The Gigabyte GA-X79-UD5 really did impress us every step of the way during our testing period. At first, it didn't clock as well as we had hoped, but looking closely at the hardware design, we knew this board was meant to be an overclocking-centric product, and just needed the right BIOS. As this is Gigabyte's first foray into AMI UEFI implementations, we were willing to overlook the poor overclocking, and had hoped for a new BIOS to fix the problems. When it came time for us to write up the review, with all of the testing completed, the entire Gigabyte X79 Express product line got a BIOS overhaul, and Gigabyte issued a press statement advising all customers to update to the new BIOS. Timing being what it was, we flashed to the new "F7" BIOS, to be completely amazed at the differences in performance offered, and the new-found overclocking ability that the hardware had hinted to.
Thanks to the direct-to-CPU PCIe configuration, 3D performance is as good as it can get, beating out every other product, and even 2D performance is on top as well. It's a bit unfortunate to see stock power consumption numbers so high, and we were also disappointed to find so few SATA cables in the box, and we have deducted points from the overall score because of these two issues, but with those two out of the way, Gigabyte really has a fantastic product here, offering better performance than other products for lesser cost.
Although many users may be turned off by the BIOS fiasco, testing has shown that there is nothing to worry about, and in the end, the Gigabyte GA-X79-UD5 is the best Intel X79 express product we have tested to date. With that, it's very easy for us to recommend this product to users looking to delve into the Intel X79 Express platform, even just if running stock, as the performance is high enough to warrant the extra power consumption in our books. Don't forget to hit us up in the forums with your own GA-X79-UD5 results!