![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Tuesday , December 23, 2008
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Gigabyte EX58-UD5
Gigabyte brings its engineering expertise to the new EX58-UD5 motherboard that is targeted at the no-frills hardware enthusiast. It is still packed with all the OCing essentials. We get past the marketing speak to find out if this board is worth your hard earned dollar or if it should wind up in the computer hardware shooting gallery.
Gigabyte Easy Tune 6
Gigabyte recently switched to a newer version of Easy Tune with the introduction of version 6 which I first saw with the Gigabyte EP-45T Extreme. I will rehash much of what was covered in that article as the software is largely the same, though a few new options are present due to differences between the afore mentioned P45 chipset based board and the newer EX58-UD5. The application very much resembles the look and style of CPU-Z and GPU-Z. The layout is extremely simple to use but has a vast array of options and features to allow you to perform quite a bit of tuning. The software is laid out by category at the top of the application window each corresponding with certain features or system components.
After opening the main application window, you can see the CPU-Z like layout showing CPU information pertaining to the core type, model, stepping, cache information, clock speeds, processor code name, etc. There isn't anything adjustable here. This tab is purely informational in nature. The next tab found at the top is memory. Here you can view information for each individual memory slot and its corresponding DIMM. Timing tables are usually viewable here as are manufacturer brand name and memory model information. The memory module size is also displayed here. The next tab is the tuner tab which has three modes of operation. Quick Boost, Easy and Advanced. The Quick boost tab basically gives you three buttons to press. Each button represents a higher level of automatic overclocking. As you can see in the screen capture nothing extreme is going on here. Easy and Advanced contain the same options but the easy tab doesn't let you change memory or PCI-Express frequency settings. The advanced tab gives you sliders on those options. The Advanced tab also gives you additional tabs. Among those are frequency, ratio, voltage and voltage II. These options are all the same stuff you'd find largely in the BIOS. Ratio settings are adjustable for individual cores. Voltages are self explanatory and voltage II is simply a continuation of the first menu.
The Graphics card tab contains settings for overclocking your GPU. Using my test video card (NVIDIA Geforce 9600GT) I was not able to use this function. Though the values were correct for the card's stock settings manipulation of those settings in this utility hard locked the system whenever I'd manipulate them. The Smart tab provides two functions. The first of which is dynamic overclocking based on the system load. This was a problematic feature for me. It worked through sports but after that it locked up on me. Again the enthusiast will go right past this stuff and make their changes mostly in the BIOS. The Smart Fan mode is also found here. It can be set to automatic to dynamically control fan speeds based on temperature thresholds or you can adjust all these values manually with the advanced option. Last is the hardware monitor which shows voltages, chassis intrusion status and of course alert thresholds for temperature and fan speeds. You can set audible alert sounds as well. You can use default sounds or use your own custom sounds.
The short of it is this: I've used plenty of these software suites manufacturers include with their boards. They all seem problematic, clunky, and they typically offer functionality that is either limited or unnecessary. While I feel that way about Easy Tune 6 I have to say it is certainly better than some utilities I've seen. Most enthusiasts are going to bypass these utilities and grab things like Everest, Core Temp, Realtemp, CPU-Z etc. to handle their needs. Most of the tweaking they'll do in the BIOS.
BIOS
Gigabyte chose Award BIOS for the EX58-UD5. Version F3 was the latest version available at the time of this writing and was used for all testing and screen captures. What unnerves me about most Gigabyte boards is that while the board is marketed to the enthusiast they insist on making their customers press Control-F1 to access some of the more advanced functions of the BIOS which I've been saying is insane for over a year now. Like MSI's memory color coding scheme (which was finally abandoned) this makes no sense given the target audience and I can only imagine that some lawyer came up with this to protect them from liability. This insanity is further compounded by the fact that the most dangerous settings (the voltage settings) are all found without pressing and holding Control-F1. However it seems for the first time this idiocy is gone!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah! Either that or the change is so subtle I didn't see it.
The Award BIOS is more or less the same as ever on the EX58-UD5. It is laid out by category menu. Each category contains sub menus and sometimes sub-menus for more sub menus. Right off the bat Gigabyte lists the first option as the MB Intelligent Tweaker or M.I.T. for short. This menu contains all the good settings. Basically all the overclocking and performance settings can be found here. CPU clock ratio, Advanced CPU features, QPI Link settings, UnCore & QPI Features, etc. Base Clock (BCLK) Control and so on. This section also contains many sub sections for performance related settings such as Advanced CPU Features, UnCore & QPI Features, Advanced Clock Control, Advanced DRAM Features & Advanced Voltage Control. Advanced CPU features has settings such as the CPU clock ratio, Intel Turbo Boost Technology, CPU Cores Enable/Disabled, CPU Multi-threading, CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E), C3/C6/C7 State Support, CPU Thermal Monitor, CPU EIST Function, Virtualization Technology, and Bi-Directional Prochot. UnCore & QPI Features has QPI Link Speed, Uncore frequency, and Isochronous support settings.
Advanced Clock Control contains the Base Clock or (BCLK) Control setting, as well as PCI-Express frequency control. Also found here is the C.I.A.2 setting and clock drive/skew settings. Once the DRAM Timing Selectable setting is changed from "AUTO" to manual all the CAS, TRAS, RAS, and other memory timing settings become available for adjustment. The rest of the memory settings not related to voltage are found in the Advanced DRAM Features sub-menu. Here you can set the Performance enhancement modes, XMP support, and timing settings for each memory channel. All three are adjustable independently. The last setting in this menu is the Advanced Voltage Control which is quite comprehensive. Thanks to the Precision OV chip on the board voltages are adjustable in very small increments. One thing that I really hated about this was that you couldn't actually get from one extreme part of the range to the other easily or quickly.
It would have been nice if they could have implemented support for page up and page down keys rather than having to scroll through the entire settings ranges for each represented value. You can also use plus or minus to make the adjustments. It is faster to key the values in manually and the board will attempt to "guess" what setting you actually want. This worked ok but I would really like a page up and page down key to move through the settings ranges more quickly. I'm really just being nitpicky at this point. The settings ranges were vast. You had a ton of options and of course you had settings that allow for a large amount of under voltage settings or going way over when using more extreme cooling methods such as phase change. On air you've got more than enough settings to burn stuff out or blow things up. Overall the MB Intelligent Tweaker is very comprehensive and easy to use. The worst problem with it is that it runs extremely slow in regard to navigation. It is certainly not as bad as some boards I've worked with but certainly not good in regard to responsiveness.
Standard CMOS features contains settings for drive configuration as well as the time and date. The Advanced BIOS features contains settings for hard disk boot priority, S.M.A.R.T. compatibility, Full Screen Logo and more. Integrated peripherals contains options and settings for tuning, enabling or disabling onboard devices such as the drive and LAN controllers.
The SATA ports not linked to the ICH10R are part of Gigabyte's own version of the JMicron controllers. The drivers are the same as the JMB36x/JMB363 controller but Gigabyte's specifications on the website state that the controller is a GBB322. In any case unlike most JMicron implementations the controller modes for IDE, AHCI, and RAID are controlled from within the main BIOS rather than via a separate option ROM. This is awesome as you can basically setup that RAID controller and the drives that go with potentially fewer reboots and in one less place. You still must configure the ICH10R in the Intel Matrix RAID BIOS though. Power management contains power management and ACPI related settings. PC Health status is generally self-explanatory. It contains voltage and temperature information as well as allowing the user to set thermal thresholds and fan speeds. Thermal thresholds are conditions set to determine how the system behaves in regard to heat, idle and load conditions.
All in all the BIOS is well done with no glaring problems or over sights. Also within the BIOS you can hit F8 and launch the Award Q-Flash utility to flash your BIOS from a USB flash drive or the system's hard drive rather than a floppy. The hotkey for this (F8) is listed in the menu bar with all the other keyboard shortcut commands for the BIOS.