bit-tech.net | First Look: Gigabyte GA-P55-UD5 motherboard

p3n 14th July 2009, 13:18

"that Gigabyte unhelpfully labels SATA3" .. only confusing if your a dyslexic clown?

Paradigm Shifter 14th July 2009, 13:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by

Quote:

We've already got Lynnfield CPUs in our labs for a splash of testing, but we can't give you the results just yet, or Intel will... well, you don't want to know.

They'll do whatever was set out in the NDA agreement in the event that you break it. Which would probably be two things; sue the crap out of you and make sure you never get another bit of Intel related kit early ever again. ;)

...

I like the layout of that Gigabyte board a lot more than I liked the Asus one, with one exception; the location of the PATA connector.

perplekks45 14th July 2009, 13:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by p3n
"that Gigabyte unhelpfully labels SATA3" .. only confusing if your a dyslexic clown?

Or if you're trying to do what the specifications demand:

Quote:

Originally Posted by SATA 6Gbs specs (not exactly like that of course)

DON'T call it SATA3.0 or SATA3 or SATAIII!!!

Nice board layout but then again they all seem to learn how to do it properly... sloooowly.

Bindibadgi 14th July 2009, 13:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by perplekks45
Or if you're trying to do what the specifications demand:

Nice board layout but then again they all seem to learn how to do it properly... sloooowly.

This is why, in a nut shell. It should be called SATA 6Gbps. "SATA3" is too confusing with SATA 3Gbps.

Xtrafresh 14th July 2009, 14:14

I must say i find this board a lot more desireable then the Asus one so far. Except for the orange PCIe slots that is, they are fugly.

And the PATA connector... there's a lot more connectors on my motherboard that i'm ignoring, so i can easily add one more :)

wuyanxu 14th July 2009, 14:19

isn't it confusing to put 2 orange PCIe slots where 1 is connected to the CPU and the other is to the southbridge and cannot do crossfire?

otherwise i really like this board. looks very promissing and may even be my next upgrade, if Bit-tech launch review says yay

is the Intel's NAND chip going to be useful for, say 16GB RAM system?

also, for the powered ESATA, what do i need, new cable that split into two on the other end?

adidan 14th July 2009, 15:01

This may be a daft question, please point it out if it is, but why does the CPC mounting socket on a Gigabyte board have itself plastered with Foxconn?

adidan 14th July 2009, 15:03

For CPC please read CPU.

* facepalm *

shadow 14th July 2009, 15:13

Foxconn is also manufacturer of different slots, connectors & sockets widely used by other mobo manufacturers:
http://www.foxconn.com/NWInG/products/default.asp

Bindibadgi 14th July 2009, 15:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by adidan
This may be a daft question, please point it out if it is, but why does the CPC mounting socket on a Gigabyte board have itself plastered with Foxconn?

Because Foxconn make a lot of the parts used in motherboard manufacture - it's a MASSIVE company. They are either the only company, or one of two companies that makes the LGA1156 socket.

And charges a pretty penny for it too ("tens of dollars") - making P55 boards expensive at launch.

Er-El 14th July 2009, 16:27

Disappointing really. No Sata 6gbps or USB 3.0 ports... STILL! And those standards have been published for a while now.

Bindibadgi 14th July 2009, 16:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Er-El
Disappointing really. No Sata 6gbps or USB 3.0 ports... STILL! And those standards have been published for a while now.

There IS SATA 6Gbps!! Four ports!

The only USB 3 controller available (NEC) is currently too expensive for P55.

perplekks45 14th July 2009, 16:52

Eeeehhh.... did you read the article? There are SATA 6Gbps ports.

Quote:

Originally Posted by article

Other additional features include the four S-ATA 6Gbps slots (that Gigabyte unhelpfully labels SATA3 - not to be confused with 3Gbps), coloured white, and six native S-ATA 3Gbps from the P55 PCH that include the usual Intel Matrix RAID technology.

Damnit Bindi! You ninja'd me!

adidan 14th July 2009, 17:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi
Because Foxconn make a lot of the parts used in motherboard manufacture - it's a MASSIVE company. They are either the only company, or one of two companies that makes the LGA1156 socket.

That, I did not know.

Cheers.

MgM* 14th July 2009, 17:45

I have to say I like the duality of the e-sata and USB connections, i think thats pretty cool. with minimal real-estate at the rear it really makes sense to me.
But 4 ram slots? does that mean we will start seeing i don't know 3gig dimms in the market for the new familly of CPU's?

Bindibadgi 14th July 2009, 17:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by MgM*
I have to say I like the duality of the e-sata and USB connections, i think thats pretty cool. with minimal real-estate at the rear it really makes sense to me.
But 4 ram slots? does that mean we will start seeing i don't know 3gig dimms in the market for the new familly of CPU's?

No, you'll simply see 4GB and 8GB kits, not 6GB and 12GB like with current LGA1366.

Er-El 14th July 2009, 17:54

Oops I missed that part. Still, I'll skip this as it has SATA 6gigabit support on the motherboard itself when Intel already propose to integrate the southbridge on the upcoming Intel Core CPUs, and would also prefer a purely SATA 6gigabit design, as opposed to a mixture with SATA 3gbps ports.

Oh and PS/2 ports...? Really? WHY!?

Ross1 14th July 2009, 18:11

mmmm, 12 sata ports in total. sexy. Hopefully the gigabyte sata3 ports work better in the BIOS than the ones on the AM3 ud5 board that i have, it like to pair the ports together and made it difficult to get hard drives on the same 'pair' to work independently....

Paradigm Shifter 14th July 2009, 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Er-El
Oh and PS/2 ports...? Really? WHY!?

Because when a BIOS absolutely refuses to work with a USB keyboard... PS/2 is the only way. :)

Er-El 14th July 2009, 19:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paradigm Shifter
Because when a BIOS absolutely refuses to work with a USB keyboard... PS/2 is the only way. :)

Being the manufacturer of the motherboard they should know if the BIOS will work with USB, and you can always get an adapter if you really need to.

storm20200 14th July 2009, 20:14

Thank you soooooooooooo much bit-tech, this is most certainly going to be my motherboard :) I'm hoping it will be around the £100 mark but life tells me it will certainly be £120+ T_T but as for the 4 USB ports you talked about where are they? I could only see two? Maybe I'm blind but I need 2 for my HAF 932 case and 1 for a floppy/card reader drive.

Paradigm Shifter 14th July 2009, 20:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Er-El
Being the manufacturer of the motherboard they should know if the BIOS will work with USB, and you can always get an adapter if you really need to.

That's not what I mean.

There are times that USB keyboards just don't work. It's always better to provide a PS/2 port so that in that event, an alternative can be used. I had my Asus Maximus Formula work fine with a Logitech diNovo Edge keyboard when I first got it, but for whatever reason flashing the BIOS disabled USB keyboard support in the BIOS, because post-flash it wouldn't let me do a thing in the BIOS until I'd enabled it again. I presume it flashed it to failsafe defaults, which is a good thing... except if there wasn't a PS/2 port on the board, I wouldn't have been able to use the BIOS from that point on. And in the event of needing to disable USB completely (for troubleshooting purposes, say) it's nice to still be able to actually do stuff.

And... what adaptor? I am aware of USB to PS/2 adaptors, but your original comment implied that you wanted to know why PS/2 ports were still present on the motherboard - I provided a valid reason: for those occasions when USB keyboards, for whatever reason... just don't work.

faugusztin 14th July 2009, 20:44

storm20200, same here. I was looking forward to this board even when i seen the first blurry photos from computex...

Elton 14th July 2009, 21:45

The Layout is very nice, although it could've done the Asus thing and put the PCI-E on slot 6 instead of 7.

Bindibadgi 14th July 2009, 22:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paradigm Shifter
That's not what I mean.

There are times that USB keyboards just don't work. It's always better to provide a PS/2 port so that in that event, an alternative can be used. I had my Asus Maximus Formula work fine with a Logitech diNovo Edge keyboard when I first got it, but for whatever reason flashing the BIOS disabled USB keyboard support in the BIOS, because post-flash it wouldn't let me do a thing in the BIOS until I'd enabled it again. I presume it flashed it to failsafe defaults, which is a good thing... except if there wasn't a PS/2 port on the board, I wouldn't have been able to use the BIOS from that point on. And in the event of needing to disable USB completely (for troubleshooting purposes, say) it's nice to still be able to actually do stuff.

And... what adaptor? I am aware of USB to PS/2 adaptors, but your original comment implied that you wanted to know why PS/2 ports were still present on the motherboard - I provided a valid reason: for those occasions when USB keyboards, for whatever reason... just don't work.

For this very reason, we still exclusively use PS2 keyboards in the labs. PS2 mice are long, long gone, but keyboards are still very useful until EFI FINALLY arrives.

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First Look: Gigabyte GA-P55-UD5 motherboard

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