Recommended P55 boards

All about them.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

dragonfire
Posts: 62
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:23 pm
Location: Massachusetts, USA

Recommended P55 boards

Post by dragonfire » Mon Nov 30, 2009 8:44 am

Hi all,

I'm planning to re-build my rig around a i7-860. I'm using an Antec P182, so I want a full size ATX board. I haven't seen any generalized recommendations for P55 boards in this forum, so I wanted to get some opinions.

I had a bad experience with an Asus p5q-e and Q9450. I could never quite get the system stable, particularly with regards to suspend/hibernate. So I want to make sure I pick better this time.

I'm currently considering Asus (P7P55D) and Gigabyte (one of the P55A-UD3 variants).

I want a motherboard with these features:
- passively cooled chipset (I'll put a heatsink/fan on the CPU)
- support for DDR3 1600 ram
- support for software controlled fans (cpu fan and case fan)
- onboard network and audio (no brainer, but I figured I'd put it in)

Hoping to spend ~$150 on this.

If anyone has any experience with P55 boards from either manufacturer (or any other manufacturer, for that matter), I'd love to hear it.

Thanks,
--Jonathan

Planned system: i7-860, 4GB 1600 RAM, ATI 4850 w/ Accelero S1, P182, Corsair 520W PSU, Intel x25-m for system, WD 640GB Blue for data

ovo
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Dec 02, 2009 2:30 am
Location: australia

Post by ovo » Wed Dec 02, 2009 2:44 am

I have the same questions exactly, I want to put it in the p183 case. I will be getting a gigabyte board as I want to build a hackintosh eg put OSX on a pc and every one uses gigabyte which seems to be most compatible with the least amount of problems.

I dont know anything about Asus but have heard nothing but positive things about giga and seeing u had problems with Asus last time.....

any more info from those more knowledgeable would be great

dragonfire
Posts: 62
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:23 pm
Location: Massachusetts, USA

Post by dragonfire » Fri Dec 04, 2009 6:28 am

No one has any P55 recommendations? Please?

smilingcrow
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 1809
Joined: Sat Apr 24, 2004 1:45 am
Location: At Home

Post by smilingcrow » Fri Dec 04, 2009 11:54 am

I’ve seen numerous good reviews of the GA-P55-UD3R which put it top of my list of relatively cheap P55 boards. There is also the GA-P55A-UD3R which adds SATA3 and USB3 at a slightly higher price.

wc2wc
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 12:36 am
Location: netherlands

Post by wc2wc » Mon Dec 14, 2009 2:22 am

I have a Gigabyte p55-ud3
At normal settings it makes in the psu crackling noise
Also once in a while it emits a bios like beep
Psu noise I've overcome with setting vcore at a fixed amount
Ive read similar about the asrock boards

Any can recommend a combo of p55 mobo +psu that is silent;
i want to buy a new set.

Tyr Antilles
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 10:02 am
Location: Europe

I have exactly the same board and same problem

Post by Tyr Antilles » Mon Dec 14, 2009 10:51 am

wc2wc wrote:I have a Gigabyte p55-ud3
At normal settings it makes in the psu crackling noise
Also once in a while it emits a bios like beep
Psu noise I've overcome with setting vcore at a fixed amount
Ive read similar about the asrock boards

Any can recommend a combo of p55 mobo +psu that is silent;
i want to buy a new set.

Hi. I have exactly the same board and same problem with a PSU Fortron Blue Storm II 500W. With default bios settings i hear the same crackling noise on the PSU and a short beep while operating from time to time at random intervals. From what I heard this is because of incorrect power voltages set on BIOS. I solved the crackling noise too, setting manually the correct voltages on BIOS and also the mobo beep appear now at much larger intervals. I am sure that, once I will find the correct voltages the beep will be gone too, that's why I think is better to try with your components before buying something else.

For the ones interested in setting up a similar system, I have:
MB Gigabyte P55-UD3
CPU Intel Core i5-750
Scythe NINJA MINI rev B (with two coolers)
RAM Kingston DDR3 4 GB 1600 MHz (set on XMP)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4670

The values tested for stability for this system are:
BCLK = 160.04
QPI = 5761.53 (36X)
UnCore frequency = 2560.57 (16x)
Memory frequency = 1600.31 (10x)
--------------------------------
Set CPU clock ratio at: 20x = 3.20Ghz (160x20) =>
- turbo ratio = 21 - frequency = 3360.5MHz
- Non turbo ratio = 20 frequency = 3200.5MHz
--------------------------------
Voltages set on BIOS:
- CPU voltage: from 1.05625 V to 1.20000 V (this is too low???)
- DRAM voltage: from 1.500 v to 1.620 v (def. for Kingston = 1.650 V)
--------------------------------
VDROP: CPU Voltages set on BIOS and Core voltage on Windows CPU-Z:
- BIOS setting: 1.20000V
- CPU-Z idle: 1.184 (variabile with 1.168)
Multiplier: x9.0 = 1440 MHz
- CPU-Z full load: 1.104
Multiplier: x21.0 = 3360 MHz (when all 4 cores at full)
Multiplier: x24.0 = 3838.6 MHz (when 1 core at full load => Turbo working)

In order to get the RAM's XMP and CPU Turbo working together I made changes in the BIOS on the Advanced CPU Core Features page (thanks ekoostik from THG forum - I don't have the right to post links here):

Intel Turbo Boost Tech. - changed from Auto to Enabled
CPU Cores Enabled - left as All
CPU Multi-Threading - left as Enabled
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E) - changed from Auto to Enabled
C3/C6/C7 State Support - changed from Auto to Enabled
CPU Thermal Monitor - changed from Auto to Enabled
CPU EIST Function - changed from Auto to Enabled
Bi-Directional PROCHOT - changed from Auto to Enabled

I run Prime95 for one hour, Furmark and IntelBurnTest v2.3 and I get no errors. My target is to have a stable and quiet computer, not to reach maximum overclocking.
I will try to increase CPU voltage a little and/or play a bit with the other voltages, but i have no experience with this at all and I don't dare to go too far. Is someone here more experienced who have an idea about the correct voltage setting for those multipliers?

dragonfire
Posts: 62
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:23 pm
Location: Massachusetts, USA

Post by dragonfire » Mon Dec 21, 2009 11:48 am

Interesting... glad I haven't jumped yet for my new build.

Out of curiosity, do the psu sounds only occur when overclocking, or do they occur at stock settings as well?

Tyr Antilles
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 10:02 am
Location: Europe

only at stock

Post by Tyr Antilles » Mon Dec 21, 2009 5:51 pm

dragonfire wrote:do the psu sounds only occur when overclocking, or do they occur at stock settings as well?
Weird enough, actually it happens only at stock settings; when I manually adjust voltages on BIOS the noise disappear completely. I did some more research and looks like the other beep sound have nothing do do with voltages, but with SATA HDD's, and is not an error at all... odd. Overall I am very happy with my computer.

Since I can't post links here, I would suggest to look on tomshardware, they just published a great article about LGA 1156 Boards that should answer many questions.

Also, Gigabyte just launched a new family of boards featuring USB 3.0 and SATA3 that looks very interesting to me (GA-P55A-UD3R(rev. 1.0) GA-P55A-UD3P(rev. 1.0) GA-P55A-UD3(rev. 1.0) GA-P55A-UD4P(rev. 1.0) GA-P55A-UD5(rev. 1.0) GA-P55A-UD6(rev. 1.0)).

SebRad
Patron of SPCR
Posts: 1121
Joined: Sun Nov 09, 2003 7:18 am
Location: UK

Post by SebRad » Tue Dec 22, 2009 3:28 am

I have read of a few problems with coil whine from motherboards but I think it was X58 chipset boards. Possibly a Gigabyte one but might not have been or been several vendors.

My experience suggests that Standby issues, especially with S3 (full sleep, fans off etc) is that it's mostly caused by memory settings / errors/ problems etc.
My P5B-E Plus with 4x2GB & Q9400 will S3 sleep perfectly at FSB333 but not overclocked to FSB400, even though was stable, would “foldâ€

dragonfire
Posts: 62
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:23 pm
Location: Massachusetts, USA

Post by dragonfire » Tue Dec 22, 2009 11:34 am

Sorry! I'm still confused...

You listed a BCLK of 160, but I thought the stock setting for a i5-750 was a BCLK of 133. Does the crackling/beep happen at this 133?

I was getting all excited to switch to Gigabyte, but now I'm thinking of staying with Asus. At least my Asus boards don't beep at me...

wc2wc
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 12:36 am
Location: netherlands

Post by wc2wc » Wed Dec 23, 2009 12:42 am

asus (and asrock )boards have the same problems; it seems to be a combination of components(mobo+psu+cpu)
base clock is standard at 133 ; Tyr has overclocked the cpu( very easy with this one)
I.m going to try my luck with a msi board(has a different phase regulation than asus/gigabyte/asrock.
Adjusting Vcore also solves the problem

Telamon
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 18
Joined: Wed Jul 20, 2005 8:34 am
Location: Seattle

Post by Telamon » Wed Dec 23, 2009 12:08 pm

My MSI P55-CD53 also exhibits the crackling on my Seasonic 550W Energy Plus PSU and I don't know if it's possible to change the VCore in that BIOS. You may need to step up to the CD65 in that case.

The sound isn't that bad on the Seasonic and I couldn't even hear it until I quieted down my raging Readon 5850 fan but it's definitely pushing the edge of perception. I'm experimenting with some foam baffling on the its rear vent to prevent the noise from escaping and bouncing off of my walls.

dragonfire
Posts: 62
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 12:23 pm
Location: Massachusetts, USA

Post by dragonfire » Wed Dec 23, 2009 1:34 pm

Do you think the quality of the motherboard (eg. low end vs. high end) makes a difference?

loimlo
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu May 03, 2007 3:58 am
Location: Formosa

Post by loimlo » Thu Dec 24, 2009 8:14 am

Frankly speaking, coiling/buzzing noise seems to be a lottery for people seeking absolute silence. No one can make sure your situation unless he has identical peripheral components as yours. For example, I've experienced coiling/buzzing noise mostly in high-end VGA cards that hava strong muscles. Were I you, I'd use return policy if something goes wrong.

digicat
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:22 pm
Location: California

Post by digicat » Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:29 pm

I'm between my 2nd and 3rd ASUS P7P55d-e Pro. The first one had some coil whine. The 2nd one had MORE coil whine. Hopefully 3rd time's the charm?



Odd thing is, the whine would occur at idle. I couldn't tell when it was under load though, as the fans spun up a little and successfully masked it.

Tyr Antilles
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 10:02 am
Location: Europe

Post by Tyr Antilles » Fri Jan 22, 2010 5:06 am

digicat wrote:I'm between my 2nd and 3rd ASUS P7P55d-e Pro. The first one had some coil whine. The 2nd one had MORE coil whine. Hopefully 3rd time's the charm?



Odd thing is, the whine would occur at idle. I couldn't tell when it was under load though, as the fans spun up a little and successfully masked it.
Do you have more then one SATA HDD connected to your motherboard? Also, how often you get this whine? once in a while, at several hours or at every minute?

digicat
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:22 pm
Location: California

Post by digicat » Fri Jan 22, 2010 7:18 am

Tyr Antilles wrote: Do you have more then one SATA HDD connected to your motherboard? Also, how often you get this whine? once in a while, at several hours or at every minute?
Nope, I just have a single Intel x25 SSD. The sound is pretty much constant once Windows 7 loads. The sound is reminiscent of the buzzing of a mosquito’s wings as it’s flying near by.

Tyr Antilles
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 10:02 am
Location: Europe

Post by Tyr Antilles » Fri Jan 22, 2010 10:17 pm

Hmmm, make sure the sound is coming from the motherboard and not from the PSU. If is from the PSU maybe you have the same problem with the psu crackling noise, this can be solved by adjusting CPU-VTT-RAM voltages. If is from the mobo then I don't know...

digicat
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:22 pm
Location: California

Post by digicat » Fri Jan 22, 2010 10:20 pm

Tyr Antilles wrote:Hmmm, make sure the sound is coming from the motherboard and not from the PSU. If is from the PSU maybe you have the same problem with the psu crackling noise, this can be solved by adjusting CPU-VTT-RAM voltages. If is from the mobo then I don't know...
I even powered up the computer with the PSU outside of the case. Same.

I talked to ASUS tech support this morning, and the tech basically told me "Sorry. Maybe you should try a different manufacturer." So I will.

Tyr Antilles
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 10:02 am
Location: Europe

Post by Tyr Antilles » Sat Jan 23, 2010 7:36 am

So it was the mobo, then maybe you will like something with SATA3 and maybe USB 3.0 ports... I heard Gigabyte have them both but don't support them in the same time. There were some articles. about this. Good luck with your new choice.

digicat
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:22 pm
Location: California

Post by digicat » Sat Jan 23, 2010 8:42 am

Tyr Antilles wrote:So it was the mobo, then maybe you will like something with SATA3 and maybe USB 3.0 ports... I heard Gigabyte have them both but don't support them in the same time. There were some articles. about this. Good luck with your new choice.
The ASUS pro has support for the new sata and usb standards on the board, which was one of the things that drew me to it... but I'm not sure if it's really something I NEED.

I've been leaning twards the EVGA p55 FTW, which seems like a pretty robust board for OCing (a huge playground of settings to fool around with), but doesn't have support for the sata3/usb3 standards. I also haven't found anything indicating that the FTW has an issue with coil whine. Plus, I can pick this up at the local b/m and don't need to wait a week between RMAs with the online stores.

jtcb
Posts: 104
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2003 10:58 am
Location: Vancouver, BC Canada

Post by jtcb » Sat Jan 23, 2010 10:30 am

I am also looking for a budget quiet motherboard. My planned build are as follows. I am leaning towords the ASUS P7P55D-E but now I don't know.

Antec Solo
Nexus Value 430W
i5 or i7
4GB ram
ASUS P7P55D-E
Gigabyte Radeon HD 4550
Intel X-25M 80GB

digicat
Posts: 13
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:22 pm
Location: California

Post by digicat » Mon Jan 25, 2010 12:33 pm

I picked up the EVGA p55 FTW this weekend and got it set up.

I still detected the electronic noise, but it's very soft (you can only hear it if you stick your head in the case), and easly masked by the sound of the air flow, so I'm good, but the mobo has some quirks that I'm still working out. Frys has a 15 day return policy, so I shoud know whether or not I'm keeping this thing by then.

Karltl
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Jan 25, 2010 3:14 pm
Location: Utah

Gigabyte mobo

Post by Karltl » Mon Jan 25, 2010 3:23 pm

I just finished a new build using a gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4P, Intel i5/750. Used an Ultra 750 power supply. I'm not overclocking the system (it's plenty powerfull as it is). Set everything up at default settings. No power supply clicking or hummming or anything. Run's very smooth and cool.

I didn't have to modify any CPU voltages. I'm also running 7 hard drives in the case, one 60 gig SSD system drive and 3 RAID0 arrays (4 640gig western digital caviar blue drives and a pair of 300gig WD velociraptors.

The gigabyte board runs great. Loads of USB, firewire, esata connections and two ethernet nic's on the back.

Read about this MOBO/CPU combo on several tech report web sites. Good overclocking capabilities but I have'nt found a need for that yet.

I use the system as a digital audio workstation in a home recording setup.

Tyr Antilles
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 10:02 am
Location: Europe

Completed testing on my system

Post by Tyr Antilles » Tue Jan 26, 2010 6:16 pm

After a lot of testing I just finished to balance my system. Is not exactly a quiet system because I used air cooling, but the fan noise is very low, the loudest part of it being the HDD's by far. For the ones interested in setting up a overclocked i5-750 based system without any risk and keeping default voltages I posted all details here viewtopic.php?t=57310.

jtcb
Posts: 104
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2003 10:58 am
Location: Vancouver, BC Canada

Post by jtcb » Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:52 pm

So I picked up a i7 860. Now I need a good motherboard and ram. Any suggestion? Main use for MS Office, ACCPAC, internet, watch online steaming video, TV, dvd movie, burn dvds. Don't game and OC.

Tyr Antilles
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 10:02 am
Location: Europe

Post by Tyr Antilles » Wed Jan 27, 2010 12:57 am

jtcb you can't be serious. For this you can get from second hand any 2 years old computer at a faction of the price, and run "MS Office, ACCPAC, internet, watch online steaming video, TV, dvd movie, burn dvds" perfectly fine. i7 860 is a very strong (and expensive) CPU and it's value would be wasted if you don't use it for more.


***********************************************************
About the motherboard beeping witch was discussed in this thread before (wc2wc), I have more informations:

" Willeo
Do you have any further information on the beeping you say is related to the SATA? I have a computer that randomly beeps like you were talking about. Any suggestions on how to fix it? Maybe some hard drive settings in the bios. Thanks.

Tyr Antilles
Hi, no, I don't, I came to conclusion that this beeping related to having multiple SATA HDD's connected on motherboard and is harmless. I just use my computer like that and even if I receive randomly a beep, sometimes at a half of hour, sometimes at a half of day, this don't bother me too much. I don't know what this beep means and I would like to find out, but so far no success.
If you discover more informations regarding this subject, please share them with me.

Willeo
I think I solved the beeping problem. Turns out I did not have the correct memory voltage selected in the bios. The default voltage in the bios is 1.5 volts and my memory is 1.65 volts. Read up on all the memory settings of your ram and go into the bios and look around. Good luck.

Tyr Antilles
Ooo, thank you. My memory is rated at 1.65V too, and I tried 1.66, 1.64, and 1.5 at lower values, no 1.65 option in the bios for my mobo, but the beeping sound still appear from time to time. But now I know is from memory, thank you, I will try to play more with voltages.

Willeo
I wanted to be a little more specific in what I did. I changed the bios settings by enabling the X.M.P. Extreme Memory Profile. This makes the bios able to read the memory setting from the memory. This over clocks the computer from 2.66 to 2.8 all the time...so your cpu heat will increase a little ( I just ordered a $15 heat sink from newegg.com today to help reduce it a little. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835103064 ). I also set the Performance Enhance to standard instead of the default turbo. With those settings it set the dram voltage to 1.6 so I ask gigabyte and they said to increase the voltage to 1.6 and it would run the most stable. I will try changing that tonight. So far I have had no beeps since the changes. Gigabyte suggest changing the settings manually to match your dram but it's working with the above settings pretty well. Let me know if you get your's working right.

Tyr Antilles
Great, thanks, you helped me a lot to better understand my problem. I already have my memory on 1.6 and I think I tried all settings already. I get the beeps now only very rarely, less then once per day, and I get no memory errors in any application. I did enabled the XMP too in earlier tests but power consumption and heat increased just too much for my taste so I kept it disabled. I wrote a full review about my system here viewtopic.php?t=57310 and so far I am very happy with this.

Because our conversation here might be of interest for many I will ask for your permission to post it on the "Recommended P55 boards" thread. Is that OK?

Willeo
Sure, go ahead and post it. I did notice others on the web have similar problems and I imagine they may have not noticed the ram settings are not set automatically by default. Nice detailed post on your computer setup."

jtcb
Posts: 104
Joined: Sat Dec 13, 2003 10:58 am
Location: Vancouver, BC Canada

Post by jtcb » Wed Jan 27, 2010 1:25 am

I got the i7 for the price of i5 I wouldn't complain about it. As for the beeping problem. Is that mean I have to get a ram with 1.5v and there will be no beeping sound?

Tyr Antilles
Posts: 30
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 10:02 am
Location: Europe

Post by Tyr Antilles » Wed Jan 27, 2010 9:32 am

jtcb wrote:I got the i7 for the price of i5 I wouldn't complain about it. As for the beeping problem. Is that mean I have to get a ram with 1.5v and there will be no beeping sound?
Nice, for the i7, you are lucky.
About ram - no. This beep appear only at certain motherboards, and even then at certain settings. The only problem is to find out what the good settings are :). I noticed that if i enable XMP on my computer and leave all voltage settings on AUTO, i don't get any beeps, I just don't want to do that.

George7
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Jan 31, 2010 2:51 pm
Location: Essex, UK

Post by George7 » Sun Jan 31, 2010 4:35 pm

I have a P55A-UD3 and something makes a sort of buzzing noise when under full load (Prime95 for example). Not sure if this effects the running or stability of the system at all though. It's not a loud or annoying sound but it's really worrying me as I don't want my system to break in time as I'm planning on keeping this system for a very long time. As long as someone can tell me that this is normal and won't effect the long term running of the system, I'll be fine with it :)

Post Reply