Despite the limited space on a Micro-ATX board it feels as though Gigabyte has managed to pack in all the features of a full sized motherboard although this isn’t exactly true. If you install two graphics cards in CrossFireX mode, the Firewire and USB headers at the foot of the board are likely to be blocked.
The Micro-ATX form-factor makes accomodating big graphics cards tricky
If you install two really big cards such as Radeon HD 5850s or 5870s, you can kiss goodbye to the front panel headers.
We strongly advise that you think of the second PCIe slot as something to be used for a sound card or TV tuner and forget about CrossFireX.
The MIT (Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker) section of the Bios is arranged differently from previous Gigabytes and is especially easy to navigate. The MIT Current Status, Advanced Frequency, Memory and Voltage settings make the business of overclocking as easy as pie. We were able to get our Core i7 870 up to 3.96GHz without much effort and it stormed through Cinebench at a furious pace.
The low price of the Gigabyte makes it a tempting proposition but we consider Core i7 to be an enthusiast product and the P55M-UD4 is a little too basic to make us reach for our credit card.
Reg Rating 80
Price £120 Click here for the best online price
More Info Gigabyte's website
COMMENTS
Foxconn sockets
Something to bear in mind if you're planning on serious overclocking is that all of these mobos use Foxconn sockets - dodgy pin contact and risk of burning up your shiny new i7.
On the plus side, all of the new Gigabyte P55A boards use Lotes sockets. DFI are also going Lotes exclusively, and EVGA have said they'll replace anything that burns up. On the other hand, Asus have said socket burn is excluded under their warranty (and deny condoning overclocking). MSI boards are actually built by Foxconn, so no luck their either.
Bone to pick
What is it with every tech review site and their failure to include warranty data? Before I purchase anything, I want to see what faith the manufacturer places in its product. On that note, perhaps you would include a review of an EVGA board next time? (10 year warranty: putting their money where their mouths are)
ASUS seems to limp on chipset cooling
That Asus chipset cooler seems pretty marginal, which fits in with my experience. The last couple MBs had huge northbridge heatsinks and tiny southbridge ones, so the southbridge was like grabbing a lit lightbulb, where the northbridge & CPU were fine. I had to buy my own southbridge cooler.
I'll take the huge ugly heatpipe setups for 100, Bob!
RE: Cooling
Hi Leo
As if watercooling ever had anything to do with merit over expense/complication :-) Generally speaking it's put on there for bragging rights, a strive for absolute silence, overclocking beyond sane levels and a case of more money than sense!
When you're doing it properly, there can be no fans involved at all - external radiators (Zalman Reserator series), full heatsinks for CPU & GPU, so no residual airflow from graphics cards either.
Just waiting for this nutter's idea to become standardised - watercooled PSUs:
http://www.overclock.net/other-hardware-mods/59036-water-cooled-psu.html
Insurance claim just waiting to happen!
Intel DP55KG Bluetooth
I didn't mention Bluetooth on the Intel board for a nmber of reasons.
1) The word count on each review is very tight so I stuck to what I considered to be the highlights and I am baffled by the appeal of a wireless technology on a desktop PC. For the record the DP55KG also has infra-red.
2) The antenna for the Bluetooth radio is a horrid fiddly thing that clips into place and then attaches inside your PC case using double sided tape.
3) There are no dedicated Intel drivers for the Bluetooth and you rely on Microsoft for the installation. In my opinion this is never ideal.
4) The Bluetooth doesn't appear to work. Or at least my phone cannot see it which boils down to the same thing. as there is no software on the PC and no way to configure the device. The drivers simply say 'Bluetooth' so I have no idea whether it is working but not broadcasting publicly or broken or what. As the drivers are Microsoft I shall wait for Rev. 3 and see if it bursts into life.
