The Gigabyte X58A-UD9 Muscles its Way Into Our Lab

Value
Value is a subjective thing - what might be a good deal to one person is outrageous to the next. When looking at any product in terms of value it is important to look at the price, the quality and then the performance of that product. With the X58A-UD9 the quality is evident by the components used on the board, the detail evident by being able to make the massive amount of subcomponents work properly and also the design work that went into it. When we add in the observed performance, the potential performance and the market to which it is presented to then even the price of $599.99 is not that bad. If you are looking to get a board that can deliver ridiculous benchmark numbers then you are going to be looking to spend some money to get it. The price tag on the UD9 is not going to deter you. On the other hand if you are looking to build a system to browse the web, then $600 is ridiculous. After all you can probably get two systems for that price if your performance needs are so low.

Support
Gigabyte’s support [both technical and FAQ’s found on their site] has come a long way since we first started dealing with them many years ago. As they have worked to become an enthusiast product, they have also worked to become a company that can support that type of customer.

Conclusion
The Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9 is an impressive product. As we told you from the beginning the design is audacious. To build a board this size and with the components and purpose in mind takes some serious guts. You are going into this knowing that the market space for this product is small. Still Gigabyte did not flinch. The built it and built it well. They have covered all the bases too, PS/2, PATA, even a floppy drive port is there for you to use. To say we are impressed is something of an understatement here. It is true that I would personally have liked to see less on the board making it more of a pure overclocker’s product, but I have to hand it to Gigabyte for making everything on the board work. The design of the traces must have taken some real thought while the BIOS tuning had to have also been a challenge. This is before we have really cracked open the throttle on the X58A-UD9. We hope to be able to test this board under some more stressful circumstances and do have some very interesting test results from our Multi-GPU testing that we will be sharing with you soon. For now, we can recommend this board to the high-end [very high-end] gamer or overclocker. It will cost you some money, but we can say it will be worth it in the end.

For its bold design, stability and performance potential we are happy to give the X58A-UD9 our Editor’s Choice Award for the Enthusiast market space.