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
Final Words
We are going to keep this simple. Hold our feet to the fire and we’ll tell you that of all the boards we tested, the most consistent performer was the $230 EVGA P55 FTW SLI E657 (using a Tyco AMP Socket). At its price point, there’s nothing available on the P55 platform that truly beats it for raw overclocking capabilities. Otherwise, the ASUS Maximus III Formula was high on our list in early testing as a great overall choice until we started experiencing the socket burn problems that really plagued our review samples. We have a retail board with the revised Foxconn socket in testing now and will provide updates shortly.
The Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 is a very good choice in the top end P55 market for those looking for a balance of features along with great overclocking abilities. We are not thrilled with the six memory sockets as it just seems to be a marketing feature. We just cannot recommend the EVGA P55 Classified 200 E659 motherboard due to its price point near $340 regardless of its capabilities, features, or even looks. 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.
Behind the scenes, Foxconn admitted there was a socket update in June that was approved by Intel with planned implementation in the August time period. We have the test report papers and the revised Foxconn socket passed all of Intel’s stress tests before it was placed into production, which raises questions as to why there has been problems post retail release. Intel has only commented that they believe the problems can occur with improper force being placed on the socket. However, that does not explain the lack of pad contacts with a retail CPU cooler and new processor that we have experienced in several situations.
Whether the reported socket issues were down to poor contact, improper clamp force, or a limitation in design (limited tolerances beyond stock specifications) is unknown to us at present. We’ve spoken to a few board engineers and nobody has been able or willing to put a firm conclusion on the matter, at least on the record.
Off record, early results from failed boards or user reports appeared to be a serious enough problem that most of the manufacturers moved to the Lotes or Tyco AMP sockets in their high-end boards or others for that matter. We have to stress that our problems and those of others we have dealt with directly occurred under extreme overclocking conditions. Out on the forums, we’ve heard of one reported case where a user claims a failure has happened at stock operating frequency using an Intel air cooler. We also have verification of a Lotes socket failing recently, which does put a new light on this problem.
Socket issues aside, the margin of overclocking variance shown in our benchmark results are very small. We can assure you that any of these clock speed differences won’t show up when these boards are used with air or water cooling solutions. And even with the socket burn out problems, we just have not had any direct experiences with failures after close to nine thousand test hours on over a dozen retail boards with air or water cooling at this point. Based on that testing, we still feel confident about the P55 platform.
For the sub-zero benchmarking crowd, you’re not likely to upstage socket 1366 based processors by using any kind of budget purchasing angle with the P55 platform. Just be aware and realistic of what this platform is designed to do before you commit to purchase it with thoughts of setting overclocking records in mind.
Gallery of Additional Performance Results-
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yyrkoon - Saturday, November 7, 2009 - link
Ok, sorry for the rude comments. But the main reason why this perturbed me, is that something similar happened to a company that I did like a few years back. They lost a lot of revenue because of the situation( and then left the market altogether; yeah . . . guess who ). With that said, I am glad that you guys reported this issue, because at that time, I was seriously considering the board afflicted. Then, I could even go as far back as the terrible capacitors used by many builders, which also caused bad reviews(and feeling from loyal customers)from many reviewers. You would think these companies would learn eventually. Of course, at the time, the builders had no idea these capacitors were going to ruin long term stability ( or maybe they did ? ). Then even in some cases long term was not an issue, because short term stability suffered as well.So, for now on, I suppose I will just have to remember that highly OCable motherboards,are not really dependable for 24/7 operation, and then keep my "mouth" shut :)
I am glad to see one of you does have something from MSI. Now if only the other players would get something out as well.
petergab - Saturday, November 7, 2009 - link
Can you, please, give the socket type of the tested boards? I don't want to start the foxconn/lotes dabate here.And one more clarification: The MSI board (I supoose p55-gd80) was not testes because it had a foxconn socket that burned out OR because the two i7 870 were burned out (on asus)?
Rajinder Gill - Saturday, November 7, 2009 - link
MSI GD80 was not tested because of damage to 2 870 CPU's, one of which was the best sample I had on hand (the one that ran Wprime over 5.2GHz). I've already presented the socket info of the tested boards in the article, but just to recap for you; EVGA boards were on TYCO AMP (E657) and LOTES (E659), ASUS and Gbyte both on Foxconn.MSI's board was ready for review once the CPU damage had already taken place. It was a choice of starting afresh on all 5 boards once again (and risking coming away with even less same CPU comparative info) or running with the almost complete information on 4 boards I had at the time. The latter made more sense to me. Nothing against MSI, their boards were still in beta and undergoing a revision for PCI/e when this all started so they were not in the initial lineup anyway.
later
Raja
petergab - Monday, November 9, 2009 - link
>> Nothing against MSI, their boards were still in beta and undergoing >> a revision for PCI/e when this all started so they were not in the >> initial lineup anyway.Can you explain this in deteils? I think I found something about it 1-2 months ago and haven't saved the address.
Your review was published in Nov. This means you've tested them in Oct, so the planning should have been some time in Sept. As far as I can remember the current MSI board range was on the market before Sept. Does this mean than the MSI has some problems with PCI- PCIE speeds with the current boards? What about the other verndors?
Any links are also appreciated.
Rajinder Gill - Monday, November 9, 2009 - link
Hi,The delay between the article posting and now was simply becasue I tore some fo the content out for the socket burnout stuff a couple of weeks ago. No idea if the MSI PCI/e overclocking patch was post retail or not because I've never had a GD80 in my hands so don't know what to look for per se.
later
Raja
petergab - Monday, November 9, 2009 - link
>> No idea if the MSI PCI/e overclocking patch was post retail or not because...This is exactly what I'm asking about. What was the original problem with this (if any existed)? The fact that you've not considered thier boards talks about some not that trivial issue. What was it? What made you not consider the board?
Rajinder Gill - Monday, November 9, 2009 - link
It's simple;1) At planning stage of who is going to be in the article one, MSI not added to inital lineup because board not ready.
2) By the time revision board is ready, 2 CPU's have been damaged while completing tests of 4 other boards (was in week 4 of testing at this point). Leaving me in a position where all tests must be re-run on every board with a new CPU just to add the MSI board into the report. Given the apparent weakness being experienced and not knowing if I'd be lucky enough even to make it through all 5 boards without another failure I decided to post what I had.
There's nothing more to it. You're reading into this too deeply. If I had anything whatsoever to hide, I would not have posted anything in the first place.
later
Makaveli - Saturday, November 7, 2009 - link
Very happy I just build a P6T Deluxe V2 + 920 D0 combo. Those overclocking numbers look good for the lynnfield setups, but I needed a true and tested platform and with these boards all just coming out I don't trust them.dingetje - Friday, November 6, 2009 - link
wow the p55 platform is totally screwd if this problem persists...any overclocker still oc'ing the hell out of their p55 must be either brave, rich or (michael jackson voice on:) ignoraaaantRaptor88 - Friday, November 6, 2009 - link
Raja:Thank you for you insights..
Can you provide more detail regarding the Max BCLK testing. Were all the boards running AUTO settings? If not, what were their respective settings?
Regards,
Raptor