MSI P55-GD80 LGA1156 Motherboard Review‏

BIOS Rundown

Don't be fooled by the "1985-2005", this appears to be an American Megatrends v02.62-based BIOS, which is circa 2008-2009. Now manufacturers can tweak much of the BIOS to give it their own personalized option-rich, user-friendly feel, so let's see what MSI have done with the P55-GD80. This particular BIOS is V1.4, the latest one available at the time this article was published.


When you first boot up the system you are presented with the above splash screen, thankfully it can be disabled for those who want to shave a few seconds off of the bootup time. Once you enter the BIOS, you find yourself in the main menu screen.


The Standard CMOS Features section lists the date & time, as well as what storage devices are connected. The System Information sub-meny lists some rudimentary specification info, including the BIOS date & version, the type of processor and the amount of memory installed.


The Advanced BIOS Features section is essentially where you set storage device priority and select the boot drive, set supervisor and user passwords, and also disable the full screen logo.


As per its name, the Integrated Peripherals section is where you can enable/disable all the onboard devices like audio, LAN, FireWire, eSATA, etc.


The Power Management Setup section contains the settings linked to the power-saving Standby States and the Wake Up options.


The Hardware Monitor contains the temperature & voltage readings, and very decent fan control settings. We are to glad see that all three main voltage rails are present and accounted for, but we would like to see some additional system voltages. What really makes this section special though is the Dr.MOS Temperature sub-menu, which reveals a unique feature in the form of individual MOSFET temperature readouts. We have never seen this on any other motherboard thus far, and it's pretty cool.


The Green Power menu always you to disable all the phase control settings, as well as the motherboard LEDs and the touch-based Easy Buttons.


The Cell Menu is where all the fun happens. This is where you can tweak all the system frequencies, voltage, timings, CPU features, and more. If you want to have manual access to the static +2X multiplier that can be unlocked, simply set Intel EIST (Enhanced SpeedStep) to 'Auto'. Setting it to 'Enabled' with enable it, but you won't have manually access to it. It say 22X (for example) in the BIOS, but actually boot up at 24X.


As you can see, the P55-GD80 has a very rich selection of memory information and settings. No complaints here.


Both the memory and QPI frequencies have ratios that can be selected via dropdown menus.


For those attempting to hit very high BCLK, the PCI-E frequency and CPU Amplitude Control settings will help you in your overclocking endeavours.


This motherboard has a solid assortment of voltage options, which can be inputted manually, and an option for Load-Line Calibration (LLC). If the voltage ranges are not extreme enough for you, you can adjust the V Switch dip switches to unlock truly insane voltage levels.


M-Flash is a built-in utility that greatly simplies the BIOS updating process. You can easily update your BIOS from a ROM file located on your hard drive(s), USB flash drive(s), or even a CD. It's quick, painless, and it takes the worry out of BIOS flashing.


The Overclocking Profile menu gives users the option to save and switch between BIOS profiles, for example an everyday profile and a benchmarking profile, which is infinitely quicker than manually inserting every setting.


Overall, MSI have done a good job with this BIOS. It's fast, relatively user-friendly, and it's chalk full of options. The Cell Menu section in particular has nearly setting that we would expect in a motherboard of this caliber.