Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)First impression: it's heavy compared to other high end motherboards!
This motherboard's build quality grabs your attention the moment you unpack it, when you carry it you feel it's rigid build and strong chassis. I tried to bend it, not a chance!
I love the 24 GBs of RAM that it can handle and the fact it is a 3-WAY SLI ready!
Comes with 10 SATA ports, 4 of them are RAID capable, what can you ask more for internal storage? Just make sureyou have a powerful PSU and stuff your case with HDs the way you want.
One more thing, two SATA calbes come with 90 degrees bend incase you had something in your case that is very close to the SATA ports! what can I say, SMART!
A very cool option, they have a massive heat sink that covers the North and South Bridges, then heat pipes goes out from the North Bridge, around the LGA 1366 socket to cover the voltage regulators!
GIGABYTE didn't stop there; they have included a passive huge heat sink with heat-pipes that attaches to the North Bridge to transfer heat to from the Bridge to the passive heat sink, then the heat sink fins open at the back of your case to radiate heat. They could have thought of including a tiny fan inside it but it is still great.
Guess what, they didn't even settle with this! The heat sink that is already attached to the North Bridge is ready for your LCS! just attach the LCS pipes and you're done!
There is an on-board two hex-digits that tells you the status of the board when you switch on the PC! if it reads (FF) then everything is OK, if there was a problem (your RAM or graphics card is not mounted well) it will display a different number depending on the fault. No more guessing what the heck the loud noisy beeps are indicating anymore!
There is also a Clear CMOS button next to the USB ports, so if you mess up while overclocking your board you don't need to open it to clear CMOS, just press it and fire away!
Also available on the board some LED indicator on the over-clocking and over-voltage status that tells you whether you are reaching the critical zone or not! Those LED are next to the RAM modules so they are visible if you have a see-through case.
I really can't think of something else this motherboard is missing.
From 10 SATA ports to huge heat sink solution, 24 GB RAM capacity and 3-way SLI, 8 USB, even it has two PS/2 ports and FDD port along with IDE.
The only two things I personally wish were true are:
1- A small fan in the passive North Bridge heat sink
2- The board could have been a bit bigger, everything seems to be tight next to each other but at least nothing is interfering with anything. They should have considered that people buying a > $300 motherboards would already have a full tower case. It just looks small for this price tag.
In summary: this board has everything you think of, no old technology is too old and no new technology is far of reach...
If you got the money to spend, don't look anywhere else.
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INTEL X58+ICH10R LGA1366
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