News

Gigabyte GA-P55 UD3R Review @ OCClub

“First off, I have to say that the GA-P55-UD3R shocked me when I was able to push the i7 870 to almost 4.4GHz. It fell just a tick below, because at a 210MHz bclock it did not want to give me any stability, even at reduced speeds. With that said, a bclock of 209MHz with a 21x clock multiplier proved fruitful and allowed the UD3R to shine. While I had problems going over 1600MHz with a set of dual sided DIMMs on the P55-UD6, I did not have that problem on the P55-UD3R.”

AMD Athlon II X2 240e Processor @ Techware Labs

“TechwareLabs reviews the AMD Athlon II X2 240e, a low power consumption CPU aimed at the budget-minded. See if this CPU has the muscle to power your next Home Theater PC, or is just a waste of silicon.”

AMD Athlon II X3 425 2.70 GHz @ TechPowerUp!

“AMD’s Athlon II X3 425 offers all the features of the of the more expensive Quad Cores, and you can potentially unlock the fourth core. Being priced at only $79 it creates tough competition for Intel in this segment, but also for AMD who has a number of other processors in this market. Even though it lacks the L3 cache it still offers decent performance, especially considering its price.”

AMD Athlon II X4 620 & Sapphire PI-AM3RS785G @ Bjorn3D

“Although they were released about a month ago, the new budget-councious quad-core processors from AMD are still fresh in the minds of many enthusiasts. The Athlon II X4 620 and 630 have made huge waves recently due to the fact that it is now possible to obtain a quad-core CPU for under $100. Pair this processor up with an AM3 motherboard running a 785G chipset and set of DDR3 RAM, and you will have your hands on a value-minded, mainstream performing rig.”

SATA 6G Implementation Preview @ TweakTown

“SATA 6G is the next big drive transfer standard. As it stands right now Marvell is the only company with an available controller. Because of this we see them being hastily added to motherboards. In their first run the controllers failed to provide the anticipated performance and caused stability issues on the P55 boards they were placed on. These were quickly removed and the P55 was launched without SATA 6G.”

Here are some prices for several of the top tier to budget end products available. Several new P55 based motherboards have been added to the list, and I will have AMD boards listed soon. Thanks for your support all!

Intel Core i5 / i7 / 2 Duo Processors
Core i7 975 Extreme Edition
Core i7 940
Core i7 920
Core i7 870
Core i7 860
Core i5 750

Core 2 Duo E8600
Core 2 Duo E8500
Core 2 Duo E8400

AMD Phenom II / Athlon X4 Processors
Phenom II X4 955
Phenom II X4 945
Phenom II X4 940
Phenom II X3 720
Athlon II X4 620

Intel P55 Motherboards
ASUS Maximus III Formula
ASUS P7P55D EVO
EVGA P55 FTW
EVGA P55
EVGA P55LE
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD5
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD4P
Intel DP55KG
MSI P55- CD53
MSI P55- GD65
MSI P55- GD80

Intel X58 Motherboards
ASUS Rampage II Extreme
ASUS P6T
ASUS P6T Deluxe V2
ASUS Rampage II GENE
EVGA X58 SLI
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R
Intel DX58SO
MSI Eclipse SLI

AMD Motherboards Coming Soon…

ASUS Crosshair III Formula Motherboard Review @ HardOCP

“The ASUS Crosshair III is based on AMD’s 790FX chipset. In this case the board is also equipped with the SB750. The board supports all current socket AM3 CPUs. It also supports DDR3 1600MHz memory and AMD’s Crossfire and CrossfireX multi-GPU technologies. It also features 8+2 phase power for stability, ferrite chokes and all solid state capacitors. The Crosshair III Formula isn’t quite as packed with features as I expected.”

MSI P55-GD80 Motherboard @ Hardware Secrets

“MSI launched so far five different socket 1156 motherboard models based on the new Intel P55 chipset. Today we are going to take a look on one of their high-end models, P55-GD80 (a.k.a. MS-7581), which comes with several overclocking features not found on competing products. Let’s take a look.”

ASUS Maximus II Gene @ Hot Hardware

“Up until now, when users thought of a micro-ATX board, they typically expect find a slimmed down version of a full sized product, minus some of the bells and whistles and perhaps sacrificing some of the enthusiast-friendly features of their larger brethren.  Recognizing a need for high performance, yet smaller form-factor motherboard, ASUS stepped in with two offerings: the Rampage II Gene for Core i7/DDR3 owners, and the Maximus II Gene we are reviewing today, with support for Core 2 Duo/Quad processors and DDR2 memory.”

ASUS P7P55D Deluxe, EVO Motherboards @ iXBT Labs

“If you have to choose between these two models, it’s really easy. Deluxe has a tad better power supply system and a formally better audio codec. But EVO offers eSATA on the rear panel. You have to agree that the boards are very similar. The key difference is TurboV Remote that is not available for EVO.”