GIGABYTE EX58-UD4P Motherboard

GIGABYTE's UD4P variant comes packed in their traditional white box for mainstream boards. This box is not oversized so we can easily tell that the accessories bundle will be a lot lighter than their high-end DQ series boards. However, we aren't aiming for bells and whistles here as we are trying to keep things down in price. The front of the box has some art work denoting the Ultra Durable 3 technology that the board is based around.

For those who don't know what UD3 is, this comprises three sets of new features added into the board. First off, feature one is solid state capacitors and chokes rather than electrolyte caps and copper wound chokes. The next feature is a 2 ounce copper layer running through the PCB and its aim is to remove excess heat from vital components such as the base of the CPU, memory and voltage regulation systems as well as reducing EMI interference that prevents overclocking. Lastly is the DES Advanced system that is designed to save power by shutting down unnecessary voltage phases when the CPU is in idle and light loads.

On the back of the box GIGABYTE has put a lot of marketing hype about its new 2 ounce copper layer inside the PCB and how it's supposed to help. However, we would have rather seen more info on the board itself including a larger colour picture of the board; this is what people want to see as it helps customers identify if the board is right for them.

GIGABYTE provides two user manuals in the box; one is the standard novel size containing all the info on the board, BIOS, hardware and software that is included on the driver and software DVD. The DVD also has drivers and software for XP and Vista in 32-bit and 64-bit variants. The second manual is a multilingual guide book, basically a quick start manual in multiple languages.

Lastly in this section are the accessories. GIGABYTE provides in the UD4P series four SATA-II data cables which include locks that prevent the cable from coming out in transport or snagged by the user when installing hardware. An IDE cable with two drive support and a FDD cable make up the additional accessories. This is a light bundle, but enough to get you started.