Gigabyte seems to be serious with its enthusiast angle with Intel’s coming Core i5 platform. When the crew at TweakTown got a chance to peek at some of the coming P55 motherboards from Gigabyte it was Gigabyte GA-P55-UD5 that stood out the most. The motherboard has several neat features like SATA III (6Gbps) through a combined SATA II/III chip from Marvell, and a new version of the eSATA interface where you can draw power through the eSATA connector and eliminate the need for an extra USB connection, although it has to be supported by the connected device.
Loads of in and outputs with Gigabyte’s P55 motherboard, including power over eSATA
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD5 has one last ace up it sleeve and it is certainly something that should lighten the mood of overclockers that are leering toward the Core i5 platform. The motherboard has a power circuitry out of the ordinary, with no less than 24 phases solely for the processor!
It sounds almost exaggerated but worst case scenario it will only deliver a ridiculously stable voltage for Core i5 processors and could perhaps improve the overclocking potential of said processors.
What the other motherboard manufacturers will come up with in this area is something we’re very curious to see, but we can’t imagine any of them will try to trump the number of power phases. The quality of design is of course yet to be tested.
