Final Thoughts

At $324.99 US the UD5 isn't a cheap board and going over it, that comes as no surprise as it's a really nice offering. From the visual perspective, the UD5 looks fantastic; the matte black that GIGABYTE uses continues to be one of the best looking PCB colors and against the blue highlights throughout the board, it's just a sexy looking board that look great with something like the Corsair H100 and some RAM that carries a black heatsink.

One appealing aspect of the board is also the fact it's completely passive cooled; we've seen a few companies opt for active cooling solutions with the X79 boards and you kind of cringe at the feeling that in 12 months' time they'll be clogged up and start to die resulting in the need to RMA a perfectly working board because the fan has gone.

On the bundle side of things, this is an area that GIGABYTE are extremely strong in at the moment and while we've seen the higher end boards from them always offer a large bundle, the UD5 with its Bluetooth 4.0 / WiFi card and extra USB 3.0 ports are a real highlight and let them stand out amongst the really competitive motherboard market at the moment.

The X79-UD5 from GIGABYTE is just ultimately a really nice all round board; it looks great, offers a strong bundle and performs well. It's a little on the more expensive side of things, but the money is worth it as you do get that really nice bundle.

The X79-UD5 also sits at a good price level against the company's other offerings. The more basic UD3 comes in at $269.99 US while the higher end UD7 carries a $369.99 US price tag. On top of that, you've got the feature rich G1.Assassin2 which comes in at a hefty $399.99 US, albeit, still at a price point that I think is worth considering when you look at the features that are on offer.