Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R (Rev 2.0) Motherboard Review

👤by Sahil Mannick  Comments 📅17-09-10

EasyTune 6

EasyTune is a very handy application to keep track of system settings, frequencies and also allows for overclocking in a Windows environment as opposed to BIOS. This makes it ideal for new users who may not be comfortable with messing around in BIOS. Naturally BIOS is still the ideal tool for overclocking but EasyTune is innovative in that it allows for minor tweaks to be made without constantly restarting. The first screen is similar to the popular CPU-z and displays all the useful CPU and motherboard information such as clock speeds, supported instruction sets and motherboard version.

Moving on to the memory tab, the RAM settings are displayed with useful manufacturer information. Each module can be selected as well.

Tuner mode is where the system can be tweaked and overclocked. The initial screen is for automatic overclocking, dubbed "Quick Boost", where users can overclock to the higher SKU speeds of the i7 940 and 965. Since the i7 920 being tested is multiplier locked, the increase in speed is achieved by automatically increasing the BCLK.

After Quick Boost, Easy or Advanced mode can be selected. Easy mode limits overclocking to jus the BCLK which doesn't achieve much for higher overclocks due to voltages to take into consideration. Setting it to Advance mode unlocks memory and PCIe overclocking and for the voltages to be adjusted.

We can see that all the voltages are normally located in BIOS can be adjusted here. The main disadvantage of the application is that the tweaks made are not permanent or set in BIOS, so the tool should only be used for minor changes to determine system stability or for small overclocks. Only the ROG software on ASUS flagship motherboards have this ability.

The graphics tab even allows GPU overclocking and temperature/fan monitoring. Whilst useful to implement it into EasyTune, a true overclocking program such as MSI Afterburner is much better.