Gigabyte Motherboard Shootout: P55-UD4P vs. X58A-UD5

[an0nym0us1]

Computer enthusiasts have lots of choices these days… Intel vs. AMD ATi vs Nvidia SSD vs. Platter Drives Dual Channel vs. Triple Channel P55 vs X58 The list goes on and on, so the folks over at Gigabyte were kind enough to provide me with not one, but two stellar setups to compare. In this review I'll be using both X58 and P55 based motherboards as well as a Radeon HD5850 all sporting the Gigabyte logo. My test machines are as follows:

1156 setup Intel Core i7 860 2.8ghz/8mb L3 cache/2.8GT/s Gigabyte P55-UD4P motherboard Gigabyte Radeon HD5850OC factory overclocked by Gigabyte 4gb Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600 CL9 in dual channel mode 2x WD Velociraptor 300gb in RAID 0 Coolermaster Hyper 212+ Heatsink PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750w Power Supply Lian-Li PC-7B with window

1366 setup Intel Core i7 930 2.8ghz/8mb L3 cache/4.8GT/s Gigabyte X58A-UD5 motherboard Gigabyte Radeon HD5850OC factory overclocked by Gigabyte 3gb G.Skill Trident DDR3 1600 CL6 in triple channel mode 2x OCZ Vertex 30gb SSD in RAID 0 Seasonic M12 700w modular Power Supply Lian-Li PC-65B Plus II with window While these two computers look the same there are some differences that set them apart. The X58 motherboard supports tri-SLI, tri-Crossfire and triple channel RAM, whereas the P55 motherboard supports standard SLI, Crossfire and dual channel RAM. Let's compare some of the basic specs on these boards…

Gigabyte took a lot of time to put these boards together and it shows, they really geared both the X58 and P55 based motherboards around enthusiasts. Both of these mid-grade boards have an abundance of inputs both on the motherboard and the I/O panel, with the X58A taking the lead with USB 3.0. Both boards use the ICH10R chipset for 6 SATA II connections on board, and both have SATA III support for a 6.0Gbps maximum speed. The northbridge/mosfet coolers are amazing on both boards implementing heatpipes to dissipate the heat. Now onto the fun… all of this testing was performed under air cooling with Arctic Silver Ceramique as the TIM. No volt mods were performed and nothing was modified other than the BIOS settings. The P55-UD4P is a stellar overclocking motherboard with adjustments for just about any voltage and frequency you would want to adjust. Over the course of my testing I reached 4.4ghz with just 1.375 volts on the CPU. This setup is running a cool 45c idle daily at 4.2ghz. I managed a SuperPi 1M time of 9.491s @ 4.4 ghz on this setup… pretty fast for an air cooled cpu! 3D testing proved to be great fun with this setup as it performed very well at a CPU speed of 4.0ghz. This system scored the following: SuperPi 1M - 9.491s

3dmark05 - 30262

 

[an0nym0us1]

3dmark06 - 23546

3dmark Vantage - 10889

The X58A-UD5 has everything the P55-UD4P has as far as frequency and voltage settings, but under heavy testing conditions I could only manage to get it to 4.0ghz stable. It's still no slouch, but the cheaper P55 setup is looking more and more attractive to the budget minded buyer. I have my suspicions that the CPU I have isn't a very good clocker at all, it runs at 55c idle at 4.0ghz with only 1.3 vCore in BIOS. I managed to complete SuperPi 1M in 10.222s @ 4ghz on this setup, I'd like to get this cpu under sub-zero cooling as I think it would really unlock some overclocking potential. SuperPi1m - 10.222s

3dmark05 – 30726

3dmark06 – 23389

 

[an0nym0us1]

3dmark Vantage – 16062

After extensive testing. It shows both platforms are pretty amazing performers . They're well matched competitors and I wouldn't mind running either of these systems in my home. The Verdict: If you have the extra 500 bucks to go from 1156 to 1366 socket, I'd hang onto it for now unless you plan on buying a hexacore 980X anytime soon… in that case just call me and we can test it out =]. The P55 platform hosts a line of processors from the i3 530 to the i7 870X, you can build a dual or quad with or without Hyperthreading. The P55 lines also cater to many HTPC builders with very nice mATX solutions offered by Gigabyte. If you have the money to go full fledged 1366 i7. There's no other way to run it than to run it on a Gigabyte X58 series board. The full control of frequencies and voltage gives any enthusiast the tools he needs to reach record shattering overclocks. With Tri-SLI/Tri-Crossfire and triple channel RAM the X58 takes the lead on some benchmarks where the triple channel speed makes a big difference. I love building computers with a passion. You can usually find me working late nights at the shop wiring cases till 1am. Every single machine that leaves the shop sports a gigabyte board though.

by the way guys i have a correction to make, the P55-UD4P DOES feature USB 3.0, and both boards feature on/off charging which charges USB devices even when the computer is off. USB 3.0 http://www.gigabyte.us/FileList/WebPage/mb_usb3mb/default.htm on/off charge http://www.gigabyte.us/FileList/WebPage/mb_on-off-charge/on-off-charge.htm