Introduction

Today, Intel officially announce it's Intel P55 chipset. This chipset supports the new LGA 1156 Socket type processors. Ironically, the LGA1156 processors also comes in the form of Core i7 and Core i5.

Today we take a look at Gigabyte's latest mainboard featuring this new socket type LGA1156. The Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 is the top notch board from Gigabyte supporting the upcoming Lynnfield processors from Intel

Featuring a 24 Phase power and Ultra durable - 2oz copper PCB, it is simply not another P55 board as it has more to offer.

The first thing that captures my attention is the 6 DIMM slots. Although X58 is tri channel architecture, the P55 isn't. The extra DIMM slots are there for you to take throw in more memory. This is somewhat unique on the P55-UD6. In addition, Gigabyte also introduces a new Powered eSATA/USB combo port. You can now insert a USB or eSATA stick into the same port. There is also a feature known as X.H.D - eXtreme Hard Drive. GIGABYTE eXtreme Hard Drive (X.H.D) provides a quick and easy way to boost your hard drive performance simply by adding another hard drive.

Most boards offer 6 SATA2 ports, the GA-P55-UD6 offers 4 more making it a total of 10. This is done by 2 Jmicron chip underneath the heatsink. It seems that SATA 3 support isn't available just yet.

There are also 3 full length PCIe 2.0 slots that will work in either CrossFire X or SLI mode. Thus you can tap the power of best graphics cards available.

The board also features SMART 6. Basically Smart 6 are some innovative software utilities that allow you to speed up the system, reduce boot up time, manage a secure platform, and recover user settings with a mouse click. The listed utilities are.

1. Smart Dual BIOS: Two Physical BIOS chips
2. Smart QuickBoot: Speeds up system boot time
3. Smart QuickBoost: Quick and effortless CPU OCing for the novice and experienced OCer
4. Smart Recovery: Roll back to previous system settings to a known working status
5. Smart Recorder: Monitors uptime and when the PC was turned on and off and even large file copies
6. Smart TimeLock: Allows parents to schedule PC time for children

On top of that, there is the Smart Dual LAN. It offers fail over capability. It can also be teamed up for higher bandwidth. In addition, this board comes with a TPM or trusted platform module chip. GIGABYTE Smart TPM provides the industries highest level of data protection with 2048 bit hardware encryption. A unique feature of GIGABYTE Smart TPM is that it allows users to store their digital key on a USB thumb drive. In addition, GIGABYTE Smart TPM allows users to lock the protected data remotely using a Bluetooth® enabled mobile phone

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