With the X58A-OC Gigabyte has a motherboard in its product portfolio that has been engineered only with overclocking in mind. For example the I/O panel, which comes only with the most necessary ports, shows how uncompromisingly this board has been designed and built. Additionally there a numerous features which make the heart of any overclocker beat faster, instantly. And there also are the absolutely stunning looks of this board and the manufacturing quality which is almost outstanding. 
The X58A-OC currently is Gigabytes absolute high-end motherboard regarding overclocking. Under the lead of the well known overclocker "Hi Cookie" Gigabyte has been brave enough to create a whole new motherboard category. Therefore we're very curious how the market is going to accept this product. It would be every overclockers dream to see more of these boards and a trend like this could make this dream come true.
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Specifications / Delivery
| CPU | Intel Socket 1366 Core i7 |
| Chipset | Intel X58 |
| Memory | Triple Channel DDR3, 6 x DIMM, Max. 24 GB DDR3, 2200(OC) / 2133 (OC) / 1866 / 1600 / 1333 / 1066 Non-ECC,Un-buffered |
| Multi-GPU |
2-/3-/4-way ATI CrossFireX 2-/3-way NVIDIA SLI |
| Slots | 2 x PCI-Express x16 (PCIEX16_1,
PCIEX16_2) 2 x PCI-Express x16 (PCIEX8_1, PCIEX8_2) 1 x PCI |
| Sound | - Realtek ALC889 Codec - 7.1-Kanal |
| Storage | 2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s (RAID 0, 1) 6 x SATA 3.0 Gb/s (RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, JBOD) 2 x eSATA 3 Gb/s |
| I/O internal / Connectors | 1 x 24-pin ATX Main Power 2 x 8-pin ATX 12V Power 2 x PCIe-Power 2 x SATA 6Gb/s 6 x SATA 3Gb/s 1 x CPU Fan Header 6 x system fan headers 1 x North Bridge Fan Header 1 x Front Panel Header 1 x Front Panel Audio Header 1 x S/PDIF Out 1 x USB 2.0/1.1 2 x Heatsink LED-Power-Anschluss 1 x Clear CMOS Button 1 x power Button 1 x Reset button 1 x PWM Frequenzwechsler 1 x Onboard Spannungsmessung 1 x 4G Ready Button 1 x OC Gear Button 1 x CPU BCLK Down Button 1 x CPU BCLK Up Button 1 x CPU Ratio Down Button 1 x CPU Ratio Up Button 1 x BIOS Switch |
| I/O external | 1 x PS/2-Tastatur 1 x PS/2-Maus 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 1 x RJ-45 3 x Audio Jacks (Line In/Mic In/Line Out) |
Features
| OC-VRM | OC-VRM includes a combination of highly conductive POScaps, 50A rated MPFC (Max Power Ferrite Core) Chokes, and Driver-MOSFETs, which combined, are able to deliver higher current to the CPU, with better efficiency and lower operating temperature. OC-VRM also allows users to overclock the PWM frequency via an onboard switch, for real-time adjustment. When the CPU needs maximum power, users can raise the PWM frequency in order to deliver more current through this unique POScap and MPFC Choke design. In addition, GIGABYTE has specially chosen unobtrusive components and carefully designed their layout to make it easier and quicker for extreme overclockers to insulate their boards. |
| OC-Touch | OC-Touch enables overclockers to quickly and easily get more performance from their system. With onboard OC-Touch buttons, users are able to manually raise and lower the CPU ratio, change BCLK settings, and even change BCLK stepping to either 1 MHz or 0.3 MHz. These changes can be made at any time whether in the BIOS or Windows and in real-time without the need for rebooting, so that users can quickly fine-tune to find their CPU’s maximum frequency. The onboard 4G Ready button allows novice overclockers to automatically reach 4GHz, while advanced users can use it to get to 4GHz before continuing with OC-Touch to quickly find their CPU’s best margin. Onboard voltage measurement modules are also included to help users to conveniently monitor component voltages. |
| OC-PEG | OC-PEG provides two onboard SATA power connectors for more stable PCIe power when using 3-way and 4-way graphics configurations. Each connector can get power from a different phase of the power supply, helping to provide a better, more stable graphics overclock. The independent power inputs for the PCIe slots helps to improve even single graphics card overclocking. For 4-way CrossFireX, users must install OC-PEG to avoid over current in the 24pin ATX connector. The entire board also features POScaps, helping to simplify the insulation process so overclockers can quickly reach subzero readiness. |
| OC-Cool | OC-Cool features a new LED lit thermal design and 7x 4-pin Smart Fan connectors to allow overclockers to easily control system-wide temperature. |
| OC-Dual BIOS | OC-DualBIOS features an onboard BIOS switcher and LED indicator, allowing users to select one BIOS for normal use, and another one for overclocking. It can also act as a backup BIOS in case of BIOS failure during overclocking. With two BIOSes, users are able to save up to 16 different overclocking profiles – a very useful feature when overclockers want to update to a new BIOS, but don’t want to lose their original settings. |
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Layout
Gigabyte provided the X58A-OC with an independant color scheme. Already at a first glance one can see that this board belongs to an own product category. The PCB itself has been covered with a matte black color and the expansion slot, three DIMM slots as well as parts of the heatpipe are orange. Altogether this really is one good looking board. Furthermore the black matte PCB also has a practical advantage for overclocking because one can see condensation water quite a bit better than on a glossy surface.
Naturally Gigabyte equipped it's absolute high-end overclocking motherboard with an digital power design which can rely on 20 phases. Right next to the CPU socket one will find only POS-Caps, which allow a very comfortable insulation of the socket area because of their low height. Below the heatpipe in this area there are even more capacitors which are able to withstand up to a whopping 50 Ampère of current per piece. Regarding the power design there is a buttons which makes it possible to change the clock frequency of the VRM in realtime. The only thing which looks a bit strange to us is the Clr_CMOS button that has been place quite close to the CPU socket. If you insulate the area around the CPU socket it's likely that you push it unintentionally.
Totally you'll find six DIMM-slots on the Gigabyte X58A-OC. Officially supported are DDR3 - 2200(OC) / 2133 (OC) / 1866 / 1600 / 1333 / 1066 with up to 24 GByte capacity. Positioning of the DIMM-slots has been well thought which means they aren't too close to the CPU socket. Therefore there wont be incompatibilities between huge CPU coolers and big memory modules.
Northbridge as well as the current converters are being held at adequate temperatures via a passive heatpipe cooling solution. The southbridge got a passive cooling block which has not been integrated into the heatpipe loop of northbridge and VRM cooling. The fact that the cooling blocks around the CPU socket aren't too big makes it comfortable to install a big aircooler. We also noticed the very high manufacturing quality of the cooling blocks and their weight which is quite immense.
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[pagebreak]
Connectors and I/O
Totally
Gigabyte equipped the X58A-OC with eight angled SATA ports which we think is
much more than every overclocker might ever need. With this board you'll not
only find practical onboard
power- and reset-buttons there even more very practical features especially for
overclockers. Ritght next to the DIMM slots, there is for example a 4G button.
If you push it the CPU is being overclocked to 4 GHz automatically. Furhtermore
you'll also find plus and minus buttons to adjust the BCLK in realtime.
Additionally you can even change the stepping by which the BCLK will be in- or
decreased.
Another thing Gigabyte has thought of concerns the usage of more than one
graphics card. If you place, let's say four, high-end video cards there will be
no problems because between ever PCI-Express x16 slot there is an extra slot
free of space.
Totally you'll find seven fan headers on the Gigabyte X58A-OC which is more than enough, to provide even an overclocking rig with plenty of fresh air. The fan headers are located around the CPU and their also spread over the entire board which makes them easily to access from any position in an enclosure (if you should really decide to put this board into a computer case).
Looking at external connectors and buttons directly at the back-panel Gigabyte equipped the X58A-OC with a PS2 mouse connector, a PS2 keyboard connector, two USB 3.0 ports, a Ethernet port, three audio connectors as well as another two USB 2.0 ports. This really is a basic setup but it's definitely enough for overclocking.
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BIOS
Following you find BIOS-screens regarding basic configuration options as well as overclocking. Nearly standard these days is the possibility to save and load BIOS-Profiles.
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[pagebreak]
Test Setup
Hardware |
||
| Motherboard |
|
|
| Processor | Intel Core i7 980 X | |
| Memory | 3 GB Kingston PC3 16'000 9-9-9-27 | |
| Graphic card | ASUS ATI Radeon HD 5850 | |
| Hard disk | Samsung Spinpoint F1 320 GByte | |
| Power supply | Antec 1200 Watt | |
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Futuremark
3DMark06
3DMark 06 is getting older these days. Therefore if you are using really powerful graphic cards you will hit CPU limitation which means that the graphic card isn't the bottleneck in the system. This is also the reason why in recent high-end desktop systems 3DMark 06 scales nicely with the CPU and the graphic card has much less influence on the scores.
Total
| 3DMark 06 Total | Percent | |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 21'582 | 101.40 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 21'535 | 101.18 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 21'402 | 100.56 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 21'310 | 100.13 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 21'283 | 100.00 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 21'264 | 99.91 % |
| more is better | ||
CPU
| 3DMark 06 CPU | Percent | |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 7'016 | 100.88 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 7'014 | 100.85 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 7'009 | 100.78 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 7'003 | 100.69 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 6'955 | 100.00 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 6'946 | 99.87 % |
| more is better | ||
3DMark Vantage
3DMark Vantage is able to squeeze nearly everything out of a recent system. Therefore the feature liste is also pretty long: DirectX10, FP16-HDR, motion blur, parallax occlusion mapping, GPU-physics simulation and different shader effects are being used to even make recent high-end systems struggle.
Total
| 3DMark Vantage Total | Percent | |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 17'600 | 103.85 % |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 17'306 | 102.12 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 17'151 | 101.20 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 16'950 | 100.02 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 16'947 | 100.00 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 16'938 | 99.95 % |
| more is better | ||
CPU
| 3DMark Vantage CPU | Percent | |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 31'255 | 102.06 % |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 31'239 | 102.01 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 31'125 | 101.64 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 30'689 | 100.22 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 30'623 | 100.00 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 30'611 | 99.93 % |
| more is better | ||
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[pagebreak]
SiSoft Sandra 1
SiSoft Sandra is a theoretical multi purpose benchmark suite which is able to show differences in CPU architectures. We split the tests with SiSoft Sandra into two parts. Therefore on this page you'll find Arithmetic-, Multimedia- and Cryptography-benchmarks.
Arithmetic
| SiSoft Sandra - Arithmetic - Drystone | Percent | |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 121.80 GIPS | 100.06 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 121.73 GIPS | 100.00 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 121.46 GIPS | 99.78 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 121.39 GIPS | 99.72 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 121.14 GIPS | 99.52 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 120.30 GIPS | 107.20 % |
| more is better | ||
| SiSoft Sandra - Arithmetic - Whetstone | Percent | |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 132.02 GFLOPS | 100.02 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 132.00 GFLOPS | 100.00 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 131.78 GFLOPS | 99.83 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 131.76 GFLOPS | 99.82 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 131.22 GFLOPS | 99.41 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 111.00 GFLOPS | 84.09 % |
| more is better | ||
Multimedia
| SiSoft Sandra - Multimedia - Integer | Percent | |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 218.01 MPixels/sec | 100.84 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 216.20 MPixels/sec | 100.00 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 215.45 MPixels/sec | 99.65 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 215.13 MPixels/sec | 99.51 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 215.03 MPixels/sec | 99.46 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 212.68 MPixels/sec | 98.37 % |
| more is better | ||
| SiSoft Sandra - Multimedia - Fliesskomma | Percent | |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 183.00 MPixels/sec | 100.55 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 182.00 MPixels/sec | 100.00 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 181.40 MPixels/sec | 99.67 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 181.32 MPixels/sec | 99.63 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 181.20 MPixels/sec | 99.56 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 181.30 MPixels/sec | 99.62 % |
| more is better | ||
Crytography
| SiSoft Sandra - Crytography - AES 256 | Percent | |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 2'290 MB/sec | 101.33 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 2'280 MB/sec | 100.88 % |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 2'270 MB/sec | 100.44 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 2'270 MB/sec | 100.44 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 2'260 MB/sec | 100.00 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 2'250 MB/sec | 99.56 % |
| more is better | ||
| SiSoft Sandra - Crytography - SHA 256 | Percent | |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 825 MB/sec | 100.00 % |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 823 MB/sec | 99.76 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 823 MB/sec | 99.76 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 822 MB/sec | 99.64 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 821 MB/sec | 99.51 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 821 MB/sec | 99.51 % |
| more is better | ||
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[pagebreak]
SiSoft Sandra 2
At this point we deliver the values regarding Memory Bandwidth, Memory Latency as well as Memory and Cache Access.
Memory bandwidth
| SiSoft Sandra - Memory bandwidth - Integer | Percent | |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 21.36 GByte/sec | 111.48 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 20.90 GByte/sec | 109.08 % |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 20.81 GByte/sec | 108.61 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 20.70 GByte/sec | 108.04 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 19.16 GByte/sec | 100.00 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 18.45 GByte/sec | 96.29 % |
| more is better | ||
| SiSoft Sandra - Memory bandwidth - Floating point | GByte/sec | Percent |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 21.42 GByte/sec | 111.80 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 21.00 GByte/sec | 109.60 % |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 20.18 GByte/sec | 105.23 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 20.00 GByte/sec | 104.38 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 19.16 GByte/sec | 100.00 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 18.36 GByte/sec | 95.82 % |
| more is better | ||
Memory latency
| SiSoft Sandra - Memory latency | Percent | |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 64 ns | 92.75 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 64 ns | 92.75 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 64 ns | 92.75 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 66 ns | 95.65 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 68 ns | 98.55 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 69 ns | 100.00 % |
| less is better | ||
Memory and cache access
| SiSoft Sandra - Memory and cache access | Percent | |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 106.17 GByte/sec | 110.36 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 100.10 GByte/sec | 104.05 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 99.80 GByte/sec | 103.74 % |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 99.70 GByte/sec | 103.64 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 99.50 GByte/sec | 103.43 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 96.20 GByte/sec | 100.00 % |
| more is better | ||
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[pagebreak]
Super Pi 1M / 32M, wPrime
Meanwhile Super Pi even in its latest version has become pretty old. Never the less it is able to show scaling to the clock speed nicely.
Super Pi 1M
| Super Pi 1.5 XS - 1M | Percent | |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 12.230 sec | 98.86 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 12.254 sec | 99.05 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 12.292 sec | 99.36 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 12.340 sec | 99.75 % |
| ASUS Rampage III Extreme | 12.340 sec | 99.75 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 12.371 sec | 100.00 % |
| less is better | ||
wPrime 32M
wPrime is based on a multithreaded algorithm to calculate the square root to up to 32 billion digits. Therefore it is possible to put 100 percent load on every core or thread and to see differences between architectures.
| wPrime - 32M | Percent | |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 5.01 sec | 98.24 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 5.03 sec | 98.63 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 5.07 sec | 99.41 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 5.10 sec | 100.00 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 5.13 sec | 100.65 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 5.63 sec | 110.39 % |
| less is better | ||
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[pagebreak]
Games
Crysis 800 x 600, low details
Crysis is still one of the games which has very high system requirements. Therefore developer Crytek implemented Direct3D-10-API, High-Dynamic-Range-Rendering, Parallax Occlusion Mapping, Soft Shadows, Motion Blur, Depth of Field as well as Soft Particles. We test Crysis by using DirectX9 as well as DirectX10 to show CPU-sacaling especially which low resolutions. If we look at the high resolutions we are able to spot that the CPUs influence compared to the graphic card becomes much less important.
| Crysis DirectX9 (800 x 600 low details) | Percent | |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 86.03 fps | 104.72 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 85.23 fps | 103.75 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 84.97 fps | 103.43 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 83.83 fps | 102.05 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 83.68 fps | 101.86 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 82.15 fps | 100.00 % |
| more is better | ||
Resident Evil 800 x 600, low details
Resident Evil uses nearly every modern rendering technology: HDR, Hemisphere Lighting, Soft Shadows, Soft Particles, Field- und Motion-Blur oder auch Alpha to Coverage and static Ambient Occlusion. Furthermore Resident Evil 5 has been optimized for multicore architectures and already comes DirectX11 ready. By using the DirectX9 benchmark we can again show you CPU-scaling with low resolutions and the compared to the CPU overproportional influence of the graphics card at high resolutions.
| Resident Evil DirectX9 (800 x 600 low details) | Percent | |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 93.20 fps | 103.90 % |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 92.30 fps | 102.90 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 91.90 fps | 102.45 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 91.10 fps | 101.56 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 89.90 fps | 100.22 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 89.70 fps | 100.00 % |
| more is better | ||
Street Fighter 4 800 x 600, low details
Street Fighter 4 comes with an extra benchmark version which makes testing you system childrens play. At low resolutions the system requirements are pretty low and we can see CPU-scaling in the results. At high resolution the graphic card becomes more important and the CPUs clock speed has less influence on the fps.
| Street Fighter 4 (800 x 600 low details) | Percent | |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 419.20 fps | 106.73 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 400.12 fps | 101.88 % |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 399.37 fps | 101.69 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 396.42 fps | 100.93 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 394.62 fps | 100.48 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 392.75 fps | 100.00 % |
| more is better | ||
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[pagebreak]
Overclocking
Air
| CPU-z | Percent | |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 4'400 MHz | 101.85 % |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 4'390 MHz | 101.62 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 4'380 MHz | 101.39 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 4'350 MHz | 100.69 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 4'320 MHz | 100.00 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 4'170 MHz | 98.86 % |
| more is better | ||
| 3DMark06 | Percent | |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 24'498 Marks | 101.71 % |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 24'426 Marks | 101.41 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 24'200 Marks | 100.47 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 24'130 Marks | 100.18 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 24'086 Marks | 100.00 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 23'265 Marks | 96.59 % |
| more is better | ||
| Super Pi 32M | Percent | |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 8 min 44.658 sec | 98.31 % |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 8 min 45.920 sec | 98.54 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 8 min 47.390 sec | 98.82 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 8 min 48.240 sec | 98.98 % |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 8 min 52.236 sec | 99.71 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 8 min 53.760 sec | 100.00 % |
| more is better | ||
| Max. BCLK | Percent | |
| Gigabyte X58A-OC | 225 MHz | 100.00 % |
| Gigabyte GA X58A-UD9 | 225 MHz | 100.00 % |
| Asus P6T6 WS Revolution | 225 MHz | 100.00 % |
| ASUS Rampage III Black Edition | 225 MHz | 100.00 % |
| Asus Rampage III Extreme | 225 MHz | 100.00 % |
| MSI Big Bang XPower | 225 MHz | 100.00 % |
| more is better | ||
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[pagebreak]
Fazit
| Allgemein | + | - | |
| With the X58A-OC Gigabyte decided to explore an entirely new market. Unter the Lead of their engineer and possionate overclocker "Hi Cookie" they developed a board that defines a whole new product category for motherboards. Already from the layout and design persepective one can see that Gigabyte has created a board that has been built with only two purposes in mind: overclocking and what else, extreme overclocking. You'll for example find a 4G utton onboard which directly increases the clock of your CPU to 4 GHz. Furthermore one can see at this boards I/O panel that priorities have been set, because you'll only find a bunch of USB ports, a PS2 mouse connector, a PS2 keyboard connector, a enthernet port and three audio port, that's it. Not mucht but enough for overclocking. But the Features show only one part of this board. Since Gigabyte refurbished the Design of their high-end motherboard they haven't released one board that did not come with stunning looks. With the X58A-OC this is no different and its design is simply astonishing. The matte PCB and the orange accents make it look perfect. | -
Design - Layout - Numerous OC-Features |
||
| Layout | + | - | |
|
Generally the Gigabyte X58A-OCs layout is very well thought. Once more very practical are the angled SATA connectors as well as the power- and reset-buttons. Also the debug display can become very useful in case you should have issues with a component in your system or the board itself. If your thinking about a multi GPU setup you'll definitely like that there is plenty of space between the different PCI Express x16 slots which allows an adequate cooling of more than one GPU. Additionally Gigabyte put some more very nice overclocking features on this board. The option to in- or decrease the BCLK as well as the possibility to change the BCLK stepping comes in very hand when you do extreme overclocking. Naturally there also are measureing points onboard which allow you to read out different voltages. If this motherboard marks the beginning of a whole new product category we should all be very curious what awaits us in near and far future! |
- Angled SATA connectors
- Power/Reset-Button onboard - Debug display - Plenty of space between PCI Express x16 Slots for Multi-GPU-Setup |
||
| Performance | + | - | |
| The performance in general is on quite a low level. Compared to the other boards in our comparison tables the X58A-OC lacks behind. The worst thing for this board were the memory benchmarks in SiSoft Sandra. It really seems like the good overclocking capabilities come at a cost. Therefore it looks like it is related to the overall performance which slightly lacks behind the competition. | -
3D Benchmarks - 2D Benchmarks - Games |
||
| Overclocking | + | - | |
| This part of the review shows the other side of the medal. Definitely this is one hell of an overclocking board. In principal the 4G button for example is something very simple but it's very useful and handy to quickly set the clock to 4 GHz by the click of a button. Furhtermore the BIOS is very well structured and you'll quickly find all the settings you'd want to manipulate. Gigabyte doesn't use UEFI BIOS but nevertheless a lot of overclockers are familiar to this Award BIOS version. Regarding the BCLK we were able to reach 225 MHz. More wasn't possible with our CPU but were sure that the board itself is capable of much more. | -
BCLK 225+ MHz - V-Regulator - 4G Button - BCLK Buttons onboard |
||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| If you should be looking the overclocking motherboard then the Gigabyte X58A-OC is going to be the right choice for you. There simply is no other board that offers that many overclocking features. | -
Overclocking |
- Office PC - Gaming-PC |
Discuss this article in the forums
Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch m.buechel@ocaholic.ch c.ney@ocaholic.ch