
Moved the
PCI-E 2.0 slots
Gigabyte has launched its second XL-ATX motherboard which will
be hitting the shops for $649. GA-X58A-UD9 motherboard has seven x16
PCI slots. Gigabyte has removed the standard 1x slots to make space
for the new PCI-E 2.0 slots which will mean that gamers have room to use more
than one graphics card.
The dual slot cooler protects the slots from over
heating. The heatsink property of the motherboard has doubled thanks to the
installation of a waterblock on the Northbridge. There is also support for four way SLI technology from Nvidia along with
the Crossfire configuration of four ATI cards. Gigabyte have brought in a SATA controller with a speed of
6GB per second and a USB 3 controller has added to the latest integrated
technology.
The RAID 0 technology has six DDR3 DIMM slots which
Gigabyte tells us provides faster data transmission. There is also PS/2 ports and EIDE connectors along with
the floppy drive at the back of the motherboard for those who think that coming
down from the trees is a little too evolved. There is a dual switching circuit for iPhone charging and
a dual bios system with a manual switch to clear the CMOS settings.
The processor uses 12 phase unlocked power to complete a
normal task. But if required, the device can temporarily suspend the
switching module and convert the 12 phase power unlock feature to full 24 phase
unlocked power mode to increase the load on the processor.