matrixmayhem

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Jun 19, 2010
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i am going to buy i5 750 and i wanted a motherboard with usb3 (not sata 3.0 that is sata 6gb/s it gets a little expensive) gigabyte's p55ud3l rev 2.3 has usb3 while checking the specification on gigabyte's website i found out it has H55 chipset this is really confusing please help is it as good as p55 motherboard
 

Wolygon

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The H55 motherboard is a entry level chipset. The main reason to get it is for its support for Intel GMA HD Graphics. Both i3 5XX and i5 6XX processors have an integrated graphics processor, to use it you need a H55/H57 board. H55 does not have a many PCIe lanes as P55 and I generally don't think it supports Crossfire because of it. Go for the P55 it is a better choice.
 

ctmk

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Jun 17, 2008
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if i am not mistaken the CPU itself has pci-e 2.0 16x

and for the chipsets
according to intel
http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/chipsets/index.htm?iid=chipsets_body+dt_all

H55
up to 6 PCI Express 2.0 x1 ports, configurable as x2 and x4 depending on motherboard designs.

P55
up to 8 PCI Express* 2.0 x1 ports, configurable as x2 and x4 depending on motherboard designs.

and for how the pci-e are used, it is very depended on manufacture and mb designs.

see link below for some sample spec and diagram.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/ga_p55a_ud6-ga_p55a_ud7.html

btw, just fiy, P55 and H55 does not support USB3 naively. it's pci-e 1x + NEC USB 3.0 chip soldered on board.

you can consider about getting an ASUS PCI-e 4x U3S6 card for extra sata 6G and usb3 port.
http://www.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=lGYmelQ8mJvPtYTv
for USD 30 or below.