Introduction

2010 is shaping up to be a fun year for me. Some of the hardware that is available is staggering. Rich in features, easy to use and quality components; which brings us to the motherboard that we will be looking at today, GIGABYTEs new top of the line GA-X58A-UD9.

GIGABYTE has thrown almost everything into this board. If I look hard enough, maybe I'll find the kitchen sink hiding somewhere in the box, too. There is so much to talk about with this board that I almost don't know where to start.

24-phase power, two NF200 chips with seven PCI-E slots, USB3.0, SATA3.0, RAID 0 via Marvell SE9128 high speed SATA3 interface, USB Power, Dual BIOS, Dual LAN, 2 ounce copper for both the power and ground layers in the PCB, a powerful software suite and a nice assortment of accessories to name just some of its features.

What does all that mean? - Well, if you are a nutter like me that wants a platform to push Gulftowns CPUs to crazy speeds, run the most insanely fast graphic configurations imaginable and have the ability to use USB3.0, SATA3.0 and super fast RAID 0, you will be grinning from ear to ear right about now.

I almost feel sorry for the CPU knowing how I am going to torture it with this weapon, and torture it I will. As you know, I'm not one for air testing so I will leave most of that to others. What I want to know is how it rocks when we crank the volts over 1.9vcore and freeze it to below -150degrees celcius.

This is a top of the line flagship product; it's not made for mum and dad's internet machine, it's a full on gaming or fire breathing benching board. And as such, I have high expectations, so let's see if it lives up to it.

We have also prepared a video of setting up the UD9 for subzero benching with liquid nitrogen which can be seen at the top of this page.