Gigabyte P55-UD6 LGA1156 Motherboard Review‏

A Closer Look at the GIGABYTE P55-UD6 pt.2

The overall expansion slot layout and assortment is excellent. There are three full-sized PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots, two PCI-E x1 slots and two legacy PCI slots. In a single graphics card configuration, the top PCI-E x16 slot will operate at the full x16 speed while the bottom slot will run at x4. When two graphics cards are installed in the top and middle x16 slots, they will operate at x8 each with the bottom slot once again operating at x4. This motherboard does support Quad-GPU CrossFireX and Quad-GPU SLI with two dual-GPU graphics cards. Attempting to run three graphics cards would be pointless for gaming purposes since the third card would run at x4 (PCI-Express 1.0 standard) and thus be a huge bottleneck. However, if you are an avid Folder or would like a card to run PhysX, you could can utilize three graphics cards on this motherboard.


In an interesting design move, Gigabyte have relocated the P55 PCH to where the northbridge would be on a traditional motherboard. This is unlike every other P55 motherboard that we have seen, which has the P55 chipset in the usual southbridge location. There's no practical advantage or disadvantage to this solution is merely gives the motherboard a traditional appearance.

The PCH cooler is a fairly robust aluminium unit, which shares its basic Space Invaders design theme with one of the MOSFET coolers, and which utilizes the central heatpipe that snakes across the whole motherboard. The P55 itself benefits from its own 2-phase power design.

Needless to say that you can't put a full length card into the first PCI-E x1 slot, and frankly finding a card short enough to fit will undoubtedly prove to be a challenge since it cannot be longer than 3.25" inches.


Starting clockwise from top-left, the JMicron JMB362 supplies the two eSATA/USB Combo ports on the rear I/O panel. The ITE IT8720F chip is an I/O controller which is responsible for hardware monitoring along with fan speed management and it supplies the legacy floppy support and PS/2 ports. The Realtek ALC889A is an 8-channel HD audio codec. The two the Realtek 8111D's are Gigabit LAN PCI-Express controllers.


On the rear I/O panel, Gigabyte have placed eight USB 2.0 ports, a dual-purpose PS/2 keyboard/mouse port, coaxial and optical S/PDIF Out connectors, two FireWire ports, two USB/eSATA Combo ports, two LAN ports, and the six audio jacks.


As you can see, the P55-UD6 has a slew of naked back-mounted MOSFETs. They don't get particularly hot so the lack of heatsinks is a non-issue. While the PCH cooler is held in place with mounting screws, the 'southbridge' cooler still utilizes medieval plastic push-pins.