best P55 motherboard?

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polonyc2

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I'm planning on upgrading to one of the new P55 Lynnfield CPU's (i7 860) and was wondering if people could chime in with their opinions on the best available motherboard...I think I've narrowed down the choices to 2...Gigabyte P55-UD6 (or UD5) and the ASUS P7P55D Deluxe...I'm mainly using my system for gaming (Crysis, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky, Batman: Arkham Asylum etc) and will most likely use the Turbo Mode feature for overclocking as I am not into extreme overclocking

anyone prefer one mobo over the other?...or maybe another good P55 mobo...I just want a nice stable mobo with good features and excellent cooling...thanks for any help
 
Until the bios updates stop coming almost weekly from the manuf, that is a hard question to answer. Either of those board should be excellent. I suggest you download the manuals from both sites (the manuals do not have all the hype associated with the ads or even the manuf product pages) and compare the features and then take a close look at the bios section of the manuals of the two boards. If features are about the same, and they will be unless you have some rare need for something odd, see which bios makes the most sense to you or is more easily understandable etc. etc. Performance wise it is going to be a wash.

look carefully at the slot layouts of the boards, it differs and if you ever use video cards that use two slots (most of the better ones do now) it makes a difference as the video card will kill access to the slot next to it.
 
I had no problem with i5 750, Corsair DDR3-1600 CL8 i5 kit and P55-UD5. Started the computer, went to BIOS, loaded XMP profile, changed the multiplier from x16 to x20 -> stable OC @ 160MHz resulting in 1.44-3.2GHz clock depending on multiplier, RAM running at 1600MHz CL8.

I'm satisfied with my P55-UD5 so far.Layout is perfect except one thing - do not use Noctua NH-C12P on this board, or you will end up with inability to use 1-4 RAM slots depending on cooler direction and memory module height. It is simply impossible to have any problems even with SLI setup - no SATA connector is pointing upwards, memory slots are far enough from 1st PCI-E x16 slot so no problem with colision when replacing memory modules.
 
faugusztin said:
Layout is perfect except one thing - do not use Noctua NH-C12P on this board, or you will end up with inability to use 1-4 RAM slots depending on cooler direction and memory module height.
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interesting...as I have the Noctua NH-U12P CPU cooler...
 
NH-U12P doesn't have this problem. NH-C12P is only problematic because it is a top-down cooler, not a tower cooler, and how much it blocks depends on how is cooler oriented, which doesn't really make difference in this case.
1) if the cooler heatpipes are pointing towards PCI-E slots or to the oposing side, then it blocks just the 1st slot
2) if the cooler heatpipes are pointing towards memory slots, then i think it blocks 2 memory slots
3) if the cooler heatpipes are pointing towards the ports on back panel, then it blocks 3-4 memory slots.

But all this is only true if you have a high cooler on your memory modules (in my case they have relatively high coolers => Corsair Dominators) together with very big top-down cooler. Tower cooler = no problem, too bad Thermalright will have their kits in Europe only in month or two (even if they have MUX120 and the kit on their page), so my TRUE 120 Black must wait :).

Edit: I did the case 1). Here is how it looks like :
nhc12ps1366.jpg
 
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thanks for the info...good to know my NH-U12P is safe :)

it's also nice that Noctua provides a free new mounting bracket (LGA1156 & LGA1366) for all current owners of any previous Noctua cooler :)

as I'm currently using a Socket 775 CPU, it's good to know that I can still use my same cooler with the new socket boards
 
polonyc2, see the edit with picture how it looks like in my case... As you can see, it just fits, but it is because how this cooler looks like. Tower coolers would probably oriented from top to bottom, so no conflict with RAM at all.
 
My personal problem with GD80 is the company producing it. Maybe they got it right now, but past experience doesn't allow me to buy anything from them (same applies to Seagate in my case)
 
polonyc2 said:
wow that looks like it's covering up the first 2 memory slots...that would suck if you ever needed to use those slots...why did you choose that top down cooler for over the standard Tower one?...I also hear those Corsair Dominator's are excellent but can cause issues because of their height
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I didn't. I use Thermalright TRUE 120 Black in my main PC, and had a spare Noctua NH-C12P from a PC-V350 build. The problem is that Thermalright product support sucks - in other words they added the S1156 kit only today, which means 1-2 month delay until it finally arrives in Europe. So my TRUE 120 Black is sitting on shelf because someone in Thermalright fell asleep and noticed the new socket only today.
On other side, i had this Noctua cooler and i had a possibility to get the Noctua kit right now, for 4€ (with some patience, it would be for free, but i didn't want to use box cooler). So i took the Noctua from the shelf where it sit until today, and used it. Once i will have the Thermalright kit for S1156, i will change the cooler back to Thermalright, but until that moment i'm stuck with this one.
 
faugusztin said:
My personal problem with GD80 is the company producing it. Maybe they got it right now, but past experience doesn't allow me to buy anything from them (same applies to Seagate in my case)
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I agree with that as well...the GD80 may be great but I'm a bit hesitant only because I prefer a more stable track record of great mobo releases

taken from Kyle's review...

"MSI has built good motherboards for years, but it has been a long time since it built a great motherboard"

this board may be excellent but everything being even I'd still probably go with boards from Gigabyte or ASUS...even in the [H] review of the GD80 it pretty much performs on par with the ASUS P7P55D Deluxe
 
I'm leaning towards the ASUS P7P55D EVO or Deluxe at this point.

EVGA's stuff looks impressive, maybe a little expensive though.
 
Oh btw polonyc2, it covers only the 1st slot + doesn't conflict with 2nd slot... I have my memory modules in 2nd and 4th slot right now.
 
senova said:
I second this. If you are willing to pay a little bit more, go and get 920+x58!
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how much would that config with memory cost at the egg? Not everyone has Microcenter near them.

I'm looking at 549 for cpu, MB, and 4gb ram with i5.
 
Seems that the Asus P7P55D deluxe didn't get quite the glowing review from what I read. I know it wasn't a blanket washout, but some bits might be concern to some.
 
Damn Dirty Ape said:
Seems that the Asus P7P55D deluxe didn't get quite the glowing review from what I read. I know it wasn't a blanket washout, but some bits might be concern to some.
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yup I agree...I'm actually waiting on the P7P55D Premium to become available...the one with native SATA 6
 
I have my eyes on a the Asus Maximus III Formula, haven't seen much on its initial performance, but have pretty high expectations from the ROG series especially after the BIOS has matured a bit.
 
I like my P7P55D Pro. Only problem I have is that it does not have that many SATA ports. Nothing that an add on card can fix if the situation ever came about.
 
Artl530i, one of the reasons i switched from Asus to Gigabyte. Until you get a Maximus Formula or some other high end board, then with Asus you get demented SATA port layout (P5Q-E and P5Q Deluxe was a master in this area, with a bit bigger graphics card it was a 100% fact that you lost one SATA port).

Gigabyte is excelent in this area, 10 SATA ports on my P55-UD5, none pointing upwards.
 
faugusztin said:
Artl530i, one of the reasons i switched from Asus to Gigabyte. Until you get a Maximus Formula or some other high end board, then with Asus you get demented SATA port layout (P5Q-E and P5Q Deluxe was a master in this area, with a bit bigger graphics card it was a 100% fact that you lost one SATA port).

Gigabyte is excelent in this area, 10 SATA ports on my P55-UD5, none pointing upwards.
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None of the ports are blocked from using my video card. Asus also put the SATA ports that are pointing up on the bottom of the board and has 4 that do not point up. I have the same amount of SATA ports not then I did with my Gigabyte board anyway, so it is not a big deal. If I were to do a larger RAID setup, I'd get a separate controller card for it anyway.
 
EVGA P55 FTW or P55 Classified

But anything over $200 you should just get a i7 920. The Asrock Extreme 1366 board is only $169 and you can find a 920 from the buy/sell thread for $200.

I don't see the point of 1156 at this moment. The P55 boards are priced the same as the X58 boards. With 1366 you get HT and 16x/16x/8x SLI/CF, not 8x/8x SLI/CF which may get over saturated by the upcoming GPUs.
 
I get the impression that you (the OP) are just upgrading for the sake of upgrading.

Just overclock your E8400 to 4.0ghz and wait for prices on the new CPU's and motherboards to decline.
 
jbz7890 said:
I get the impression that you (the OP) are just upgrading for the sake of upgrading.

Just overclock your E8400 to 4.0ghz and wait for prices on the new CPU's and motherboards to decline.
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^^^ I agree, there's no point of upgrading to 1156. 1366 will have six core CPU's soon and right after that Sandy Bridge will be released probably with another new socket.
 
WorldExclusive said:
I don't see the point of 1156 at this moment. The P55 boards are priced the same as the X58 boards. With 1366 you get HT and 16x/16x/8x SLI/CF, not 8x/8x SLI/CF which may get over saturated by the upcoming GPUs.
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Yeah that will be an interesting comparison if anybody bothers to do one. Though DX11 should reduce the amount of traffic over PCIe (better compression, less CPU intervention required etc).
 
jbz7890 said:
I get the impression that you (the OP) are just upgrading for the sake of upgrading.

Just overclock your E8400 to 4.0ghz and wait for prices on the new CPU's and motherboards to decline.
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you're right...I am upgrading for no reason but I want to have the option of going dual GPU with DX11 and I'm thinking that picking up a 1366 board will last a fairly long time (a lot longer then normal)...I can just pop in a new Gulftown CPU if I choose and possibly even Sandy Bridge if they use the same socket...so if I upgrade it can possibly last me 2 good years

what I'm really waiting on is the new Bloomfield i7 960 CPU to show up on October 18th...

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15406/1/

**yes I changed my mind about going with Socket 1156...although the new ASUS P7P55D Premium board with native SATA 6 is looking pretty nice
 
polonyc2 said:
you're right...I am upgrading for no reason but I want to have the option of going dual GPU with DX11 and I'm thinking that picking up a 1366 board will last a fairly long time (a lot longer then normal)...I can just pop in a new Gulftown CPU if I choose and possibly even Sandy Bridge if they use the same socket...so if I upgrade it can possibly last me 2 good years

what I'm really waiting on is the new Bloomfield i7 960 CPU to show up on October 18th...

http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/15406/1/

**yes I changed my mind about going with Socket 1156...although the new ASUS P7P55D Premium board with native SATA 6 is looking pretty nice
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Well for the price of the i7960, it's smarter to me just to save that money for Gulftown, which should be released in Spring of next year. Six cores sounds kinda pricey($500+ range), and it will be my last upgrade for a long time. No consumer programs or games will max out six cores for years.
 
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WorldExclusive said:
Well for the price of the i7960, it's smarter to me just to save that money for Gulftown, which should be released in Spring of next year. Six cores sounds kinda pricey($500+ range), and it will be my last upgrade for a long time. No consumer programs or games will max out six cores for years.
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the first Gulftown CPU's are going to be Extreme Edition parts...meaning $1000+...so for most people that's not a reasonable upgrade
 
polonyc2 said:
the first Gulftown CPU's are going to be Extreme Edition parts...meaning $1000+...so for most people that's not a reasonable upgrade
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Excatly, that's why I said it's going to be pricey. I will start to set aside money in November for it. Just don't want to come out of pocket all at once for something like that. No guarantee I will buy it because there will another socket for Sandy Bridge in 2011 LGA 1155. So it's like a lose lose time to upgrade until 2011 which Intel will take 1155 seriously. LGA 775 users should stick with what they have until 2011.
 
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I'm sure DFI will have a strong showing for P55 MBs.
 
SonDa5 said:
I'm sure DFI will have a strong showing for P55 MBs.
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For the average Joe who runs either stock or minimal OC, go with base msi/asus/giga boards. While DFI boards rock, they aint for the feign of heart.
 
troisanh said:
For the average Joe who runs either stock or minimal OC, go with base msi/asus/giga boards. While DFI boards rock, they aint for the feign of heart.
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see my sig for my opinion of dfi.
 
troisanh said:
For the average Joe who runs either stock or minimal OC, go with base msi/asus/giga boards. While DFI boards rock, they aint for the feign of heart.
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Interestingly, I can't get DFI to commit to sending HardOCP a sample after sending the press release.

About the P55 sample, it will be ready around 10/10. But due to unknown quantity, I can’t promise you now. I will put you on the list and let you know if available. Thank you for asking.
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So don't plan on seeing DFI any time soon.
 
robble said:
see my sig for my opinion of dfi.
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The last DFI board I used had a 440BX chipset... Needless to say, I've either ran an Asus, Abit, Intel, or Gigabyte board. Not sure how good or how bad DFI has got over the years, so I cannot comment.
 
I am looking forward to a review of a [H]ard review of the midrange gigabyte boards. Only thing with them so far they seem to be the ugliest of the bunch. They better be pretty good.

Asus has had enough of my money over the years and I am leary of MSI but Ill go that direction if I don't see anything else better come along on the review front.

Either that or jump on the x58 train.
 
robble said:
see my sig for my opinion of dfi.
Click to expand...



I've read many mixed reviews about DFI MBs. I think I have read more worse than good.

The strong point about DFI is that they continually have a few crazy tweakers who can tune them for great performance.

I've had nothing but fun and success with my DFI P45JR T2RS MB. Today I made a huge milestone for myself in figuring out how to tweak it for more performance.

I have high expectations for any DFI MB and I think the P55 will be a good one.
 
zeekle said:
I am looking forward to a review of a [H]ard review of the midrange gigabyte boards. Only thing with them so far they seem to be the ugliest of the bunch.
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Why ? Current generation of Gigabyte P55/AM3/X58 boards are the most conservative looking boards ever from Gigabyte. Afterall the board have only 3 colors - blue and white, plus some grey on heatsinks. No orange, no purple... :)
 
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