Hardware Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD4 Review

Gigabyte squeezes in the goods into this micro-ATX P55 motherboard. It's not all that cheap but it still squeezes in CrossFire and SLI support, as well as plenty of features. We check if it tade blows with the big boys to decide whether it's worth pairing with the popular Core i5-750.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2009/09/22/gigabyte-ga-p55m-ud4-review/1

 

Thank you for your in-depth review, top notch as usual
Alas, I'm in dire need of a uATX motherboard and this looks like it can supply what I demand. Its rather disappointing to see both an IDE and floppy port

 

Last page, Second last line

Think that's suposed to be Gd65

Anyway nice review thank you.

 

It`s disturbing to see that boards from top tier makers fail the 24 hour stress test. Some people do stress their systems like that (overnight render for example) so I think it`s worth investigating the source of those failures. I do suspect that the chipset is overheating with no additional airflow from case fans. I`m certainly not convinced by the heatsinks used lately, they`re stylish but all those decals and labels seriously impede airflow. Gigabyte are risking their reputation for the sake of a couple of racing stripes.

 

Perhaps its there so you can plug a SATA to eSATA cable into it.

 

If it tade blows? Really?

Do motherboard manufacturers read reviews of their own products? It seems that so many of them end with a "it could have been so much better" type comment

 

Could you please explain why, yet again, this review shows only a single Nvidia Card in the game tests, whereas you have Crossfire Results fr the ATi card, and SLI for the Nvidia card.

Also, both of the games are TWIMTBP games, so when you state that "Far Cry 2 performance from the Gigabyte is notably better, as the board surprisingly performs consistently better with Nvidia GPUs than ATI." why exactly are you surprised ?

I really do hope this is not going to be a trend for the future, being impartial is key, and here, you certainly are not.

 

You're taking the wrong approach. It doesn't matter what graphics card I used. I'll put a Matrox card in next time if you like? It's a comparative representation. We are testing "single card" "SLI" and "CrossFire". Not the graphics cards. Why would I bother to do yet another single-GPU test with an ATI card that tells me the same thing: it's the difference between the motherboards I'm concerned with.

It doesn't matter that Far Cry 2 is TWIMTBP program - I'm commenting on the Gigabyte boards performance in comparison to other P55 boards featured NOT the graphics card. This is a P55 motherboard review. We do graphics reviews for graphics analysis: would you insist we test graphics cards in every single possible motherboard too? It would become an impossible task.

If you want to go back years this is the way it's always been done.

While I don't comment on other sites read the "this product is fantastic" followed by "thanks to Gigabyte for sending a review sample". Or "IT WORKS! AWARD"

What does that say?

Mostly I'm an unhappy ******* whose rarely satisfied

 

WANT.

That pretty much wraps it up. I have absolutely no need for ATX-formfactor with these high-performance (also CF/SLI) boards popping out.

 

I agree - I've got loads of lees, but all these damn shops take are pounds!

 

@Evildead666

This is how you sound...

blah blah blah Bindi why havent u used ATI cards because I am an ATI fanboy boo hoo hoo.... You and BT are definitely being paid off by Nvidia..

ATI fanboys always are upset because they have so little of the discrete market share... They just can't handle the fact that Nvidia has significantly more at this moment in time.

Great review Richard and many thanks!

 

I tend to go for Gigabyte, although they do seem to have slipped a little bit. Hopefully they'll address the few things quickly.

Bindi, might I suggest meditation? Perhaps CDs of thunderstorms or birdsongs? Find your inner calm. (And good review, as always).

 

orange juice and potatos

 

^_^ You're very welcome, Tejas.

 

Hey guys, am I right in saying there are actually ten USB ports, not eight?

 

USB ports

Yes, the P55M-UD4 comes with 10x USB2.0 and 4x USB2.0 headers on the motherbaord for expansion.

 

This topic has come up a lot and although IDE may be useless for you, others still require IDE.
IDE is still very much in demand, besides, this does not impact the performance of the motherboard. So no need to really worry about it right!

Yes, it’s our new Combo ports, you can use both eSATA and USB on the same port.

Yes, motherboard manufactures do read these reviews… of course we do.
Perhaps I can only speak on behalf of Gigabyte, not sure about others.
Besides, we also have good relationship with the media, and we do receive good feedback from them, hence motherboards are getting better.
Don’t you think Gigabyte has improved! [no need to answer this]

This is one of our MicroATX products, we also have the P55M-UD2 which retails around £80 ~ £85 inc VAT
Plus we also offer a range of ATX, with pricing from £99.99inc VAT to over £200

Thank you all for your feedback

 

Honestly, yes, but the competition is extremely tight. Plus, we review and score for a particular audience which might not be what your board is specifically designed for: in terms of the mainstream consumer and business feautres of the Smart6 for example, compared to say, the Asus OC stuff which will be useless for my Mum.

 

Thank you for your insight into my mind. Grow up please.

i made a valid comment, and don't see why i should be lambasted.
i know its a Motherboard review, but I have an ATi card atm, I am not a fanboy of anything, maybe Matrox .....
I have owned both ATi and AMD, but that is beside the point.

People who own a single ATi card do not know how it performs on this platform. if i had a single Nv card, it would be fine.
If you just added "Single card ATi results are identical to single card Nvidia results" it would be sweet. but as is such, they are probably not.

For me, part of the motherboard review is "What are games going to be like on this board, with Ati and Nvidia cards?"
So people with single Nvidia cards, and SLi or Crossfire setups are fine.

Scaling in crossfire and SLi not being always perfect, i would have liked to see a single card result for ATi.

The fact that two TWIMTBP games were used, is just my opinion that with ATi cards, especially Crossfire, the scaling is probably biased towards the people who helped code the game....Neutral games are available.

I really do NOT appreciate being called a fanboy, or fanboi....its wasn't needed, and just pi**es me off.

I appreciate the time spent on these articles, unfortunately I actually enjoy spending hours benchmarking the same game....I just prefer an equal approach for both sides. Single and dual setups.

Jez

 

There's no such thing any more. And like I said, it doesn't matter what games are used because the game is irrelevent - it's entirely how the motherboards compare directly. I'm not saying SLI 260 generates 20% more performance than CrossFire 4870 - it's not a graphics focused article.

"An ATI card" means just as much as testing every single graphics card. What happens if you don't own a 4000 series card? or an X2? Or don't use the 9.7 drivers? Or even a GTX 260 for that matter? The changing factor is the motherboard. What would plugging in a random ATI tell you that a single Nvidia card cant? "It works"?

We simply use GTX 260's because Zotac were kind enough to send us a load of them.