Gigabyte board. Usually I use MSI.
This board comes loaded with Sata ports. Nice North Bridge too, makes it look good!
So far, the performances are quite nice.

Cons: The board is so tight you'd better plan ahead to plug anything... For instance, the speakers connectors for the case are so poorly placed that it is a real hassle to connect them once the North bridge is in place. Same thing for the Sata ports. Price is quite high too...
Once thing I don't understand is the choice to make between Raid, AHCI or IDE. I have only Sata disks but Windows crash if I try any other HD drivers than the IDE. I am wondering if i am not losing some speed with this problem. The problem is known but I have not found any answer yet to make it work properly.

Other Thoughts: Configuration:
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EX58-EXTREME LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX
Processor: Intel Core i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core.
RAM: CORSAIR XMS3 3GB (3 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Triple Channel
Hard Drive (C): Velociraptor 300GB
Others: 2x Raptor 150GB in Raid0.
Video Card: Geforce 8800GTX BFG
Projector (no desktop screen) : Epson 83C at 1280*1024.

By the way, I see all these reviews about how good their new Video card is... I have not been able yet to max-out the performance of my 8800 GTX with max details even on Far Cry 2, Medieval 2 Total War or Fear.
If anyone can give me a good reason for changing, I am all ears...

0 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/21/2008 9:01:32 PM

Rating + 1 n/a


Pros: Great M/B layout 24gig memory for future outlook

Cons: Received bad m/b found a broken resistor don't know where it goes handled the board from all sides. RMA

5 out of 11 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Inzone
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/21/2008 2:58:06 PM

Rating + 4 Finally something that works


Pros: After a long struggle with the Asus Striker ll Eztreme I have given up and switched to the Gigabyte x58 with the new intel processor. Couldn't be happier this thing booted up from the getgo and even overclocking is somewhat easy.

Cons: Tried the teaming feature and it did't work.

Other Thoughts: Put an Intel 965 extreme with 12gigs of Corsair Dominator ram, 2 GTX280 in SLI,all on water, turned it on and away we go.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

TheWrasse
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/18/2008 1:54:35 PM

Rating + 1 DOA


Pros: n/a

Cons: Time consuming, stressful and a let down. Replacement board costs additional shipping.

Other Thoughts: Loaded it up, turned it on and a few LEDs lit up on the board for the CPU load and the fans all came on and that's about it. No video - No Beeping - and No reply from the email left on their Tech Board. I hope the replacement board fairs better.

5 out of 10 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/17/2008 10:19:59 PM

Rating + 2 The review below mine


Pros: read below

Cons: read below

Other Thoughts: The motherboard runs sli just fine, nor are they spaced incorrectly. This would be the designer of the cards fault in making the cards too wide. Every motherboard Ive had with my 2 GTX260 Core 216's were too close to each other because they take up 2 slots each.

1 out of 8 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/17/2008 8:42:31 AM

Rating + 1 Buyer beware


Pros: Good Sata placement.
Sturdy construction.

Cons: You cannot successfully run SLI on this board, the slots are far too close to one another. I have 2 gtx280s, and they are constantly overheating in the first x16 SLI slots because there is no airflow between them. This is a HUGE flaw for anyone who wants to run SLI, 2 or 3 card. Oh, and the third slot (x8) cannot fit because of the front panel connectors, so there is no way to run a 2 card SLI in the first and third slots. Not to mention, that you lose BOTH PCI slots if you run SLI. I have to buy a PCI-e soundcard to make this config work.

Other Thoughts: If you plan on running more than one card, steer clear. This is the first time I have bought from Gigabyte, and the last.

7 out of 19 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

CRASCH
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/17/2008 4:07:13 AM

Rating + 4 I have 12GB running @ 1600MHZ


Pros: I really like the looks and the layout is near perfect for me. I really like the LEDs on the motherboard. It works with 12GB @ 1600MHZ. Overclocks well and seems rock solid so far.

Cons: I'm not sure if this is a motherboard issue or a memory issue. I'm going to guess a chipset and necessary board layout issue. My G.Skill memory came with an XMP with more aggressive timing at 1600MHZ I had to use the standard timing to get 1600MHZ working. My memory is under volted to 1.58 running 12GB.

The Smart Backup which is the native raid. I was wondering when someone was going to do this about three years ago. I love this feature other than their Big disk configuration is labeled as JBOD. So when you apply the settings it will rewrite your MBR. JBOD is not Just a Big Old Disk. It shouldn't actually write anything to disk like every other controller ever made. The correct setting is labeled something else.

The one issue I have not been able to resolve is that the Intel Virtualization Technology does not work. The bios will not enable it even though it says it did. I double checked it with the VMware VT test.iso. Hopefully it will be fixed in an upcoming bios release

Other Thoughts: The board I got will do at least a 215 BCLK which is pretty darn good. The downside is that getting there took some time as their are some settings that must be within a range to get a high BCLK. I'm running a stock BCLK though. I'm running at 4GHZ. The bios is a bit tricky and still needs work, but you can get there and it seems to be well engineered.

Loading the XMP on the Gskill put the memory voltage at 1.8 which is higher than spec and what I wanted to run. This is where the LEDs came in handy as I could see it was running out of spec.

The performance of the Smart Backup Raid could be a lot better. I got a marginal performance boost running two intel SSDs in raid 0.

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Stolas
Tech Level: average
Ownership: less than 1 day
12/15/2008 12:57:10 PM

Rating + 5 12 Gigs of memory @1600MHZ


Pros: x58 and SLI

Cons: Price

Other Thoughts: To clear up issues with 12 gigs of memory and 1600MHZ. Most manufacturers only test for 12 gigs @ 1333MHZ. 1600MHZ is considered overclocked from all manufacturers. Almost all of the X58 boards will not run 12 Gigs ( 6x2 gig for those of you lucky enough to be testing the 3 x4gig kits this may not apply) @ 1600MHZ. Much like most of the x48 DDR3 boards would not run 4 x2gigs @ 1600MHZ. This is due to the way that the board is internally "mapped" Im not saying its impossible to do. But you would have to 1. Raise the voltage for the ram 2. Loosen the timings for the ram 3. up the North bridge voltage 4. Have a really good cpu cooler to control the temperature of that on board memory controller. Im not claiming to be an expert, only sharing what i have seen with DDR3 and the X48 and x58 chipsets.

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/14/2008 8:56:34 AM

Rating + 5 Comment to the last review, I do own this board


Pros: I know this might border on using the reviews like a message board, but this is a comment to the last review, one titled "Make this the last board you choose". To be fair I haven't tried 12 gigs of ram nor have I used anything other then the onboard motherboard sound, but I find your other two comments far from true. I'd also point out that the other reviewer is using a Beta BIOS, any Gigabyte bios with a letter after a code like F3 or F4 (like F4j or whatever the other fellow is using again) is a beta one. Yes, it's a release after the one on Gigabyte's site, which is F3, but it's still a beta BIOS. Myself, I'm waiting for the final release of F4 before I reflash. Mine was shipped with F2, but I did check for F3 when I installed my board and flashed it with that, and haven't had any problems personally.

Cons: n/a

Other Thoughts: Again, no problems here. I am debating going from 6 gig of memory to 12 gig like what the poster has done, if I do and encounter a similar problem of not being able to run at 1600 FSB I am more then willing to post about it and give a lower rating.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Sniper33
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/13/2008 11:21:32 AM

Rating + 5 Sweet Board


Pros: This was one of the easiest builds yet! I had "0" issues. I installed everything and it booted right up. The #1 thing i love about this board is the ability to OC. 1 setting and it auto adjusted everything no guess work. I OC my i7 920 from 2.66 to 3.0ghz. smooth as silk. Going to push it to see how high it will go.
This is a well designed board. Plenty of on board fan connectors, The Leds on the board for CPU load and ram are cool,

Cons: Not a con just an F.Y.I Sata ports, Make sure you plug in your cables first before you install the video card. My 280 was 2in past the ports.
CON: When I updated Vista64 the twin Gigabit ports quit working. I had to disable 1 port and roll back the drivers. Cant get them both to work at the same time yet. But thats a windows issue not a MB issue I believe.

Other Thoughts: High price! but for the next generation stuff always is. Overall this is a great board its my first Gigabyte. I have alway ran Asus. I am not disapointed I switched.
System: Tagan 1100W, GA-EX58-EXTREME, Intel i7 920, GSkill tripple channel 6 gig 1600. EVGA 280 1 gig OCC edition, WD 1TB 7200 32mb, WD 150 Raptor 10000. Antec 1200

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/10/2008 12:22:35 PM

Rating + 1 Make this the last board you choose


Pros: Its got a great color scheme...

Cons: Support for this and any other gigabyte board really sucks. They fail to respond to voice mail, email and forums they choose to participate in.
This board will not work with
X-Fi PCI Fatality.
12GB any 1600mhz ram,
Any power saving features intel included in the cpu.
S3 sleep mode does not work as of F4j

Other Thoughts: If you run bios at default with no overclock this board will take over an hour to install vista. Nero 9 will not install because the machines bios is borked. I never had such bad luck with a working motherboard in my life.

6 out of 17 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Utley
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/9/2008 10:29:06 PM

Rating + 1 Nice board...if it worked


Pros: Its designed fairly well. Looks really nice.

Cons: No BIOS, no POST codes, no error codes, no NOTHING. Ive troubleshot this board for 3 hours before giving up. DOA. Ill give a shot for round 2. I wont do the same board more than twice before I find a better board vendor.

Other Thoughts: If I can get this board to work, this maybe the best board Ive yet to own. As of now Im not impressed.

3 out of 13 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
12/8/2008 3:51:50 PM

Rating + 5 Nice motherboard


Pros: Lot of nice features. The external clear CMOS button saved a lot of time. Very stable. Ability to control memory settings for each channel.

Cons: Can be difficult to get correct settings for memory faster than the base speed unless you have memory with XMP profile. BIOS still needs work. Software utilities in Vista require you to give permission to run every time you boot up. My CPU fan covers the first RAM slot, but this is not a problem if you don't plan on using more than 3 sticks.

4 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Ulta
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/5/2008 5:05:50 PM

Rating + 2 I just don't know.


Pros: Down.

Cons: Down.

Other Thoughts: It's a constant battle with this mobo. I first got it last week, I had everything ready to rock and roll, turned it on, and there was no BIOS beep, no screen display(No signal), and the mouse and keyboard did not work.
I sent the board back to newegg, and they sent me a new one(which I just received about an hour ago) So I get everything ready again this time, and still NO BIOS beep, no screen display, no mouse/keyboard.
I don't know if something else is bad, or what.

I'm running
920 Core i7
Sapphire 48701gb
3x2GB G.Skill ram

I'm getting nothing, TWICE.
If it's just this board's fault then I don't recommend anyone buy it. It's turning out like the nvidia 790i Ultra, where you're lucky to get one that actually works out of 20 boards.

0 out of 11 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Fireclown
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
12/2/2008 9:31:47 PM

Rating + 4 Needs a lot of refining


Pros: Its one of the few X58 mobos out there so your choices are limited, but overall its not bad. Needs a lot of refining though. The dual-BIOS feature is a lifesaver, and it has a decent amount of peripherals. It also as a 2-digit BIOS LED block that is extremely useful in diagnosing where things went wrong if the board doesn't power up correctly for some reason. Aside from missing some key features like setting the controller boot order, the BIOS is also very comprehensive. I especially like being able to save multiple BIOS configurations. Nozzles for liquid-cooling the north bridge was a very nice touch indeed.

Cons: This is clearly a first rev design. I have to disagree with other reviewers in terms of its layout. Yes it has lots of SATA ports but the north bridge cooler (even without the oversized optional coolling bracket) is too big, badly placed and makes it almost impossible to use the PCI-e 1x slot. Also, the cooler is so fat, it encroched into the PCI-e 4x slot, and ended up shorting my 3ware raid card and destroying it. The provided SATA cables are all about 6 inches too short (hint gigabye: people use tower cases!). The eSATA connectors are so short they almost dont reach with the header plugged directly in front of the SATA ports. Also the BIOS does not let you set the controller boot order, which makes it difficult to use the Gigabyte SATA for the primary windows hdd and use the ICH10 SATA ports exclusively for raid.

Other Thoughts: This board is not for the faint-hearted. Be extremely careful when you install it. Check to make sure the north bridge cooler isn't shorting anything out, and check it out very carefully. My first board didn't work at all due to a dry joint in one of the RAM sockets. However once all the problems are said and done with, its really not a bad toy at all.

8 out of 12 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Deimos Anomaly
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/28/2008 8:34:20 AM

Rating + 5 Great mobo


Pros: Good board layout, lots of sata / usb ports. I am running an i7 920 @ 3Ghz on stock air untill I switch to liquid and it's rock solid and stable. The board feels and looks well made and there are lots of extras.

Cons: It is a bit pricey for what you get, however that is the current trend in motherboards to load it to the gills and charge a premium for it.

Other Thoughts: This board lights up like a christmas tree I counted like 30+ led's on it. I made the mistake of putting a 6Gb tri channel mem kit on it and Vista 32bit only sees 3-4Gb of it, not a big deal but sort of a waste.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Dylan
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
11/25/2008 5:18:35 PM

Rating + 3


Pros: Beautiful layout, plenty of SATA ports (10), supports 24GB of RAM, supports SLI and Crossfire.

Cons: The "Auto-Recovery" feature that is suppose to recover if the main BIOS is corrupt, failed. Read "Other Thoughts" section.

Other Thoughts: After installing the OS, I proceeded to install the chipset drivers from the CD provided. Upon automatic reboot, the unit is stuck in "Auto-Recovery". The unit will not Post, nor read optical, Floppy, or Disk drive. After speaking with Gigabyte and going through several clueless individuals, I was informed that there are three different versions of the BIOS for the same model motherboard. I did not check which version (F1/F2/F3) I had and the tech informed me that the Core i7 920 needs the F3 version. I then asked her if she had ever heard of this before; her response, "No". So needless to say the new board will arrive in the next day or two and I still am nervous as what to expect.

11 out of 15 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

pnapp1
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/25/2008 11:51:14 AM

Rating + 5 Followup From Previous Review


Pros: Replacement board works perfectly.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: This is just a quick followup on review below. Got the new board (RMA'ed Original) and all is working now.

Newegg rocks! They even paid for the return shipping.

Can now confirm that Patriot Viper 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 works great with this board as well as CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Triple Channel. Both available here at the Egg.

9 out of 12 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Marauder[FH]
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
11/22/2008 1:05:49 PM

Rating + 5 Great overclockers board


Pros: First: Unlike the Asus P6T, this board CAN do TRI-SLI.

Second: I was able to OC a i7 920 to 3.8 GHz stable on this quite easily. Because it has two bioses, when you POST, if your settings are not fully stable, the Bios will reboot to stable settings - allowing you to change settings over and over and detecting a first order approximation of stability from the POSTing.

Cons: The heatsink on the NB provided is big and bulky - and can be hard to install if your heatsink is large. I have a TRUE 120, and was still able to install the heatsink afterwards, but only because I had some tiny tiny screwdrivers that could sneak underneath it for one of the screws.

Other Thoughts: 3.8 GHz stable, no NB fan. Its the best oc'ing board out there right now if you want the option of TRI-SLI.
Vcore 1.35
QPI 1.26
190 FSB
8:2 RAM (1600 ram)
36x QPI
16x uncore (I noticed that going below 16x uncore multiplier I was not able to post beyond 3.3 GHz.)
The settings above got me to 3.8 GHz stable (I probably could've hit 4.0). This is on AIR, but it also is a TRUE 120 - which is practically like water.

12 out of 14 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/21/2008 6:12:46 PM

Rating + 5 Addendum to my first review


Pros: This is just an addendum to my first review, mine is the "seems fine so far" one. I had the board refuse to post with three sticks in the blue slots. When I moved the three sticks to the white, it posted fine. I also flashed from BIOS F2 to F3, F3 is on Gigabyte's site currently.

Cons: n/a

Other Thoughts: The manual states that if using 3 sticks, to use the white slots, I saw this after moving the memory from the blue to the white. One is only to use the blue memory slots if one has more then three sticks from what I can see. Hope this helps

10 out of 10 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

pnapp1
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/21/2008 1:38:05 PM

Rating + 3 Will try again!


Pros: Beautiful looking board. Great layout. Chipset runs cool.
Great overclocker. 10 SATA well sort of... see below. Run up to 24 gigs of 1333 memory.

Cons: For some reason when I try to run a triple channel configuration the board will not post. I tried three different brands of memory from corsair, mushkin and patriot ranging from 1333 to 1600 speeds. No go!

Once I remove one of the ram modules (dual channel) it works fine. Meh!

Now that I have gone a little further with the board... connecting dvd and hard drives I also discovered that two of the SATA ports are DOA. This leads me to believe that there is more wrong with the board then just being picky about the memory so I ordered another one and RMA this board.

Other Thoughts: Being able to run the board in dual channel mode I proceeded to try a little overclocking test and the board performed great.

Running a Core i7 920 @ 3.3 GHz with only changing the cpu voltage to 1.3250 volts and razing the FSB (at work and can't think of what it is call now PQI I think) to 166. Memory is running @ 1333 on 1.64 volts.

The above was my first attempt at an OC and is 100% stable in Prime 95 for 20+ hours. With OC the cores run @ 32 C idle and 55 C under full load on water.

Normally I would be happy with this OC but I think there is a lot more headroom with this processor and board.

Looking forward to getting a replacement board and really pushing this OC.

8 out of 10 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/21/2008 2:02:51 AM

Rating + 5 Seems to be going well


Pros: This will mostly be about the install, since I just got this board. Anyway, install was the same as flawless. Only "mistake" I made was putting my three memory sticks (board is Tri-channel, as are all X58's I think) in the blue slots, with three memory sticks the board wants them in the white, only use the blue if one has 6 sticks total. Used a Thermalright Ultra 120 heatsink, fit on it perfectly. Did make it so it was slightly tight to add in the optional silentpipe heatsink to the Northbridge, but I managed fine. Gigabyte already has a new BIOS, so suggest flashing it if yours is BIOS F2. May post an update review, but if I don't assume all is well for me.

Cons: If you are using IDE or Floppy (Using IDE for two optical drives), the plugs for those are at the bottom of the board, and thus could be an issue in a tall case. My case is a mid tower so wasn't an issue for me personally. "Only" has 5 fan headers, and some not in that great of spots for cable management. Only cable management issues I could see, rest of the board is layed out very well IMO.

Other Thoughts: Won't whine about the price, since well...if I was willing to order it, can I really complain about the price? Just always find it funny when someone buys something knowing the price before hand, then complains about it. Sure I wish it was a bit cheaper, but it was less expensive then the comparable ASUS board yet seemed to have as many features. I know the BIOS felt very complete anyway, and this is from someone who's owned ASUS ROG series boards in the past, along with a couple DFI's.

12 out of 13 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

sammak
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
11/20/2008 4:06:19 PM

Rating + 5 Eggcellent


Pros: Very powerfull , superior in options , quality , you dont need any thing else , all the options are there + its water cooling ready, the layout and peripherals are well positioned

Cons: price

2 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Filter Results     apply changes
     
NeweggBusiness
For Business Needs EggXpert.com
Newegg Community |NeweggMall.com
Shop Multiple Retailers 		Shop by Region: United States | Canada | China
VeriSignReseller RatingsReliability Seal1This site protected by Trustwave's Trusted Commerce programInc500
Policy & Agreement | Privacy Policy | NeweggBusiness | Newegg Canada  © 2000-2010 Newegg Inc.  All rights reserved.
If the Adobe Reader does not appear when you click on a link for a PDF file, you can download Adobe Reader from the Adobe web site. nassau