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
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6
Gigabyte’s top end offering comes in at $250 and touts their answer to competing boards as having ’24-Phase’ PWM circuit (using a multiplexed ISL6336 6 phase controller). Onboard cooling of the MOSFET area, Intel P55 PCH , and Gigabyte SATA chips is provided by a heatsink/heatpipe setup connecting all three areas together. The PCH portion of the heat sink is attached with screws while the PWM MOSFETs and Gigabyte SATA chip fittings are of push-pin type (screw fittings are our favorites).
A total of 6 fan headers are available (two of which are 4 pin). Our retail sample came with a Foxconn CPU socket, although Gigabyte is moving to LOTES sockets on their upper end boards after hearing of the problems some users have experienced with the early Foxconn sockets.
Expansion slot layout is identical to the ASUS Maximus III ROG, which is a good thing in our opinion. Starting at the top, we’ve got a PCI/eX1 slot, followed by PCI/e X16 and then another CPI/eX1 slot immediately beneath. Moving down, we get a PCI slot, the second PEG slot (running at 8X) followed by the second PCI slot and finally the last 16x mechanical PCI/e slot (running at 4x width). Slot layout is good, allowing for a variety of peripheral cards to be used in tandem. Underneath the last PCI/e slot at the lower edge of the board, we have 1XCOM port, 1XFDD, 1X1394 and 2 x USB headers.
The lower right hand corner of the Gigabyte P55 UD6 is home to 10 right angled SATA ports (6 X Intel ICH10R and 4 Gigabyte SATA). A Hex post code reader is also included for debugging purposes. Just behind the Hex display, we’ve got CMOS clear and a reset switch for open test bed users. Finally an IDE port is provided for legacy drive users.
We’re a tad bemused at the presence of 6 DIMM slots on a P55 motherboard when the processors are dual channel only when run without buffered DIMMS. Oddly enough, the extra slots are for running single sided modules in dual channel interleaved mode over 6 slots. We’re not sure if this is a wise move at all because most users have moved over to double density 2GB modules which are priced attractively and capable of overclocking to high bandwidth due to advancements in memory IC design and memory controller design over previous platforms.
An onboard power button is placed very conveniently at the upper right edge of the board allowing for easy access in open test bed setups. Unfortunately, unlike the ASUS and EVGA boards, Gigabyte does not provide any voltage measurement pads for digital multimeters which can make the board a little tricky to get to grips with if you’re benchmarking under LN2.
The rear panel is home to 1 x PS2, 8 x USB (2 SATA combo), 2 x1394, 1 x coaxial S/PDIF, 1 x TOSLINK optical, 2X RJ45 LAN ports and finally 6 audio output jacks. The presence of a rear CMOS clear switch would have been welcome for ease of access but is unfortunately missing. This leaves users with PC cases having to pull the side panel off their case if BIOS does not recover from a failed overclock.
Gigabyte’s Easy Tune software is bundled with the motherboard, and allows for easy access to all primary voltage rails as well as bus speed manipulation and fan control options.
We found the Easy Tune software to be easy to use and to present a light enough system load to allow for unhindered overclocking. The only thing that would perhaps bolster Easy Tune would be the addition of hot keys with fast load profiles allowing for on the fly bus speed changes to maximize benchmark scoring potential. Other than that it’s a well rounded and easy to use tool.
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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.