Introduction

It’s been a while since I have had the opportunity to review a motherboard and honestly, I forgot how much time was involved. Needless to say, I still enjoy it. So if it’s not up to the Raven standards (oops, that was when I was with ?), actually just call me BackDraft, the Raven days are over. So if this review is not up to par, blame Raven not BackDraft.

Out with the old and in with the new - frankly I was getting quite tired of  having to deal with a Northbridge as a middle man when it came to Intel systems. After years of waiting I got my wish. Intel, with the launch of their Core I7 and new X58 motherboards, finally have forgone the Northbridge and put the memory controller on the processor. 

In this review I will focus on the X58 motherboard and that motherboard is the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R. The Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R motherboard is one of the most inexpensive, quality X58 motherboards you can purchase and, although it doesn't contain all the extras you may get with a more expensive motherboard in the X58 class, it does come with some of Gigabyte's new innovations. The Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R is ATX form factor and is capable of SLI with a BIOS flash. 

Gigabyte was founded in 1986 as a research and development team. They have since evolved and manufacture not only motherboards but graphics cards and other computer peripherals. They have recently launched their Ultra Durable 3 line and still lead the industry with their Dual BIOS and EZ-Share BIOS technology.