I too am a long time fan of Gigabyte boards and nowadays I tend to put the CD that comes with any Mobo to one side and ignore it completely, but that comes with the experience which I didn't have 10 years ago.
Well often the stuff on the CD is out of date by the time we buy the product (which is a GOOD thing, since it means GA is busily working to keep drivers/bios/utilities up-to-date and current).
Oh I agree some of the tools GA supplies are interesting for newcomers, having a "visual" concept of overclocking in a sense can help, after all the BIOS screens were scary things for all of us at once point in time or another
I find many motherboard makers are quality, EVGA, Asus and others, I can't honestly say there has ever been any imperative that kept me using GA, other than the stuff worked, was well supported and did the job I asked of it.
I am quite happy to see GA take on the high performance market, part of the reason I chose the UD9 was all the myriad toys and features I perhaps do not need, but nonetheless coverted.
Naruraly EasyTune comes with the thing, oh well... Still I am sure most people quickly move on the other toys once they know a little more as you say. Without any doubt it is better that GA provides such tools, rather than none at all
