With all the news about the Z68 and P6x chipsets these days is seems that many people feel the X58 is done. Well that is not the case; many manufacturers still see this as a viable top end platform for Intel and are making some great boards for this market space. The nice thing about this is that they are not just making the high-performance/dollar products but are still working on quality boards for every price level. One of these is the Gigabyte X58-USB3. It is a mid-range board that leaves out SATA 3.0 but still keeps many of the other features you would expect from an X58 board (SLI, Crossfire, etc). Gigabyte has made sure they add in USB 3.0 for you while keeping everything around $180. Let’s take a look and see if it is worth that price.
The Box and Goodies -The Box the X58-USB3 comes in is reminiscent of their last generation products. It has the same white and blue color scheme that we got used to with products like the GA-X58A-UD9 and many others. It is not a bad look but it is cluttered and to some it might also be visually confusing. After all looking at the front you are immediately hit with a large USB 3.0 logo that takes up a more than a quarter of the available space. Layered on top of this is an On/Off Charge and a warranty logo…The back makes better use of space but is still very chaotic with multiple graphs and informative pieces on the features that the board has to offer.
Inside we find out one of the ways that GB has been able to keep your costs down; there is very little in the way of accessories. You get the basics sure, but not much else.
