P55 Overclocking Showdown - ASUS, Gigabyte, and EVGA at the OC Corral (Page 6 Updated)
by Rajinder Gill on November 6, 2009 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
EVGA’s top end offering for P55 is overkill in every single way. Classified specs add a 10-phase Volterra PWM for CPU power, a lower inductance LOTES CPU socket, an onboard digital multi-meter, and an NF200 bridge chip that adds support for triple 16x SLI or CrossFire. Like the P55 FTW E657, version 2 of EVGA’s OCP (overclocking panel) is included giving more than a subtle hint at who this board is designed for.
Priced at $340 or so, this board is more about what EVGA can do than what they should have done for this platform. The existence of X58 fills this segment with a slew of multi-gpu capable boards on the robust and higher performance socket 1366 platform. Nevertheless, we’ve added overclocking results so those who are interested can see how this board fares against others when teamed with the same components and within the same test environment.
Like the E657 model, 7 onboard fan headers are provided with full speed control via BIOS. Due to the addition of the onboard digital multi meter the E659 is classed as E-ATX with dimensions of 304.8mm X 243.8mm (LXW). This might make things a little cramped in smaller PC cases, although we think that anyone choosing a board like this is either going to be someone running an open test bed for benchmarking purposes or is someone who uses a lavish full tower PC case.
The presence of the NF200 brings a total of six 16x (mechanical) PCI/e slots and one PCI/e x1 slot to the E659. PCI/e X1 at the top, followed by the primary PEG slot running at 16x width in single GPU mode (8x when other PEG slots are occupied).For a full breakdown on lane allocation/link width check the specification table below.
No PCI slots are present on this board, which probably is not a big deal to the intended audience. Slot layout is flexible enough to cater for just about every type of configuration leaving ample upgrade room. We don’t have multi-card performance numbers at this time, although may update later if there is demand to do so.
Underneath the last PCI/e slot, we find power, reset and CMOS clear buttons. A 3 way slider switch is also provided allowing user selection of 3 separate BIOS IC’s. This allows flashing 3 different BIOS files, and also adds a good level of security in the instance of a corrupt BIOS flash. Two USB headers and a IEEE-1394a header are also placed along the bottom edge of the board.
A hex post code display is placed in the lower right corner of the board and over to the left we find 3 BIOS IC’s, one of which is placed within a socket allowing removal if a swap out is required. The CFP1 connector is the EVGA OCP PCB panel connector which allows for on the fly changes 0.1V boost functions to CPU VCore and VTT as well as a post code reader and power, reset and CMOS clear buttons.
PCI/e disable and X-Cool jumpers are located underneath the DIMM slots. Memory power is supplied by a three phase controller supporting switching speeds up to 640KHz. A test lead is supplied to plug into the positive input socket of the onboard DMM. Test pads for all primary voltage rails are located above the DIMM slots.
On the rear I/O panel we find 1 x PS2, 7 X USB (1 SATA combo), 1x S/PDIF, 1x Optical, 1 x 1394, 2x RJ45 LAN and 6 audio connectors. A push CMOS reset button is located between the PS2 and S/SPDIF connectors for easy CMOS clear events.
The E657 and E659 models share a practically identical BIOS (refer to screenshots on the E657 page). The only notable changes being the addition of voltage control for the added NF200 on the E659 model, together with an additional compensation adjustment for the CPU.
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McDaniel - Sunday, November 8, 2009 - link
Gigabyte is always ahead in cooling trend.. nice review anyway.. is it possible to set my old processor(core2duo) on this main board? & by the way where i should go for it?darkslyde - Monday, November 9, 2009 - link
you can't use socket 775 CPU in a socket 1156 board.but AFIAK, you can use socket 775 cpu cooling (heatsinks, cpu waterblocks) on the P55 evga boards. it has mounting for both 1156 & 775. that's one thing you can save on...
if you want to re-use your c2d (i.e e6600) there are good intel G/P/X 4X series and nvidia geforce 7000/9000, nforce 700 boards.
i'm reusing my old E6600 on an ASUS P5N7A-VM for media pc use. i get to use my old ddr2 dominators too.
techraze - Sunday, November 8, 2009 - link
Yes, you certainly can use it for core 2 Duo. but as this main board is designed for core i7/core i5 & their over clocking performances it's wise to have a new processor for this main board. i also did it recently & http://micropartsusa.com">http://micropartsusa.com can be a site for u also..anyway good luck dudeyyrkoon - Sunday, November 8, 2009 - link
As a matter of a fact. Doing some looking around I saw . . .LGA 1366 == i7 only
LGA 1156 == i5 only
LGA 775 == Core 2 duo, core 2 quad, core 2 extreme ( just another core 2 ), Pentium 4, and Celeron ( could be based on core2, P4, or others, but so long as LGA 775 pin layout).
Of course, with LGA 775, some manufacturers do not allow all CPU types, but it is possible for them to do, if they wish.
erple2 - Monday, November 9, 2009 - link
Technically,LGA 1366 == Certain i7 (9xx parts).
LGA 1156 == i5 and SOME i7 (8xx parts).
LGA 775 == Core2Duo, Core2Quad, and some Pentium 4 parts (any after "Northwood"), and some Celeron parts.
yyrkoon - Sunday, November 8, 2009 - link
Uh, you know I have not really looked into it, but I am fairly sure a socket 775 CPU would not fit into these newer sockets. Unless Intel took extreme precautions they normally have not in the past. I7 is what? 1368 pin ? Socket 775 is . . . 775 pin . . .MrCommunistGen - Saturday, November 7, 2009 - link
In the first paragraph of page 8 (the Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 page)you mention cooling on the "ICH10R". It should probably say "PCH" instead.leexgx - Saturday, November 7, 2009 - link
even past reviews never seen these types of problems before guess P55 is an no go until they fix the socket issues (overclocking or not)yyrkoon - Saturday, November 7, 2009 - link
"Unfortunately, any jubilation for a platform winner ends here until we know the exact cause of the issues we experienced on motherboards using the Foxconn 1156 sockets."Does this mean that all boards use this socket ? Or does it mean that the ones you wish to be winners use this socket?
I also find it odd that you would mention the Gigabyte board is good, but costs too much, where surely it is fairly priced compared to many Asus boards of the past. Yeah, the same company who seemingly wins all of your top awards, and comparisons.
Asus is *not* that good. EVGA is definitely not that good. and Gigabyte while not perfect definitely is not as bad as you make it seem. Not only that, these three companies are definitely not the only three in the motherboard business. Why is it that MSI, DFI, and other board makers are no longer sending you samples for review ? Hmm . . .
Rajinder Gill - Saturday, November 7, 2009 - link
Gary has the MSI board already; it was not tested in this compare because of CPU damage. The too expensive comment is aimed at the EVGA Classified 200 which does not deliver a significant advantage over the other boards in terms of CPU/memory overclocking even for the extreme crowd. DFI's board was not ready as early as the 4 boards we have tested here.The socket comment was made because in light of the failures we experienced during testing. Our failures have been all related to Foxconn sockets, but there is now a confirmed user case having issues with a LOTES socket too. In light of this, it's hard to give any board accolades for raw overclocking until we know for sure that the 'problem' is fixed. Out of all the boards, the EVGA P55 FTW was the most consistent and easy to use. Also note, this article is in no way reflective of 24/7 PC's and what matters in typical usage scenarios.