Gigabyte EX58-UD5 X58 Motherboard
BIOS Features
Gigabyte are renowned for making quality, if somewhat basic BIOS’, so I was interested in seeing if the advent of X58 had changed this outlook.
The front page, while interchangeable to the standard POST boot up screen is nothing special, much the same as the majority of BIOS settings apart from the Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T) section so we will be concentrating on this section for today’s review.
It’s a good job Gigabyte provide an extensive manual as the settings can look a little daunting to the uninitiated. Those coming from Socket 775 will be lost at first as the most common settings from that setup are replaced by settings such as Bclk (BaseClock) QPI and Uncore settings. Once you get your head around these new features the overclocking is relatively straightforward. Clock ratios are a lot higher than the old socket with a maximum 20x multiplier on Intel’s entry level chip which can be boosted to 21 thanks to the Intel Turbo Technology (think opposite of Intel Speedstep and you get the picture).
Intel QPI (QuickPath Interconnect) is fully tweakable thanks to the Gigabyte BIOS. Along with the link speed, the Uncore frequency and Isochronous support can also be adjusted. Uncore refers to all the on-die features that have nothing to do with computing engines however adjusting this setting can dramatically affect stability so use with caution.
The Bclk frequency, in its most basic form is the FSB of old, and when combined with the CPU Multi will give you the CPU clockspeed. The stock setting for the Bclk is 133Mhz but this can easily be increased to a little over 200 if the CPU multi is adjusted slightly along with the prerequisite voltage increases. Clock Drive and Clock Skew settings can be found in the Advanced Clock control section of the M.I.T but for the purposes of this review these settings were left in their stock state.
Having all that bandwidth at your disposal thanks to Tri-Channel Memory would be a waste if it could not be tweaked to further increase performance. Here is where the Gigabyte boards comes into its own with a wide range of settings available that can be adjusted for each individual channel should you wish. The multipliers range from 6 to 18 which should be plenty to get the most out of your kit.
Gigabyte thoughtfully provide you with the means to suck up enough electricity to power a third world country. The voltage settings below are insane and while Gigabyte are applauded for allowing the use of such crazy settings, extreme caution should be used for any setting that sits in the ‘Red’. Finishing off the BIOS section is the health monitor which, as with the rest of the BIOS, is very thorough providing the user with an array of temperatures and fan controls.
Once you have all your desired settings in place you can back them up to one of 8 profiles or even to removable media should you wish. These settings can then be reloaded at a later date using the same format. Flashing the BIOS to the latest version was trouble free and self explanatory, just unzip the downloaded BIOS to a USB stick and enter Q-Flash when in BIOS or upon POST and then follow the on screen instructions. Simplicity at its finest!
With a great looking board, a well thought out BIOS complete with a massive array of options, I am thus far blown away with the improvements Gigabyte have made over previous generations with the EX58-UD5. I have never really been a fan of Gigabyte boards, mainly due to the odd colour scheme and awkward BIOS but the UD5 has changed all that. A couple of obstacles remain though before I pledge my allegiance to the Gigabyte cause – overclocking and benchmarking….
