We have Gigabyte's GA-EX58-EXTREME Core i7 motherboard to put through its paces today. Gigabyte have kindly sent us a pre production sample (Rev 1.0), which we are told is identical to the mass production units apart from the colours of the various slots and sockets.

As the board isn't a full retail kit, there are no accessories or extras to look at, it's just a bare board, extreme cooling system and an SLI/Crossfire bridge.

Over the last few months we have seen a variety of propaganda from the big board manufacturers with each of them listing the other's shortcomings. Competition appears to have driven up the various board specs, but at the same time, prices have rocketed, with some retailers selling certain boards for up to £340 and Core i7 CPUs starting at around £270 - Factor in a triple channel kit and you are looking at not much change from a grand, so is the upgrade worth the money? How do Core i7 and X58 perform? Read on to find out...