GIGABYTE have come a long way in recent times if there packaging design is anything to go by. 10 years ago, GIGBAYTE would think nothing of slapping a space station design on the front of their boxes but here we are today and the design, while less busy is infinitely more appealing. The package is small in comparison with other high end motherboard package designs with the overall size being 50% smaller than the Rampage III Extreme from ASUS and also being considerably lighter.



The rear of the box goes into huge details displaying the plethora of overclocking features the X58A-OC has at its disposal. This area is almost like a mini-review of the mainboard thanks to the clear yet descriptive text and pictures



Unlike the highly polished exterior sleeve, the inner box is notable by having no markings whatsoever - just a plain white cardboard box. The inner box which holds the mainboard is even blander being your standard brown affair. Clearly, cuts have been made here to keep costs down but thankfully the packaging is no less sturdy than other offerings at the same price point. I would however at least like to have seen GIGABYTE include a foam sheet beneath the motherboard as a minimum to protect from physical shock. Thankfully the motherboard is sealed in an anti-static bag to protect from unwanted electrical discharge.



The accessories are very sparse. Perhaps the only notable mention here is the inclusion of voltage monitoring leads which can be used in conjunction with a multimeter. The other accessories include a fixed length 3-way SLI bridge, a floppy SLI bridge and unusually for a motherboard, a Crossfire bridge. Making up the accessories are 4 SATA 6GBs data cables, Multilanguage manuals, I/O shield and a driver/utility CD.



Overall the package is nothing spectacular. The packaging is acceptable, the accessories adequate. This begs the question where did all of your hard earned money go? GIGABYTE have clearly made cuts to the packaging and accessories, including only the bare essentials rather than including gadgets that offer little to the products functionality and poured the majority of their budget into making something rather special, the motherboard itself. Overclockers don't care for flashing lights, front panel devices, USB brackets or a rats nest of cables. GIGABYTE could have perhaps gone one step further and not included any accessories whatsoever and I doubt there would be many complaints, especially for those overclockers who will be using the board with extreme cooling as I would doubt any extreme overclocker would even look at the motherboard manual or have use of an I/O shield! Thankfully though, GIGABYTE have afforded the bare minimum for those who wish to use a case and are perhaps new to the overclocking circus.

Let's take a look at the motherboard in detail...