Introduction and Specifications

The positive press around Intel’s P55 chipset and LGA 1156 platform has been all the rage and the accolades keep coming right into the holidays. Gigabyte was kind enough to send us their flagship P55 motherboard — the P55-UD6. This particular board doesn’t support USB 3.0 or SATA 6GB/s like some of its newer brethren, but it does have many overclocking and enthusiast-level features that should catch consumer’s attention during the holiday season.

Gigabyte’s flagship P55 board focuses maximum overclocking, power-saving features

 

Gigabyte P55-UD6 P55 Lynnfield Motherboard Review - Motherboards 74
(Courtesy of Gigabyte)

The positive press around Intel’s P55 chipset and LGA 1156 platform has been all the rage and the accolades keep coming right into the holidays. We recently reviewed motherboard from Intel and ASUS, and today Gigabyte was kind enough to send us their flagship P55 motherboard — the P55-UD6. This particular board doesn’t support USB 3.0 or SATA 6GB/s like some of its newer brethren, but it does have many overclocking and enthusiast-level features that should catch consumer’s attention during the holiday season.

Gigabyte P55-UD6 P55 Lynnfield Motherboard Review - Motherboards 75
(Courtesy of Gigabyte)

The P55-UD6 hosts tons of cool features, courtesy of the Intel P55 chipset and other third-party chips. One of the biggest improvements I noticed with this particular board was the 24 phase power VRM design that should give extreme users unparalleled overclocking ability as well as lower temps to reach higher overclocks with LGA 1156 processors. Another feature that stood out to me on this unique board is Gigabyte’s Smart 6 suite that includes six software utilities for giving users easier access to system management on their PCs.


Gigabyte P55-UD6 Specifications (from Gigabyte’s website)

CPU   

   1. Support for an Intel® Core™ i7 series processor/Intel® Core™ i5 series processor in the LGA1156 package
   2. L3 cache varies with CPU

Chipset   

   1. Intel® P55 Express Chipset

Memory   

   1. 6 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 16 GB of system memory
   2. Dual channel memory architecture
   3. Support for DDR3 2600+/2200/1333/1066/800 MHz memory modules
   4. Support for non-ECC memory modules
   5. Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules

Audio   

   1. Realtek ALC889A codec
   2. High Definition Audio
   3. 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
   4. Support for Dolby® Home Theater
   5. Support for S/PDIF In/Out
   6. Support for CD In

LAN   

   1. 2 x RTL8111D chips (10/100/1000 Mbit)
   2. Support for Teaming
   3. Support for Smart Dual LAN

Expansion Slots   

   1. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1)
   2. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8_1) (The PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX8_1 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)
   3. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4_1)
   4. 2 x PCI Express x1 slots
   5. 2 x PCI slots

Multi-Graphics Technology   

   1. Support for ATI CrossFireX™/NVIDIA SLI technology Technology (The PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX8_1 slots only.)


Storage Interface   


Chipset:

   1. 6 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2_0, SATA2_1, SATA2_2, SATA2_3, SATA2_4, SATA2_5) supporting up to 6 SATA 3Gb/s devices
   2. Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10


GIGABYTE SATA2 chip:

   1. 1 x IDE connector supporting ATA-133/100/66/33 and up to 2 IDE devices
   2. 2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (GSATA2_2, GSATA2_3) supporting up to 2 SATA 3Gb/s devices
   3. Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD 

2 x JMB362 chips:

   1. 2 x eSATA 3Gb/s connectors (eSATA/USB Combo) on the back panel supporting up to 2 SATA 3Gb/s devices
   2. Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD
   3. 2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (GSATA2_0/GSATA2_1) supporting up to 2 SATA 3Gb/s devices
   4. Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD

iTE IT8720 chip:

   1. 1 x floppy disk drive connector supporting up to 1 floppy disk drive


USB   

   1. Integrated in the Chipset
   2. Up to 14 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (10 on the back panel, including 2 eSATA/USB Combo, 4 via the USB brackets connected to the internal USB headers)


IEEE 1394   

   1. T.I. TSB43AB23 chip
   2. Up to 3 IEEE 1394a ports (2 on the back panel, 1 via the IEEE 1394a bracket connected to the internal IEEE 1394a header)


Internal I/O Connectors   

   1. 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
   2. 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
   3. 1 x floppy disk drive connector
   4. 1 x IDE connector
   5. 10 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors
   6. 1 x CPU fan header
   7. 3 x system fan headers
   8. 1 x power fan header
   9. 1 x Chipset fan header
  10. 1 x front panel header
  11. 1 x front panel audio header
  12. 1 x CD In connector
  13. 1 x S/PDIF In header
  14. 1 x S/PDIF Out header
  15. 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
  16. 1 x IEEE 1394a header
  17. 1 x serial port header
  18. 1 x clearing CMOS button
  19. 1 x power button
  20. 1 x reset button


Back Panel Connectors   

   1. 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
   2. 1 x coaxial S/PDIF Out connector
   3. 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
   4. 2 x IEEE 1394a ports
   5. 8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
   6. 2 x eSATA/USB Combo connectors
   7. 2 x RJ-45 ports
   8. 6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/ Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone)


I/O Controller   

   1. iTE IT8720 chip


H/W Monitoring   

   1. System voltage detection
   2. CPU/System temperature detection
   3. CPU/System/Power fan speed detection
   4. CPU overheating warning
   5. CPU/System/Power fan fail warning
   6. CPU/System fan speed control


BIOS   

   1. 2 x 16 Mbit flash
   2. Use of licensed AWARD BIOS
   3. Support for DualBIOS™
   4. PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.4, ACPI 1.0b


Unique Features   

   1. Support for @BIOS
   2. Support for Q-Flash
   3. Support for Xpress BIOS Rescue
   4. Support for Download Center
   5. Support for Xpress Install
   6. Support for Xpress Recovery2
   7. Support for EasyTune
   8. Support for Dynamic Energy Saver™ 2
   9. Support Smart TPM
  10. Support for Smart 6™
  11. Support for Q-Share


Form Factor   

   1. ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 24.4cm 


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