Gigabyte EX58-EXTREME Review

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We received the retail version of the Gigabyte EX58-Extreme tested, Unlike its older models of motherboards, the manufacturer opted for a much more sober colors, replacing the color pink, apple green, purple and orange and dimm SATA ports by blue and white. As for the rest, the card is identical to the model previously tested..

Photos of the card.

The card has 6 ports dimm and supports DDR3 triple channel. Alongside the SATA ports you can see a small LCD diagnostic system, displaying the error codes and other hardware problems encountered. Beneath the memory ports, Gigabyte switch placed Power / Reset / Clr CMOS making tests outside box easier. The EX58-Extreme has voltage to 12 phases for the CPU, 2-phase DDR3 and 2 phases for the Northbridge.



The rear panel is very rich because the card offers 2 ports PS2, analog outputs and digital audio, 1 firewire port, 1 clear CMOS button, 8-port USB2, 2 Ethernet ports and RJ45 input and output 7.1 audio. The EX58-Extreme supports 10 SATA devices without prior installation. 4 ports are managed by 2 controllers JMicron 322 and the other 6 by the ICH10-R Intel. You can also see the GUI three PCI-Express 2.0 that supports CrossFireX and sorting SLI, which allows the installation of 3 cards Nvidia or ATI.

The Bundle.

The contents of the box:

• Motherboard GA-EX58-EXTREME
• A CD-ROM drivers
• The user manual
• A quick guide
• IDE cable and a floppy cable
• Four cables SATA 3Gb / s
• A SATA bracket
• A back plate I / O
• An expansion card 2-port IEEE 1394a
• A mounting kit module Hybrid Silent-Pipe
• Bridge 2-Way SLI
• Bridge 3-Way SLI

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The Hybrid Silent-Pipe II.

The Hybrid Silent-Pipe II is the external radiator cooling Hybrid Silent Pipe 2 which aims to transfer the heat given off camera. Cooling Hybrid Silent-Pipe 2 combines air and liquid to maximize thermal performance in silence. It is also inspired by the radiator system graphics cards with passive cooling Gigabyte. It attaches easily near the waterblock with four small screws provided with the bundle. The X58 chipset does almost no heat, no one knows if such a cooling system is necessary for the proper functioning of the card or simply to decorate this..


Layout.

The map shows a layout almost perfect except that Gigabyte has put the LCD diagnostic system below the graphics card. Indeed when using multiple cards, we could see what it shows. It would have been better to deport almost like buttons dimm power ON / OFF and reset. Some would say it would have been preferable not to use the SATA connectors to 90 degrees. It may be noted that the CMOS battery is located below the heatpipe, as was the case on the EP45 Extreme. If you have lots of fans to connect, the EX58-Extreme will make you happy because it has no less than six connectors 3 or 4 pins.

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The Bios

Gigabyte uses the same blue Award Bios for years, but here, as on the EP45-UD3P, the MIT (Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker) was deported on the right. Here are some pictures of the MIT, where one has access to almost all the tensions and possible settings.

The parameters A-Channel-Timing-Settings and Channel-A-Turnaround-Settings can be changed for the three channels of memory, A, B and C.

Key voltages and frequencies available:

CPU

CPU vCore: 0.5V-1.9V in steps of 20mV (OC CPU)
QPI / ATV VOLTAGE: 1.082v-2.0V in steps of 20mV (OC clock Bclk)
CPU PLL: 1.4v-2.5V in steps of 20mV (OC clock Bclk)

MCH / ICH

PCIE: 1.0V-2.14v in steps of 20mV (OC PCIe)
QPI PLL: 0.8V-1.6V in steps of 20mV (OC clock QPI)
IOH Core: 1.0V-2.0V in steps of 20mV (system stability OC)
ICH I / O: 2.5V-1.05v in steps of 20mV (system stability OC)
ICH Core: 0.92v-2.38v in steps of 20mV (system stability OC)

DRAM

DRAM VOLTAGE: 1.3V-2.6V in steps of 20mV (OC memory timings)
DRAM TEMINATION: 0.52v-1.225v in steps of 25mv (OC memory timings)
A CH-DATA VREF. 0.7V-0.97v in steps of 10mV (OC memory timings)
CH-B DATA VREF. 0.7V-0.97v in steps of 10mV (OC memory timings)
CH-C DATA VREF. 0.7V-0.97v in steps of 10mV (OC memory timings)
A CH-ADDRESS VREF. 0.7V-0.97v in steps of 10mV (OC memory timings)
CH-B ADDRESS VREF. 0.7V-0.97v in steps of 10mV (OC memory timings)
CH-C ADDRESS VREF. 0.7V-0.97v in steps of 10mV (OC memory timings)

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Some tests in overclocking aircooling


For a motherboard called "Extreme" we did run some benchmark with one of the largest configurations available on the market today.

Here is the configuration used for overclocking tests:

• CPU: Core i7 965xe
• Motherboard: Gigabyte EX58-Extreme
• RAM: 3 X 1gb A-DATA 1600X
• VGA: 2 X 4870X2
• Power: 1200w Gigabyte Odin
• CPU Cooling: Noctua NH-C12P

Tests conducted at -105 ° C: Objective 5 GHz!

After some testing aircooling, where the processor was stable to 4200mhz for applications and multithreaded reaching 4500mhz for those using only one of the cores, we tested the Core i7 965 Extreme under cascade cooling system change phase of up to -105 degrees.



Here, we overclock the CPU to 5 GHz and even test Wprime 32M to 4900mhz, this software has the feature to test all the CPU cores. Until the system was cooled, it was also retest everest, but this time the amount DDR3 earlier using more than 2.15 V vDIMM.



Conclusion.

A month has passed since our test of the pre-sample of the EX58-Extreme, and within a month Gigabyte was correct small bugs that we could find at the bios of the card. During the tests, whether in aircooling or extreme cold, the card has behaved in an exemplary manner. By this we mean that the card has not been blocked or rebooted it does not continuously with bad parameters when forced by the OC, the original settings automatically when applying crashes without pass through the clear CMOS button. Despite a price ranging from Rs. 24,650 and Rs. 20,400 on average, Gigabyte EX58-Extreme is a map to advise all gamers, overclockers hard or even just technology enthusiasts