14 DAY TRIAL // There are few things that spell overclocking madness quite as well as a motherboard with more resources than several high-end systems combined. Gigabyte is known for having dabbled in the dark arts of voltage regulation, clock calibration and performance optimization on many occasions, with results ranging from mostly harmless factory-overclocked components to motherboards that can smash through any benchmark, provided they are outfitted with a CPU, memory and graphics capability to match. The most recent leak, from Expreview, hints at the likelihood of an event of the latter nature possibly occurring in the near future.
Basically, Gigabyte is working on the GA-X58A-UD9, an ultra-high-end motherboard powered by the X58 chipset, which already says much about the level of performance that rigs based on it will have. The platform itself has not one but two 8-pin power connectors, making sure that, whatever CPU is used, it will have more than enough current flowing through it to push its clocks as high as enthusiasts want. Of course, the board has more than the necessary share of memory and graphics capabilities needed for such performance boosts.
One thing is that the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9 forgoes all types of previous-generation expansion slots in favor of the PCI Express x16 interface. This allowed its maker to put in no less than seven such slots, which should say a lot about the maximum video and GPU computing capabilities that enthusiasts will achieve. Not only that, but there are also six DDR3 memory slots, which will easily let purchasers install more memory than they'll really need for years. One can only imagine what havoc this mainboard will cause with a CrossFireX or SLI setup and 24GB of memory.
Other specifications of the upcoming product include ten SATA ports, four of which might be SATA 6.0Gbps ones, DualBIOS, a debuLED, Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1 channel audio and, last but not least, USB 3.0 connectors to make sure that top speed can be reached wherever possible.
Unfortunately, when and where this creature will debut is unknown, as is its price tag.