Budget Micro-ATX P55 Faceoff: Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 and ASRock P55M Pro
by Gary Key on October 5, 2009 12:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
ASRock P55M Pro Layout
ASRock designed a very good layout for this board. The same negatives apply for this board as it did for the Gigabyte UD2, that is the continued inclusion of the floppy drive port, lack of passive cooling for the MOSFET area, and only two of the three fan headers offer temperature or speed controls. It is also difficult to install memory with a full size video card installed in the x16 PCIe slot.
The board does support CrossFireX operation although we highly recommend against this setup as the second PCIe x16 slot is actually an x4 electrical slot running off the P55 chipset with performance suffering up to 30% depending on the choice of video card and game.
ASRock utilizes a high quality four-phase plus one PWM setup on this board. The CPU area is open and will accommodate larger coolers like the Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme. Large push/pull coolers like the Vigor Monsoon III LT will block the first DIMM slot and potentially can interfere with the first PCIe x16 slot. A nice benefit that ASRock included is the ability to utilize a S775 cooler on this board. An old Q6600 cooler performed significantly better than the retail i5/750 in offline testing.
We are not crazy about the lack of passive heatsinks on the MOSFETs when overclocking, especially for the upper end limits for 24/7 stability. However, the MOSFETs only reached 59.6C under full load with our i7/860 operating at 4.1GHz. MOSFET load temps reached 49.8C with the i5/750 at 4.1GHz. We ran the board for about 200 hours with the 860 overclocked with the case fans turned off without a problem. This left just the Corsair 750HX providing air exhaust capabilities.
The IDE port, 24-pin ATX power connector, four DIMM slots, and four SATA 3G ports are located in the lower right hand corner of the board. This board supports dual channel memory configurations and 16GB of DDR3 memory when using 4GB DIMMS. Installing the memory with a video card inserted in the first slot is difficult but not impossible.
The placement of the
SATA ports is interesting compared to other board micro-ATX board designs. After
installing the board in several SFF cases, we have to say that we like it. But, we suggest the user installs the SATA
cables before installing the video card.
ASRock includes two PCIe x16 slots (x16 operation for the first slot, x4 operation for the second slot), one PCIe x1 slot, and a single PCI slot. The PCIe x1 slot will be unavailable when utilizing a dual slot video card. The front panel header, three USB headers, IEEE 1394a header, and floppy drive connector are located at the edge of the board.
The I/O panel is full. We have six USB 2.0 ports (total of twelve on the board), PS/2 mouse and keyboards ports, dual eSATA/USB powered ports from the P55, IEEE 1394a port offered by the Via VT6330 chipset, Gigabit Ethernet LAN port via the Realtek RTL8111D chipset, optical out/coaxial out S/PDIF ports, and the audio panel that provides 8-channel audio output from the Via VT1708S HD audio codec.
Tech
ASRock also features lower ESR solid capacitors, lower RDS(on) MOSFETs, and high quality chokes on their entry level board. This board is also EuP ready and features ASRock’s Instant Boot technology. We think the board is extremely well built for a $100 design considering the average cost of a P55 motherboard is around $153.
DPC Latency
Our test used the Core i5/750
at stock settings with 8GB of memory installed with timings set to 6-6-6-18 at
DDR3-1333. The latency numbers for the ASRock board are lower and more consistent than the Gigabyte board.
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yehuda - Monday, October 5, 2009 - link
Slow POST is a minor annoyance, but it adds up as part of the computing experience IMO. I don't get why Gigabyte is so slow compared to other brands like MSI and ASRock. Just getting the video signal online takes about 4 seconds here (commenting on G31 and G41-based boards). It feels like a 486 until the OS takes over.yacoub - Monday, October 5, 2009 - link
Much more interested in the MSI uATX board and the higher-level Gigabyte one that actually has all the features on it. These two may be entry-level but they also skip some features most discerning enthusiasts would want.Gary Key - Monday, October 5, 2009 - link
The MSI just arrived, they were late to market for that one. The P55M-UD4 is coming up shortly, but it does not clock any better than the UD2. ;) The lack of passive MOSFET cooling was not a problem on either board under full load. The bigger problem is that the 4+1 PWM setup is not going to handle high current draws. The UD4, GD45, and MIII GENE boards are designed for that audience.MadMan007 - Monday, October 5, 2009 - link
That's simple enough to understand in a basic way but could you elaborate on what *high* current means, and what the difference in ovreclocking might be? In the context of 24/7 overclocks as you go on about in this article would be best...you seem to imply in the article that the UD2 will be as good as any at 24/7-type settings but it would be nice to clarify when 'high' current is an advantage.yacoub - Monday, October 5, 2009 - link
Cool, looking forward to that UD4 review =)I wonder if the extra features will be considered worth the price difference, although it sounds like you do not believe so.
The onboard audio is one area i've heard several complaints for cheapest Gigabyte boards compared to the mid-level and upper-tier boards.
MadMan007 - Monday, October 5, 2009 - link
What exactly were the issues or differences in the audio? Features or sound quality?yacoub - Monday, October 5, 2009 - link
at the moment i can't find either of the reviews i read a couple weeks ago, but both stated sound quality issues with the onboard solution, which is a lower grade than what is included on the other boards.philosofool - Monday, October 5, 2009 - link
I have one of these boards and the sound is great. I'm listening to Little Milton (Grits Ain't Groceries) right now: I can hear every horn, bass string, cymbal crash like I'm sitting on stage. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but there's nothing wrong with the audio on this board.yacoub - Monday, October 5, 2009 - link
To be more specific, there are reviews on other sites mentioning the particularly crappy onboard audio solution on the UD2 compared to the UD4, and there's also the lack of cooling on the VRMs.On the upside, sure, it uses slightly less operating power, and that can be important to users interested in uATX, but overall I'd rather spend another $20 or whatever to get the UD4 with better cooling and audio (and whatever else it adds).
yacoub - Monday, October 5, 2009 - link
Awesome work with the review, Gary. I do wish the uATX boards would stop carrying legacy ports like others have noted. Floppy is definitely archaic, IDE should be the next item tossed, and PCI could probably go as well. FireWire is also something 99% of us could live without on a uATX board that offers USB and eSATA.