![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Thursday , September 17, 2009
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
GIGABYTE P55-UD6 Motherboard Review
The P55-UD6 is easily one of the most feature rich boards motherboards on the market today. Added to its recipe for success is the first 24-phase power implementation we've ever seen combined with a robust, but un-daunting BIOS to propel the GA-P55-UD6 and the LGA1156 processor of your choice to new heights.
BIOS
Gigabyte chose to use the Phoenix / Award Software BIOS. Version F3 was used for all screen shots as well as general system testing. For the overclocking portion of the review, BIOS F3 was used initially.
At a later time I upgraded the board to BIOS version F5c Beta in the hopes of improving general overclockability as BIOS version F5c is supposed to improve overclocking performance. There are no visual changes to the BIOS, but inside the Integrated Peripherals menu, the RAID mode is now worded as "XHD(RAID)" instead of "RAID".
The BIOS is more or less the same on all boards that share the basic Phoenix or Award BIOS ROMs. In this case Gigabyte gets right down to business and places their MB Intelligent Tweaker(M.I.T.) menu as the first category in the BIOS menu. Once in the MB Intelligent Tweaker menu you won't find much except more sub-menus. The BIOS version, BCLK, CPU Frequency, Memory Frequency, Total Memory Size, CPU Temperature, PCH Temperature, VCore, and DRAM voltages are shown for informational purposes. The first sub-menu really only contains a status screen. It is kind of a "all performance settings at a glance" type of informational screen. CPU name, CPUID, QPI Frequency, UnCore Frequency, and Memory frequencies are displayed here. Turbo Ratio for each core and the normal clock multiplier for each core is listed individually. Core temperatures are shown below the CPU core information. Detailed DIMM information is also shown here.
The Advanced Frequency Settings sub-menu contains some of your most important tuning settings. Here is where you will find your CPU clock ratio, Advanced CPU Core Features, QPI Clock Ratio, Base Clock Control, Extreme Memory Profile(X.M.P.) support, System memory multiplier (memory dividers) PCI-Express frequency and last but not least your CPU and PCI Express Clock drive strength settings. The Advanced CPU Core Features also contains many settings that the enthusiast will probably end up adjusting. Here is where you will find some of those nifty Intel specific features that you'll probably end up turning off anyway. Intel Turbo Boost, CPU Enhanced Halt State (C1E), C3/C6/C7 State Support, CPU Thermal Monitor, and CPU EIST Function are among those settings you may or may not end up turning off. As you can see I turned all mine off. Then again I am not running this box as a daily driver either.
The Advanced Memory Settings sub-menu gives you strictly memory related settings. Performance Enhance, DRAM Timing Selectable (SPD) XMP, and System Memory Multiplier are found here. Those last two settings can actually be found elsewhere in the BIOS. I don't know why they show up twice. It's kind of a good thing because the way they've placed them in both areas kind of makes sense and can be convenient depending on what you are adjusting at the time. Channel A Timing Settings is where you adjust your actual CAS latencies. You do this independently by channel rather than all at once. Here you will see the usual myriad of settings for CAS latency adjustment. Channel A and B Turnaround Settings display memory channel and banking configuration settings.
Next is the all important voltage control. Well it's more important on some boards than others. (More on that later.) Here you will find all your voltage settings for your CPU VCore, QPI/PLL, PCH Core, CPU PLL, DRAM Voltage, DRAM Termination, Ch-A Data VRef, Ch-B Data VRef, and the Ch A/B Address VRef settings. The Miscellaneous Settings menu contains only two settings. Isochronous Support and Virtualization Technology. You can enable or disable these two settings.
Next is the Standard CMOS Features menu which just gives you your time, date and floppy drive configuration settings. Advanced BIOS Features just gives you settings for Hard Disk Boot priority, boot device ordering, HDD SMART settings, No-Execute Memory Protect, Delay for HDD, and a few more. Integrated peripherals is where you can configure, or enable and disable your onboard devices. This menu is chalk full of settings for doing just those sorts of things because the GA-P55-UD6 has virtually everything but the kitchen sink added to it. 4 RAID controllers to setup and configure, two LAN ports, and more.
The power management section contains, well you guessed it, power management settings. APIC control, resume after power loss, HPET support, LED control and power on by keyboard or mouse functions. The PC Health screen shows temperatures for the CPU and motherboard zones as well as voltages for various components. Voltage from the power supply is monitored here. The only settings that are adjustable are temperature and fan failure warnings for the CPU, System Fan and Power fan. There is also a CPU Smart FAN Control setting which allows the fans to be controlled according to thermal conditions. The final section of the menu is the Security Chip Configuration. This allows the system to be secured from unauthorized use. This is part of the Gigabyte Smart TPM feature. This allows you to secure the system using a 2048bit encrypted key which can be stored on a USB flash drive or a cell phone. For use with a cell phone a blue tooth receiver is required but is not included.
All in all the BIOS is easy to use and navigate. Rarely are settings confusing or daunting. Yet the BIOS is robust enough to satisfy nearly any enthusiast.