BIOS, Overclocking, Power And Heat
BIOS Frequency and Voltage settings (for overclocking) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ASRock P55 | Asus P7P55D | ECS P55H-A |
CPU Base Clock | 100-300 MHz (1 MHz) | 80-500 MHz (1 MHz) | 133-600 MHz (1 MHz) |
CPU Multiplier | Yes | Yes | Yes |
DRAM Data Rates | BCLK x6 - x12 (x2) | BCLK x6 - x12 (x2) | BCLK x6 - x12 (x2) |
PCIe Clock | 50-150 MHz (1 MHz) | 100-200 MHz (1 MHz) | 100-200 MHz (1 MHz) |
CPU Vcore | 0.84-2.00 V (6.25 mV) | 0.85-1.70 V (6.25 mV) | +630 mV (10 mV) |
Uncore Voltage | 1.11-2.04 V (14 mV) | 1.10-1.70 V (6.25 mV) | +630 mV (10 mV) |
PCH Core | 1.07-1.49 V (7 mV) | 1.05 V, 1.15 V | +300 mV (10 mV) |
DRAM Voltage | 1.56-2.01 V (14 mV) | 1.20-2.50 V (12.5 mV) | +630 mV (10 mV) |
CAS Latency | 6-11 Cycles | 3-11 Cycles | 3-15 Cycles |
tRCD | 3-15 Cycles | 3-15 Cycles | 3-15 Cycles |
tRP | 3-15 Cycles | 3-15 Cycles | 3-15 Cycles |
tRAS | 9-31 Cycles | 3-31 Cycles | 9-63 Cycles |
BIOS Frequency and Voltage settings (for overclocking) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Gigabyte | MSI P55-CD53* |
CPU Base Clock | 100-1,200 MHz (1 MHz) | 100-600 MHz (1 MHz) |
CPU Multiplier | Yes | Yes |
DRAM Data Rates | BCLK x6 - x12 (x2) | BCLK x6 - x16 (x2) |
PCIe Clock | 90-150 MHz (1 MHz) | 90-190 MHz (1 MHz) |
CPU Vcore | 0.50-1.90 V (6.25 mV) | +0.389 V (6 mV) |
Uncore Voltage | 1.05-1.99 V (20 mV) | Not Adjustable |
PCH Core | 0.95-2.00 V (20 mV) | 1.00-2.40 V (10 mV) |
DRAM Voltage | 1.30-2.60 V (20 mV) | 0.91-2.41 V (7 mV) |
CAS Latency | 6-15 Cycles | 4-15 Cycles |
tRCD | 1-15 Cycles | 3-15 Cycles |
tRP | 1-15 Cycles | 3-15 Cycles |
tRAS | 1-31 Cycles | 9-31 Cycles |
Gigabyte has the highest CPU base-clock option, but even ASRock's 300 MHz limit exceeds anything normal overclockers can reach. All of the motherboards also offer higher voltage limits than what most users will need with above-ambient cooling systems.
Gigabyte reached the highest CPU clock, but Asus isn’t far behind. We’ll provide more details on the other three boards on the next page.
ECS’ maximum base clock appears extraordinary compared to the other motherboards. We’ve seen speculation that difficulties in going beyond 210 MHz are mostly caused by a locked PCIe ratio on the CPU.
ASRock reached the highest average DRAM data rate, though Asus and MSI win when only two modules are used. We won’t fuss over a one megahertz difference, since settings this small are not selectable in either motherboard’s BIOS.
MSI has the lowest average power consumption, though the top three boards are similar to each other.
The only brand in today’s roundup to use a heat-pipe cooler on its voltage regulator, Gigabyte has the lowest VRM temperatures followed closely by Asus.
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The Asrock P55 Pro is 16x-4x, not 8x-8x.
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=P55%20Pro
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813157171
The Asrock P55 Extreme at $140 offers 8x-8x
Good read but it really just confirms what a lot of us have known for a long time. Don't buy budget motherboards (MSI, ASrock, ECS) if you want to overclock and it's no coincidence that the boards from Gigabyte and Asus passed with flying colours as these companies clearly have proper testing procedures in place and quality assurance measures to avoid such issues.
Another great article from Tom's, letting us know about how one of these motherboards can burn your CPU. Never would have known without you.
Might have burnt out a CPU and not know the cause.
How would P55 stack up against non P55s is what I wanted to see as well. See if the premium is worth it over the more budget friendly P55.
nice article i liked it!
Unfortunately neither Gigabbyte nor ASUS boards offer the 8x8x PCI-e slots for multiple GPUs. I think it's better to wait for their premium brethren to fall below $150 before upgrading.
For the extra $20 you can get the ASUS P7P55D PRO which is a much better board and offers the full spec for multi GPUs... However, I personally can only recommend what I would do myself and that is to wait. There are a lot of major PC spec changes over the next 6 months. So I am waiting for USB3 and SATA3 to make it to mainstream.
For the extra $20 you can get the ASUS P7P55D PRO which is a much better board and offers the full spec for multi GPUs... However, I personally can only recommend what I would do myself and that is to wait. There are a lot of major PC spec changes over the next 6 months. So I am waiting for USB3 and SATA3 to make it to mainstream.
I doubt their quality assurance is as good as you think Jeanluc. Both Gigabyte and Asus make crap DDR3 controllers for socket 775 motherboards. I've tested a heap of DDR3 socket 775 boards from Asus and Gigabyte, the Asus P5Q3 in particular is causing a lot of problems. When paired with a quad core cpu (everything stock) and running 3 threads prime(blend) + furmark, the system would inevitably freeze in under 2hr's (usually within the 30 minutes mark, quite a bit less than 2hrs). In fact systems with those boards would freeze even during normal non PC intensive use such as browsing the internet. Running prime+furmark just forces it happen rather than waiting for it to freeze which is quite random during light use like word prcoessing. I doubt Asus even realizes that their P5Q3 is a faulty product and shouldn't have hit retail stores. They have been selling the P5Q3 for ages. They probably tested the board with a cheap dual core celeron and since it worked with that called it a day.
Good read but it really just confirms what a lot of us have known for a long time. Don't buy budget motherboards (MSI, ASrock, ECS) if you want to overclock and it's no coincidence that the boards from Gigabyte and Asus passed with flying colours as these companies clearly have proper testing procedures in place and quality assurance measures to avoid such issues.
I think you're jumping to conclusions here. Tom's reviewed some boards a while back for the 1366 socket and gave ASRock first place for quality and value.
@ schizofrog :
Yeah and the GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD4P is priced similarly and sports 8x8x configuration and more SATA ports.
I believe well-featured P55 mobos are still expensive for the mainstream market.
Still getting two or three PCI slots on these new boards. I can see one, and I realize they're budget boards - but still. I'd much rather see some more x4 PCI-e or even just x1 options that would give graphics cards some breathing room.
I doubt their quality assurance is as good as you think Jeanluc. Both Gigabyte and Asus make crap DDR3 controllers for socket 775 motherboards.
Intel made the memory controllers on Asus and Gigabyte P45/X48 motherboards. If it fails after two hours, there's a chance you're using inferior-quality memory.
Still getting two or three PCI slots on these new boards. I can see one, and I realize they're budget boards - but still. I'd much rather see some more x4 PCI-e or even just x1 options that would give graphics cards some breathing room.
They're already using up all the PCIe lanes, when they put a second x16 slot on a board and feed it with four of the P55's eight. Sorry, the P55 isn't designed to support a buch of high-bandwidth slots, that's what the X58's for.
My question is
"will there be a chipset made by Nvidia for 1366 socket or 1156 socket intel cpus?"
Cause Nvidia is making good chipsets with both on-board VGA for mainstream and upper mainstream cpus.
My question is"will there be a chipset made by Nvidia for 1366 socket or 1156 socket intel cpus?"Cause Nvidia is making good chipsets with both on-board VGA for mainstream and upper mainstream cpus.
The answer is NO
The ECS P55H-A has a power connector for the graphics card next to the pci express 16x slot. My graphics card ( Radeon 5850 ) already has 2 power connectors on it.
Do all 3 power connectors need to be hooked up? Thanks!
Quite an irritating writeup I'd say. Sarcastic and vague comments with strong emphasis on avoidance in getting to the point. i like to call it bias, but, i haven't tested all the mobos myself. What do I get out of this article? How to kill a good article title in five.
I wonder how cheap can they build a mainboard with no extra features (no overclocking support, no bells&whistles). Just the bare needed to keep the cpu working at it's default potential.
I'd like one of these.