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X58 Asrock or Gigabyte

M

markrb38

Senior member
I have been looking at these two motherboards GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R and Asrock x58 extreme 3. I don't much care about the SATA 6gb/s, but I like the idea of the USB 3.
Normally I would just say Gigabyte and be done with it, but the early reviews on the Asrock have been pretty good, it is a few dollars cheaper (no rebates hassles like the Gigabyte) and, if it matters, is a newer board.
I can't find any full reviews on the Asrock only the ones from people that bought it at Newegg and other places.
 
The cost of both a motherboard and card is so close that it just doesn't seem worth it. Both boards can be had for well under $200 with cash back.
 
Personally I much rather buy new and dislike open box items. I have had a bad experience that ended up costing me more than new.
The new Asrock x58 Extreme is $170 and Ewiz has the Xsrock X58 Extreme3 or the Gigabyte x58a for roughly $193 shipped.
I understand you are just trying to help, but I really am only looking at these 2 boards.
 
This is really a no-brainer, get the Gigabyte board. You get 4 PCI-E slots including 2 16x and 2 8x. You can have a 16x/8x/8x tri-CF configuration on it or a 16x/16x CF config.

The Asrock is still primitive in the sense that it only offers: Expansion Slots
PCI Express 2.0 x16 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (blue @ x16 mode)
PCI Express x16 1 x PCI Express x16 slot (white @ x4 mode) (Double-wide slot spacing between each PCI-E slot)
PCI Express x1 1
PCI Slots 2

Also, you get two extra SATA ports on the Gigabyte, plus the Gigabyte is faster in latency and bandwidth if you look at some recent benchmarks.

http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/gigabyte_ga_x58a_ud3r/

Also, stay away from cheap 1 year warranty Asrock stuff, if you look at some Asrock boards on the newegg customer review sites, you will see a plethora of negative DOA comments and RMA hassles.

Giga = 3 year warranty.
 
Also it's worth noting that USB 3.0 is still in its infancy and some boards have trouble with handling it properly. Peripherals, as far as I know, don't even come with USB 3.0 yet.

I've also read a few things about how USB 3.0 cards seem to handle 3.0 worse than boards with native 3.0 support, though I could be wrong here. Could anyone verify this?

Other than that, go with the Gigabyte. It has the longer warranty, and if you want to invest in and future-proof yourself with USB 3.0 capability, then stick with the motherboard that's got a warranty that'll cover you.
 
EDIT:

Ignore my post, I thought you wanted the X58 Extreme, not the Extreme 3.

The Extreme 3 is the first ASrock I've seen to not use the "Realtek" ALC890. So, it might be better than my Extreme. The ALC890 is a craptacular audio chipset, not even sure if its genuine.
 
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