Buckeye
10-12-2009, 12:38 PM
With the P55 Core I5 mother boards that seem to be very popular these days Gigabyte has released its first uATX version of this platform, this motherboard takes off of the same lines as the P55-UD4P which is a very solid platform and I expect the uATX version will be also.
So here is a direct link to Gigabytes website on this product.
http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=3168
Over time I have built many uATX computers that are generally used for business or work machines mostly based on socket 775 setups with E5200’s or Q6600’s. Most of the people that I built these machines for prefer a small form factor with as small a footprint as possible. I was pretty excited to see what this new motherboard has to offer many are looking at upgrading to new setups and moving over to Win 7.
Here is an example of the type of machines that I have built a fair number of. The case is a Microfly case which we like a great deal.
http://www.ultraproducts.com/product_details.php?cPath=13&pPath=439&productID=443
And the completed system, this one is a Windows Home Server which is running headless.
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/9577/img0157ae.jpg (http://img39.imageshack.us/i/img0157ae.jpg/)
The motherboard that was sent to me from Gigabyte also came with a Intel Core I5 860ES CPU. Again just like the 750ES that was sent to me I found that over clocking this chip seemed to be a problem. As I do not have a P55 Air Cooler yet I ran this on my Jinu SS Phase, it also ran on the 2 Stage Cascade but it behaved very badly on extreme cold and appeared to be on the edge of cold bugging. Going from SS Phase to Cascade caused more problems with being colder and over clocks did not scale at all with the extra cold. Usually a session on the Cascade would end resetting the BIOS as strange crashes would happen and the board would not reboot forcing me to reset the BIOS and try again. This CPU would require huge vtt settings almost equal to the vcore to boot and was simply not stable, the highest OC I was able to get on Cascade was 4.6ghz.
So no LN2 for this CPU
Here are a few pictures of the P55M-UD4
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/5951/pic0073o.jpg (http://img193.imageshack.us/i/pic0073o.jpg/)
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/769/pic0074f.jpg (http://img33.imageshack.us/i/pic0074f.jpg/)
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/4580/pic0078k.jpg (http://img193.imageshack.us/i/pic0078k.jpg/)
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/3112/pic0069y.jpg (http://img25.imageshack.us/i/pic0069y.jpg/)
And setting it up for SS Phase operation.
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/4528/pic0082p.jpg (http://img504.imageshack.us/i/pic0082p.jpg/)
Jinu SS Phase setup
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/3968/pic0108tz.jpg (http://img19.imageshack.us/i/pic0108tz.jpg/)
And Jinu 2 Stage Cascade setup
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/6950/pic0091f.jpg (http://img39.imageshack.us/i/pic0091f.jpg/)
The benches were not all that exciting as this chip simply did not like the cold and this CPU seemed to over clock about the same as the 750ES I tested before, however the 860 has HT which is really nice.
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/5369/wprime32m43ghz.th.jpg (http://img301.imageshack.us/i/wprime32m43ghz.jpg/)
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/7756/superpi1m43ghz.th.jpg (http://img301.imageshack.us/i/superpi1m43ghz.jpg/)
http://img67.imageshack.us/img67/1746/pifast43ghz.th.jpg (http://img67.imageshack.us/i/pifast43ghz.jpg/)
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/5783/cinebench40ghz.th.jpg (http://img527.imageshack.us/i/cinebench40ghz.jpg/)
So after pulling my hair out for several days trying to get the CPU to clock under cold and not getting anywhere I decided to see what type of game machine/work station that I could put together that would fit in the Microfly cases.
I think this is where this platform really shines.
Setup is:
P55M-UD4
Core I5 860ES
4gb Dominator 1600 9-9-9 RAM
2x MTRON PRO SSD’s
2x 260gtx graphic cards in SLI
Win 7
I set the over clock to this setting and upped the OC on the 260gtx’s to 700mhz core.
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/4660/cpuzlayout.th.jpg (http://img440.imageshack.us/i/cpuzlayout.jpg/)
I did not do a Crysis bench as… well I really do not play Crysis. As this is basically the same setup as the review I did on the P55-UD4P I expect it would be very close to the Crysis bench I did there.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=234002
With the contest that Gigabyte is running now
http://event.gigabyte.com.tw/BeatMeIfYouDare/
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=235502
I decided to give the Resident Evil bench a spin.
http://download.nvidia.com/downloads/nZone/demos/Biohazard5_Benchmark.exe
Use Resident Evil 5 DirectX 10 version
Use Variable Benchmark scene presetting with 1280x1024 display resolution
I really did not like this bench very much, it simply is just too much to watch and is too long.
So here is the result of the test, I am not sure if it means that I have an Average of 194.6 FPS or that, that score is just Average. In any regards a 194.6 FPS is a pretty good imo. I also found it somewhat of a problem getting a screen of the results.
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/7817/retest40ghz.th.jpg (http://img207.imageshack.us/i/retest40ghz.jpg/)
So now I come to a game that I am currently playing and like very much, AION. This is a great game that has only been out for a few weeks now and seems to growing strong.
http://na.aiononline.com
Here we see what my graphic settings are.
http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/251/aionsettings.th.jpg (http://img390.imageshack.us/i/aionsettings.jpg/)
This is a very busy hub at Eltnen Fortress with lots of activity so it’s a good place to see what FPS I get here. These numbers change around a great deal as with any online game so this is not a static number. So even with a 43 FPS everything is smooth and payable here with little to no lag.
http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/6356/sli576core.th.jpg (http://img56.imageshack.us/i/sli576core.jpg/)
And as I move out to the open country you can see FPS number jump up a great deal like here at 206 FPS.
Normally its jumping around from say 150ish to over 200 depending on what’s going on.
Just after I took this screen the area I was in had a group of Asmodians Rift in and cause a bunch of trouble, as I had gone AFK for just a few minutes I came back to find myself dead HAHA. But last night they were not so lucky :)
http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/9241/aion206fps.th.jpg (http://img387.imageshack.us/i/aion206fps.jpg/)
And just to add, you can run into many beautiful looking characters in AION, here is a sampling of a few I came across while doing my tests.
http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/4291/aionpicture.th.jpg (http://img260.imageshack.us/i/aionpicture.jpg/)
Ok so the good and fun stuff is out of the way, let’s talk about a few things that I found as problems with this motherboard.
As this is a uATX motherboard real estate can get a bit over crowed and tight spacing of components can be a problem.
When the first GPU is installed it leaves no space for the RAM clip hold downs to be opened so that a stick of RAM can be removed. That means that after you install the RAM and then GPU’s and find the need to either add more RAM or remove it you will have to take out the GPU’s in order to open the RAM hold down clips. This might be fixed by moving the RAM slots a bit further away from the GPU’s.
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/8036/pic0087e.jpg (http://img30.imageshack.us/i/pic0087e.jpg/)
Next up is the Power, Reset and Clear CMOS buttons. The location they are in is completely covered up by GPU’s making them impossible to get to after everything is installed. These could either be moved to the edge of the motherboard or removed as the only one really needed is the Clear CMOS button which could be placed on the edge of the MB. This became a real pain when I went to Cascade operation and found the need to clear the CMOS many times.
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/679/pic0081w.jpg (http://img17.imageshack.us/i/pic0081w.jpg/)
Here is only 1 GPU installed, when 2 are installed you cannot get access to any of the buttons.
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/6123/pic0090c.jpg (http://img18.imageshack.us/i/pic0090c.jpg/)
Just like the P55-UD4P and many other Gigabyte motherboards there are several power saving features included with the package. I really applaud Gigabyte for their consistent efforts in adding these features to their motherboards.
As those of us Over Clockers generally do not use these features while benching, they are great features for the work or gaming rig that is run 24/7.
First up is the standard settings in the BIOS for power saving which are pretty standard these days, but Gigabyte has added utilities to enhance this.
Here is the Dynamic Energy Saver.
http://www.gigabyte.us/FileList/WebPage/mb_080104_des/tech_080104_des.htm
I ran this utility most of the time while testing and here is a screen showing CPU Power load while I was gaming.
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/6784/energysaver.jpg (http://img301.imageshack.us/i/energysaver.jpg/)
Total system power usage which had the PSU plugged into a Kill-A-Watt meter shows 342watts usage while gaming.
This pretty much shows that running a highly over clocked rig that may be on High End water cooling or SS Phase draws a fair amount of power, this does not even include the draw from my SS Phase so total computer usage for this rig might be well over 700watts and more if you are using a more powerful system with higher end GPUs etc.
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/6657/pic0107m.jpg (http://img200.imageshack.us/i/pic0107m.jpg/)
One utility that I did not get a chance to play around with which seems rather interesting for those who are Bluetooth oriented :)
AutoGreen- Greening your PC via Bluetooth cellphone
Auto Green provides system energy savings by enabling users to turn on and off their PC remotely using their Bluetooth® enabled mobile phone. Once your phone is paired with your system, you only need to step away from your PC, and it will automatically enter S3/S4 ultra low power state, giving you an added level of power savings.
I did not have a Bluetooth receiver for this to test out.
These utilities are added value imo that help us reduce power usage, lower noise and heat output from our computers. The utilities that Gigabyte provide could very easly take up a full review of the suite of products they provide and features they add.
So in closing this review I find this motherboard to be another very nice, stable mother board from Gigabyte, full of features and in an uATX form factor which can fill many different roles from work station, gaming rig, or home server etc. It will handle just about any game other there these days and with its low desktop foot print it can be placed in just about any location around the desk and not take up so much room like tower cases do.
The power/reset button locations on the motherboard are not that big a deal really and not needed, when installed in a case those buttoms are wired to buttoms on the case. The Clear CMOS buttom needs to be moved tho.
So here is a direct link to Gigabytes website on this product.
http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=3168
Over time I have built many uATX computers that are generally used for business or work machines mostly based on socket 775 setups with E5200’s or Q6600’s. Most of the people that I built these machines for prefer a small form factor with as small a footprint as possible. I was pretty excited to see what this new motherboard has to offer many are looking at upgrading to new setups and moving over to Win 7.
Here is an example of the type of machines that I have built a fair number of. The case is a Microfly case which we like a great deal.
http://www.ultraproducts.com/product_details.php?cPath=13&pPath=439&productID=443
And the completed system, this one is a Windows Home Server which is running headless.
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/9577/img0157ae.jpg (http://img39.imageshack.us/i/img0157ae.jpg/)
The motherboard that was sent to me from Gigabyte also came with a Intel Core I5 860ES CPU. Again just like the 750ES that was sent to me I found that over clocking this chip seemed to be a problem. As I do not have a P55 Air Cooler yet I ran this on my Jinu SS Phase, it also ran on the 2 Stage Cascade but it behaved very badly on extreme cold and appeared to be on the edge of cold bugging. Going from SS Phase to Cascade caused more problems with being colder and over clocks did not scale at all with the extra cold. Usually a session on the Cascade would end resetting the BIOS as strange crashes would happen and the board would not reboot forcing me to reset the BIOS and try again. This CPU would require huge vtt settings almost equal to the vcore to boot and was simply not stable, the highest OC I was able to get on Cascade was 4.6ghz.
So no LN2 for this CPU
Here are a few pictures of the P55M-UD4
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/5951/pic0073o.jpg (http://img193.imageshack.us/i/pic0073o.jpg/)
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/769/pic0074f.jpg (http://img33.imageshack.us/i/pic0074f.jpg/)
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/4580/pic0078k.jpg (http://img193.imageshack.us/i/pic0078k.jpg/)
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/3112/pic0069y.jpg (http://img25.imageshack.us/i/pic0069y.jpg/)
And setting it up for SS Phase operation.
http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/4528/pic0082p.jpg (http://img504.imageshack.us/i/pic0082p.jpg/)
Jinu SS Phase setup
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/3968/pic0108tz.jpg (http://img19.imageshack.us/i/pic0108tz.jpg/)
And Jinu 2 Stage Cascade setup
http://img39.imageshack.us/img39/6950/pic0091f.jpg (http://img39.imageshack.us/i/pic0091f.jpg/)
The benches were not all that exciting as this chip simply did not like the cold and this CPU seemed to over clock about the same as the 750ES I tested before, however the 860 has HT which is really nice.
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/5369/wprime32m43ghz.th.jpg (http://img301.imageshack.us/i/wprime32m43ghz.jpg/)
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/7756/superpi1m43ghz.th.jpg (http://img301.imageshack.us/i/superpi1m43ghz.jpg/)
http://img67.imageshack.us/img67/1746/pifast43ghz.th.jpg (http://img67.imageshack.us/i/pifast43ghz.jpg/)
http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/5783/cinebench40ghz.th.jpg (http://img527.imageshack.us/i/cinebench40ghz.jpg/)
So after pulling my hair out for several days trying to get the CPU to clock under cold and not getting anywhere I decided to see what type of game machine/work station that I could put together that would fit in the Microfly cases.
I think this is where this platform really shines.
Setup is:
P55M-UD4
Core I5 860ES
4gb Dominator 1600 9-9-9 RAM
2x MTRON PRO SSD’s
2x 260gtx graphic cards in SLI
Win 7
I set the over clock to this setting and upped the OC on the 260gtx’s to 700mhz core.
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/4660/cpuzlayout.th.jpg (http://img440.imageshack.us/i/cpuzlayout.jpg/)
I did not do a Crysis bench as… well I really do not play Crysis. As this is basically the same setup as the review I did on the P55-UD4P I expect it would be very close to the Crysis bench I did there.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=234002
With the contest that Gigabyte is running now
http://event.gigabyte.com.tw/BeatMeIfYouDare/
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=235502
I decided to give the Resident Evil bench a spin.
http://download.nvidia.com/downloads/nZone/demos/Biohazard5_Benchmark.exe
Use Resident Evil 5 DirectX 10 version
Use Variable Benchmark scene presetting with 1280x1024 display resolution
I really did not like this bench very much, it simply is just too much to watch and is too long.
So here is the result of the test, I am not sure if it means that I have an Average of 194.6 FPS or that, that score is just Average. In any regards a 194.6 FPS is a pretty good imo. I also found it somewhat of a problem getting a screen of the results.
http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/7817/retest40ghz.th.jpg (http://img207.imageshack.us/i/retest40ghz.jpg/)
So now I come to a game that I am currently playing and like very much, AION. This is a great game that has only been out for a few weeks now and seems to growing strong.
http://na.aiononline.com
Here we see what my graphic settings are.
http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/251/aionsettings.th.jpg (http://img390.imageshack.us/i/aionsettings.jpg/)
This is a very busy hub at Eltnen Fortress with lots of activity so it’s a good place to see what FPS I get here. These numbers change around a great deal as with any online game so this is not a static number. So even with a 43 FPS everything is smooth and payable here with little to no lag.
http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/6356/sli576core.th.jpg (http://img56.imageshack.us/i/sli576core.jpg/)
And as I move out to the open country you can see FPS number jump up a great deal like here at 206 FPS.
Normally its jumping around from say 150ish to over 200 depending on what’s going on.
Just after I took this screen the area I was in had a group of Asmodians Rift in and cause a bunch of trouble, as I had gone AFK for just a few minutes I came back to find myself dead HAHA. But last night they were not so lucky :)
http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/9241/aion206fps.th.jpg (http://img387.imageshack.us/i/aion206fps.jpg/)
And just to add, you can run into many beautiful looking characters in AION, here is a sampling of a few I came across while doing my tests.
http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/4291/aionpicture.th.jpg (http://img260.imageshack.us/i/aionpicture.jpg/)
Ok so the good and fun stuff is out of the way, let’s talk about a few things that I found as problems with this motherboard.
As this is a uATX motherboard real estate can get a bit over crowed and tight spacing of components can be a problem.
When the first GPU is installed it leaves no space for the RAM clip hold downs to be opened so that a stick of RAM can be removed. That means that after you install the RAM and then GPU’s and find the need to either add more RAM or remove it you will have to take out the GPU’s in order to open the RAM hold down clips. This might be fixed by moving the RAM slots a bit further away from the GPU’s.
http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/8036/pic0087e.jpg (http://img30.imageshack.us/i/pic0087e.jpg/)
Next up is the Power, Reset and Clear CMOS buttons. The location they are in is completely covered up by GPU’s making them impossible to get to after everything is installed. These could either be moved to the edge of the motherboard or removed as the only one really needed is the Clear CMOS button which could be placed on the edge of the MB. This became a real pain when I went to Cascade operation and found the need to clear the CMOS many times.
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/679/pic0081w.jpg (http://img17.imageshack.us/i/pic0081w.jpg/)
Here is only 1 GPU installed, when 2 are installed you cannot get access to any of the buttons.
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/6123/pic0090c.jpg (http://img18.imageshack.us/i/pic0090c.jpg/)
Just like the P55-UD4P and many other Gigabyte motherboards there are several power saving features included with the package. I really applaud Gigabyte for their consistent efforts in adding these features to their motherboards.
As those of us Over Clockers generally do not use these features while benching, they are great features for the work or gaming rig that is run 24/7.
First up is the standard settings in the BIOS for power saving which are pretty standard these days, but Gigabyte has added utilities to enhance this.
Here is the Dynamic Energy Saver.
http://www.gigabyte.us/FileList/WebPage/mb_080104_des/tech_080104_des.htm
I ran this utility most of the time while testing and here is a screen showing CPU Power load while I was gaming.
http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/6784/energysaver.jpg (http://img301.imageshack.us/i/energysaver.jpg/)
Total system power usage which had the PSU plugged into a Kill-A-Watt meter shows 342watts usage while gaming.
This pretty much shows that running a highly over clocked rig that may be on High End water cooling or SS Phase draws a fair amount of power, this does not even include the draw from my SS Phase so total computer usage for this rig might be well over 700watts and more if you are using a more powerful system with higher end GPUs etc.
http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/6657/pic0107m.jpg (http://img200.imageshack.us/i/pic0107m.jpg/)
One utility that I did not get a chance to play around with which seems rather interesting for those who are Bluetooth oriented :)
AutoGreen- Greening your PC via Bluetooth cellphone
Auto Green provides system energy savings by enabling users to turn on and off their PC remotely using their Bluetooth® enabled mobile phone. Once your phone is paired with your system, you only need to step away from your PC, and it will automatically enter S3/S4 ultra low power state, giving you an added level of power savings.
I did not have a Bluetooth receiver for this to test out.
These utilities are added value imo that help us reduce power usage, lower noise and heat output from our computers. The utilities that Gigabyte provide could very easly take up a full review of the suite of products they provide and features they add.
So in closing this review I find this motherboard to be another very nice, stable mother board from Gigabyte, full of features and in an uATX form factor which can fill many different roles from work station, gaming rig, or home server etc. It will handle just about any game other there these days and with its low desktop foot print it can be placed in just about any location around the desk and not take up so much room like tower cases do.
The power/reset button locations on the motherboard are not that big a deal really and not needed, when installed in a case those buttoms are wired to buttoms on the case. The Clear CMOS buttom needs to be moved tho.