Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 Review

The Intel socket 1156 processors have been out for about a month and a half now and have proven to be capable performers with some pretty decent overclocking credentials. Both the Core i5 750 and the Core i7 8 series processors have seen the far side of 4GHz with regularity when overclocked. Sure, the socket 1366 processors can do this, but there is a cost to enter that hardware level with not as many breaking that 4GHz clock speed stably. Cost is a big concern in our still troubled economy, so the option to go with a socket 1156 system offers a way to get comparable performance at a lower price. Cost for the i7 860 is roughly the same as the socket 1366 i7 920, and with the 860 offering a higher operating clock speed, processor cost is comparable, therefore savings savings can be found primarily on the motherboard and memory. You can find a great 4GB set of memory for around $100 and a motherboard from $110 to $250 for a full featured board. The range of prices for the X58 Socket 1366 chips and motherboards start and end noticeably higher. So there is the cost savings!

While Gigabyte offers boards for both socket types, the fact is that they have a full line of motherboards (eleven total) based on Intel's P55 Express chipset to fit just any price or performance point. The GA-P55-UD6 is at the top of the food chain and is the full featured board in the line up. This board is built using Gigabyte's Ultra Durable 3 construction that all starts with the PCB that uses 2-oz copper ground and power layers for lower impedance, better efficiency and lower operating temperatures. Add lower RDS(on) MOSFETs, Japanese solid capacitors and a 24-phase VRM circuit and it looks like the enthusiasts are well taken care of. But there are others that can use the features this board has, such as the Smart Dual BIOS, Smart Dual LAN, High Definition sound, a combination of eSATA and USB I/O panel connections, and Smart TPM so you can protect your data. Couple that with comprehensive list of software utilities, such as Easy Tune 6, Smart 6, and DES2 and you really do have a full featured board for the masses. The question is whether the 24-phase VRM design will offer any increase in clock speed over designs with fewer phases when not on the edge with LN₂ or a cascade! Let's see what she's got!

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