Conclusion
As you can see in our performance index, none of the candidates are capable of gaining ground on the performance side. You can tweak memory timings or increase clock speeds, but the delivered performance results under identical conditions are pretty similar. This is a trend you'll likely see continue as more functionality is integrated into the processor itself, taking impetus away from the motherboard folks when it comes to establishing a compelling performance story.
We did some overclocking tests, as well. Since none of these boards were designed to be true overclockers, we limited our testing to seeing whether our Core i5-750 processor could be operated at 4.0 GHz with limited voltage modifications (+0.15 V max). This is probably the most reasonable maximum overclock.
All boards that support overclocking (ASRock, Gigabyte, and MSI) support our target clock speed properly and stably. It's a mystery to us why Foxconn thoroughly wiped out all overclocking support with its offering. Obviously, the LGA 1156-based platform, on a whole, has lots of headroom to allow for safe overclocking. Gigabyte and MSI provide best overclocking, and they both support ATI CrossFire and Nvidia’s SLI multi-card rendering technologies, though the use of one 16-lane PCIe 2.0 slot and one four-lane slot running at PCIe 1.1 transfer rates results in an ugly performance penalty in games. ASRock doesn’t support the two features, and Foxconn can’t due to limited PCIe slot availability.
Our efficiency comparison is won, narrowly, by MSI, which does the best job implementing dynamically switching voltage regulators. We enabled all possible power saving mechanisms from each vendor, but we refused to install software tools, as we believe these features have to work out of the box, and few enthusiasts are willing to install additional software to enable these extras. Foxconn takes the second spot, as its board has the fewest number of extra features and components, which in the end delivers a power advantage. ASRock and Gigabyte take the last spots, though they still facilitate decent results.
Finally, we also have to talk about features. ASRock provides two USB-powered eSATA slots, which you may want for eSATA thumb drives. All vendors except Foxconn have at least one eSATA port, along with UltraATA/133. Only ASRock and Gigabyte offer digital audio outputs. Foxconn and Gigabyte feature two classic PCI slots. A clear feature winner is hard to determine, but the Foxconn board only makes sense if you need go for an entry-level budget. Gigabyte is the most versatile, and MSI the most efficient. We found ASRock to be somewhere in the middle.
Related Stories :
- Compact P55: Four MicroATX Motherboards Tried And Tested
- More P55: Gigabyte's MicroATX Board And Asus' Flagship
- Asus P7P55 WS Supercomputer P55 Motherboard Preview
- DFI To Make Quad CrossFire MicroATX Motherboard
- Extreme P55: Four LGA 1156 Motherboards Over $250
- P55 On A Budget: Five Core i5/i7 Motherboards For $100-$150
- One Last Look: ASRock And MSI Preview P55 Motherboards
- Intel to Start Shipping P55 Motherboards in July
- Asus And DFI: Core i7 Micro-ATX Motherboards Compared
- 4 AMD Socket 754 MicroATX Motherboards: Getting the Job Done on the Cheap
Intel should have made a universal socket so you could put a i3 or an i7 in the same board. Just want to throw that out there.
Cool! So far that's only 26 P55 motherboards tested. You're only about 1/3 of the way through testing every P55 board available at Newegg. Keep up the good work.
Theres a mistake about the MSI board, SLI certification is NOT given to this hardware . From what I've read, its a minimum of 8x 8x to qualify.
http://us.msi.com/index.php?func=p [...] =1890#menu
SLI certification also adds to the cost of the board.
Wow an MSI low end board that didn't die. If they can keep this up they will be ASUS's main competitor.
woot for gigabyte..too bad they didn't test the ud4 a while ago, with the budget boards >
Intel should have made a universal socket so you could put a i3 or an i7 in the same board. Just want to throw that out there.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] -_-Product
I know what you meant but still, technically you were wrong.
I see that the max power requirement with overclocking was 256w.
Does this mean that the 750w psu used was a overkill?
Or more importantly- could this setup work with a 400w psu with sufficient
amp. on 12v rail?
Very nice, keep up de good work. But it would be nice to see some h55/h57 motherboards tested in the near future.
Good point icerock
+1
Another win from Gigabyte. Awesome!
I helped my computer illiterate cousin set up a relatively affordable computer but with decent components and brand new technolgy running a brand new Core i3 530 and the motherboard of choice was this Gigabyte model being reviewed here.
And although the board is only supposed to support the new new dual-core Core i3's and i5's from Bios version F6, I was able to boot it using the factory F3! So no hassles in trying to get the neighbours i5 750 to boot it up and upgrade the bios.
I know articles like this are normally written sometimes weeks in advance, but I wonder if Bios F6 or even F7c have any impact on lowering power consumption ?
Anyway, I find it a very good board for the money, very nice touches like eSata, lots of internal Sata ports, and all the Ultra Durable 3 quality features; it's got everything a person could want (except if you have lot of add-on cards and/or want to run Crossfire or SLi.)
But I'm left with a question: the first photo that shows all the motherboard bozes on top of each other has and Asus model, but you didn't review it. What happened ?
Good article. Looks like we are heading toward a more complete form of standardization. As usual, thanks for inlcuding mainstream benchmarks.
It's about time. Now I can start looking at a PC update... my mini p180 case awaits Windows 7! I feel like I need to get with the times
As others have said, what happened to the Asus board you have pictured?
Also, on page 6 you have the ASRock listed as having 2 PS/2 Mouse ports.
i just wait for NVIDIA NEW CHIPSET
i 'll just wait for new nvidia chip also new nvidia GPU card ...like it or not
Out of all these boards, I would pick the MSI GD-45. It has a lot of features from it's big brothers GD-65 and GD-80. I'm currently using the GD-65 and it's pretty stable. Although, if I were to build another P55 board, I would choose the ASUS Maximus GENE III. The onboard sound on that board is pretty good.
i 'll just wait for new nvidia chip also new nvidia GPU card ...like it or not
me too usually the ati's prices drop by 25% after nvidia releases there new cards and ive had my heart set on a 5870.
I've owned 4 MSI board and none of them have died.
I own an MSI board and video card too. I love them, but I also accept the fact MSI hasn't been known for their board quality. Its been increasing in recent years.