We have to remind ourselves that this /is/ an early look still and we've still yet a month to go before we get hold of the final retail sample and we know the EX58-Extreme board has already changed once in the last month or so. Yet, we can't but help feel a little /"meh"/ compared to the other X58 boards we've seen.

It's yet another evolution not revolution from Gigabyte and while its conservative nature means it's to some degree guaranteed not to go wrong and affect sales, without venturing out to try new things there's also no chance of getting it much more /right/ either. Launching the EP45-Extreme board was a great opportunity to try and do something different, to push the boundaries and justify the higher price, not just roll into the norm of slapping a big heatpipe on it and a waterblock on the northbridge that seems so popular these days.

The fundamentals of the Gigabyte X58 are certainly solid enough and if you like its boards to date it's very likely to be yet another to stick on the shopping list, but we do hope Gigabyte gets a serious injection of mojo sometime soon, simply to avoid becoming stale.