Gigabyte X58A-OC Sub Zero Review

Special Features

To say the X58A is singular in its purpose is doing it a disservice, but the box reflects this hardcore ethos by being one of the most minimalist affairs we can recall. Around the front at least. Round the back there is a plethora of elements highlighting the parts of the board that really matter for those world-breaking overclocks.

      

Let there be no doubt that this board can supply more power than you could ever possibly hope to need. 1.2 KW of CPU power sir? Combine this with the exceptional quality of the power-phases employed on the X58A-OC and you start to get a glimpse of the levels that the Gigabyte board can attain.

As we shall see later on, the ability to tweak the board to a near infinite degree is absolutely vital. We’ve seen a few boards that come with BCLK adjustments, but the amount that have a ratio adjuster built in are less than a handful. It’s some measure of the board that there is an automatic 4GHz button. When the LGA1366 was first upon us 4GHz was a magical benchmark that only the finest could hit. Here it’s considered such a given that it’s a one-button base-camp before you begin to climb Everest.

      

Of course heat is the absolute killer when it comes to overclocking, and so it’s no surprise to find the X58A-OC is replete with 7 fan headers, all of them the 4-pin variety. Rather than cut corners, Gigabyte have sharpened them.

At the potentially incredible (insane?) speeds available power is the other primary concern and fantastic amounts are available on both the CPU side of things and, as we see here, on the PCIe side too.