Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 - P55 uATX Goodness for Under $105 - Updated
by Gary Key on August 28, 2009 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Gary's First Looks
We will finish up our P55 previews this weekend (or later) with a couple of new boards from ASUS and Biostar. In the meantime, I just wanted to comment on the Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2. I have over a dozen P55 boards in the labs with several more arriving shortly. Already, two motherboards have risen to the top in regards to overclocking performance and a couple of boards have really impressed me with their balance of great performance and excellent feature sets.
That said, this particular board has been the most fun so far in testing. However, I will confess that I am partial to solid performing, budget priced, uATX form factor boards so my comments on these products tend to have some rah-rah in them if they perform well. Speaking of performance, I cannot comment on the numbers due to the NDA. Even though we have half a dozen retail purchased processors, memory kits, coolers, and this motherboard, Intel is sticking to their guns about violating the NDA release on i5/P55.
So that leaves me with providing vague comments like the board having a very good performance to price ratio. Maybe something along the lines of "I just cannot believe it does not cost more" is appropriate considering the feature set and performance compared to a few other boards.
This does not mean the board is going to hit 272 Bclks or provide class leading performance. It just means that spending less than $105 for this board and pairing it up with a Core i5-750 is going to lead to some fun times for the P55 budget seekers, HTPC groupies, or the SFF gaming crowd. We have word from ASRock and Foxconn that they will be providing $100 uATX P55 boards but we have not seen the feature sets yet.
Let's take a quick look at the GA-P55M-UD2. I forgot to mention, you can purchase this board now (as we did) from Provantage for less than $105. Update - The board is sold out again but should be in back in stock shortly, probably at less than $100.
Considering the limited board space, Gigabyte did a very good job fitting all of the peripherals onto this board. About the only negatives we can think of is the continued inclusion of the floppy drive port and the lack of passive cooling for the MOSFET area. The board only sports two fan headers so that might also be a problem for users with two or more 3-pin case fans. The board does support CrossFireX operation although we highly recommend against this setup as the second PCIe x16 slot is actually an x4 electrical slot running off the P55 chipset. The board contains Gigabyte's UltraDurable 3 technology that features their 2oz. copper based PCB, solid capacitors, low RDS(on) MOSFETs, and ferrite core chokes.
Gigabyte utilizes a solid six-phase PWM setup on this board. The CPU area is open for the most part and will accommodate larger coolers like the Thermalright MUX 120. Large push/pull coolers like the Vigor Monsoon III LT will block the first DIMM slot. If you plan on running this board with Bclk rates above 170 or so, we suggest additional airflow across the MOSFETs to ensure 24/7 stability when overclocking.
The IDE port, 24-pin ATX power connector, and the four DIMM slots are located in the lower right hand corner of the board. This board supports dual channel memory configurations and 16GB of DDR3 memory when using 4GB DIMMS. Installing the memory with a video card inserted in the first slot is difficult but not impossible.
There are five (blue) SATA 3Gb/s ports provided by the P55 chipset that support RAID 0, 1, 5, 10. The sixth port available on the P55 (under the blue heatsink) is utilized on the I/O panel for eSATA. Gigabyte includes the JMicron JMB363 3Gb/s SATA chip that drives the two white SATA ports and provides IDE support. The front panel header, two USB headers, and the IEEE 1394a header are located at the edge of the board.
Gigabyte includes two PCIe x16 slots (x16 operation for the first slot, x4 operation for the second slot) and two PCI slots. The first PCI slot will be unavailable when utilizing a dual slot video card.
Last but not least is the I/O panel. We have ten USB 2.0 ports (total of fourteen on the board), combination PS/2 port, single eSATA port, IEEE 1394a port offered by the TI TSB43AB23 chipset, Gigabit Ethernet LAN port via the Realtek RTL8111D chipset, optical out/coaxial out S/PDIF ports, and the audio panel that provides 8-channel audio output via the Realtek ALC 888B HD audio codec.
BIOS Information
Apparently this preview did not have enough substance in it according to a few reader comments. I totally agree. However, I will state this one more time, we are bound by an NDA and cannot provide that substance for another week or so. That said, we can now show the general layout of the BIOS, thus providing a little more substance than we had yesterday. I will leave it at that for now.
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snakeoil - Sunday, August 30, 2009 - link
i mean, seriously what a crappy motherboard. for 110 dollars.you can get a phenom 2 motherboard with bether specs for 60 dollars.
for what i care about the crippled lynnfield.
anyway
boogerlad - Sunday, August 30, 2009 - link
That's why the crippled lynnfield destroys phenom II in performance right? Show me a nice phenom II board for 60 dollars.Mugur - Sunday, August 30, 2009 - link
The pages for the products are just placeholders for now, but you can download the manuals... :-)Mugur - Sunday, August 30, 2009 - link
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Search/Search_List.aspx...">http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Search/Searc...px?Keywo...PopcornMachine - Sunday, August 30, 2009 - link
Thanks.ClagMaster - Saturday, August 29, 2009 - link
The GA-P55M-UD2 is another very nice P55 motherboard previewed by Anandtech. Like the other previewed P55 motherboards, this board has high quality components and good layout. From the photographs this board has an excellent feature set for a Micro-ATX board that most people would want and need. Maximum memory capacity of 16GB is more than adequate for mainstream/high performance needs. For $105 this is motherboard is an excellent buy. Like most other micro-ATX/ATX boards, system memory has to be installed before the graphics card. Let’s hope Gigabyte has its BIOS squared away before it reached Gary’s hands.I too am partial to solidly performing, budget ATX and Micro-ATX boards. I hope a "pedestrian" Intel P55 Motherboard (preferentially a Media Series) is also included in the P55 review that will be published soon. I am interested in how an Intel board would compare (for reliability, device compatibility, price and performance) with the higher performance, more overclockable, Asus, MSI and Gigabyte products.
I had great experiences with Intel DG965OT and DG965WH motherboards -- excellent reliability, as advertised performance and compatibility with all sorts of devices. Intel provided excellent BIOS support that quickly cleared up early issues and perfected the functionality of these motherboards. There have been 18 BIOS releases spanning 2-1/2 years for these boards. This is excellent stewardship of their products.
The Lynnfield/P55 product release is going to be a very good. It has targeted desktop mainstream/high performance computing and is going to put AMD at a very serious competitive disadvantage.
To the ignorant person (TA152H) who continues to berate i5/P55 performance when he has no idea what i5/P55 performance actually is:
If you really cannot tolerate the i5/P55 articles, then stop wasting your valuable time reading these articles and continue on in your bitter ignorance. Better yet, stop posting these worthless, derogatory, offensive comments about i5/P55 when it is clear to the rest of us you are acting out of willful ignorance.
I found this article an agreeable preview of a P55 motherboard and Gary said much (through general comments) about i5/P55 performance within this and earlier articles. This article is not hype and is hardly shameless. If it were not for the NDA, Gary would have posted more substantive information. But, unlike you, Gary is responsible with his posts and honors his commitments. In less than a month, we will know the truth.
And stop posting derogatory, offensive comments about us because we are interested in i5/P55 products. We are not brain-damaged people.
ClagMaster - Monday, August 31, 2009 - link
@GaryThanks for the additional BIOS information. This is much appreciated.
What I see in the photographs in a great BIOS and impressive performance.
4.3 GHz on air is an achievement for any motherboard.
I can see when Lynnfield/P55 is release Anandtech is going to have a great article about the performance of these products. Something to look forward to.
yacoub - Saturday, August 29, 2009 - link
Aye, not to mention we appreciate PREviews of upcoming hardware. They are incredibly valuable for those of us preparing to build a system in the coming weeks, as it helps narrow down which boards we'll be considering and looking for reviews on after the NDA expires.StevoLincolnite - Saturday, August 29, 2009 - link
For me it's not a Preview, considering I can already buy a Core i5 and GA-55M-UD2 motherboard here in Australia at AusPCmarket.com.auI was hoping for some tiny tidbits on performance numbers, but I guess it's better than nothing, but I'll hold off for more information.
yacoub - Saturday, August 29, 2009 - link
Since it's under NDA, at least we can see the board's features, which are actually the first important step in deciding if it's relevant.If a board has a poor layout or is missing a feature I have determined I need, I at least know I can cross it off my list of possible solutions.
But I hear you about it being available in your location already. Anandtech's hands are tied by Intel or the boardmaker, though. I'd rather have pictures and info than nothing.