Introduction

Gigabyte recently released one hot dish of a X58 motherboard. It is the performance oriented GA-X58A-UD9 motherboard, based on the X58 chipset and boasting features like a 24 phase (!) unlocked power design, 4-way graphics support including NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFireX, as well as a host of distinctive other features.

See, to date one of the most reputable processor series has to be the Core i7 based on socket LGA 1366. When that puppy was released merely two years ago (November 3, 2008) nobody knew that the first ever wave of Nehalem processors would be that strong and powerful. When Lynnfield (Core i7 on the 1156 socket) was released we certainly all loved the new processors, but leading by a significant amount in overall performance was still the high-end Core i7 965 and 975 processors.

Intel however added a new processor to the line-up, the ever so strong Core i7 980 Extreme six-core processor. Seriously breathtaking, and to date the fastest consumer processor on the globe with very decent overclocking potential as well.

That was reason enough for most ODMs to make new updates and revisions of X58 chipset based motherboards, as next to the new processor we have also seen the gradual adoption of features like USB 3.0 and SATA3 6G. That sparked ODM's to bring these new innovations to your doorstep by inventing solutions themselves. More costly yes, but by embedding a NEC USB 3.0 controller and Marvell SATA3 6G SATA/AHCI/RAID controller onto that motherboard you can actually bring some interesting features to the table and literally rehash the X58 motherboard line-up.

So the ODMs went back to the drawing board, added custom controllers to the motherboards and re-released their X58 series motherboards. However, a few of them decided to completely overhaul the design and fit them with the latest features and most high-end components and decided to design a severe über-cool motherboard targeted at the high-end, enthusiast and pro consumers.

Gigabyte is one of the ODMs releasing something really special, and today we'll review that GA-X58A-UD9 motherboard. It is chucked full with the latest gadgets and features; comes with liquid cooling blocks on the chipset and it is equipped to make sure you get the very best overclock out of your system.

Check her out, she's a thing of beauty... check her out, it's Gigabyte's most extravagant X58 to date. And then let's move onwards into the review please..