GIGABYTE GA-M59SLI-S5 AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail

Raid Problems **FIXED**

Reviewed By: that1guy on 9/20/2006

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

Pros: Excellent motherboard!!! Top-notch customer support. Gigabyte released bios version F5 just this morning wich fixed the issue that I was having with the nvidia raid (not being able to get into the bios after enabling raid).

Cons: none so far... just wish bios version F5 came out a little sooner, then I wouldn't have ripped apart my computer again to exchange the motherboard for a new one ;-)

Unrelated to the raid issue... the heat sinks on the replacement motherboard were not flush against the northbridge wich caused some overheating and system crashes. It's not a difficult problem to fix. You just need to bend the heat pipes ever so slightly. If you want to save time on an RMA, I recommend placing the heat sink assembly on a flat counter and just pushing down.

Other Thoughts: Gigabyte offered to have me send in my computer to diagnose the problem and they even went so far as to get the same HDD's I have to try and repeat the raid issue. They also have ultra-fast response time for support requests; by the next day they had already begun working on the problem and called me to verify bios settings and hardware setup, seven days later they released a bios update that resolves the problem. I don't think you can ask for more than that.

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Probably the best N590 board on the market

Reviewed By: SDM004 on 9/21/2006

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 month to 1 year

Pros: Where to start...Not only does the board do eveything it is supposed to do, it is simply the most stable board I have ever used. Excellent layout, and the heatpipes are just fantastic. I know other reviews have mentioned these, but let me clarify: I'm in houston, where it is regularly near 100deg. in the summer. I have yet to see my board go over 30c. My room is about a stable 80F or so. Easy to set up. The raid was the easiest I'd ever done. Good ENGLISH manual with good pictures. Not cheap on the extras either.

Cons: If anything, there were a few quirks in initial setup, but unless you are completely new to building PCs, you won't have a problem. Also the PCI-Express molex could be potentially annoying, but it worked out fine for my fan placement.

Other Thoughts: In short, I have not had this board crash, and I have certainly been pushing the limits! We all know that the AM2 chips aren't a huge leap in performance, but this board brings out the absolute best in all my hardware. Most of all, I simply have no hang-ups with internet connection and speed. if you connect and combine the two ethernets...lets just say that you will be downloading huge files in a matter of minutes or even seconds. I should also add that this is my follow-up from "not as bad as you mght think". As for adjusting the memory timings automatically, you need the EEP ram. DDR2 800 simply flies with this board. I'll finish with the fact that I ran Vista Beta 2 w/Aero Glass, and with the right hardware, this board will run the final Vista probably smoother than XP.

My system: Gigabyte 590SLI, AMD X2 4200, 2Gb XMS DDR2-800, 2x XFX 256Mb 7900GTs.

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Open box - DOA

Reviewed By: sixscrews on 8/16/2007

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

Pros: Great cooling system and, on paper, excellent feature set. Most reviews are positive and I would buy a new one today if I needed it but...see below.

Cons: In desperation, I bought an open box unit in May (see below) and had nothing but grief - unstable w/Athlon 6000+ and 4 GB (2 x 2GB) Patriot eXtreme Performance PDC24G6400ELK; trouble w/both RAID controllers (Nvidia and SiI3132). RMA'd it and bought an A*s*s C-hair for more $$. Too bad, I wanted to like the board and put a lot of time into a dead horse.

Other Thoughts: Don't buy an open box if there's no other alternative. I'm not beating up OB in general, they have been fine for me from New Egg (4-5 OB purchases in past year), this was my first bad experience, but it was a G-bite for me.
I'm guessing the new stock is a new rev of the board so it you want it, go for it - it <should> be a great board and a good deal.

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Dead after first boot

Reviewed By: ratsz on 6/13/2007

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: it is a giga-byte how can you go wrong


buy this one unfortunently

reconized g.skill ram red at 800mhz no tweeking

Cons: worked awsome was donating to a school loaded win xp 32 2x1 gigs of red g,skill ram BNQ amd 6000 cpu and a 7800 gtx bfg vid card

Other Thoughts: loaded win xp32 next morning went to do updates would not boot according to book i had low voltages tried 3 psu's all the same checked psu voltages and load tested all ok the mother board just kept flashing a the hd light and making small pop noise from speaker called gigabytes tech the knew exactly the problem told to rma the board ram and cpu and that they were aware of the problem so now i cant get another so back to a s u s

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Reviewed By: on 5/29/2007

Tech Level: average - Ownership: less than 1 day

Pros: Hmmm, list of features was good and the price was right.

Cons: The board fired right up until the first reboot. Mobo went dead. Everything was gettin power (i.e. mouse, keyboard ect...)

Other Thoughts: Went to ASUS crosshair and i am loving it!!!!!

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