The past few years have been very kind to Gigabyte; the company's shipments have better to the point that it's now around tied with Asus in terms of volume shipments. Part of the reason for the company's good fate is its decision to insistently align its higher-end motherboards, both in terms of price and available features. Gigabyte has put a major push behind USB 3.0, and claims to have bought one million of the three million USB 3.0 controllers NEC have shipped thus far.

The X58A-UD3R is a good example of Gigabyte's viable product positioning. The board's feature loadout is superb given it’s ~$200 price point—the question we'll be looking to answer is whether or not the company cut any corners to strike its target.