Here it is! As requested, I’ve finally started unboxing some of the new AMD boards that feature USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s. This is Gigabyte’s flagship AM3 board right now and it comes with all of the bells and whistles. Sorry the video is a bit long, but there’s a lot to cover.

Having a look at the entry level board from Gigabyte’s new P55A line up. No SLI and less robust power delivery are a couple of features missing on this board when compared against its big brother the UD4P.

USB 3.0 and SATA3 or SATA 6.0Gb/s are the big features on this new generation of boards coming out right now. Check out one of the best “bang for the buck” boards out there from Gigabyte.

Forgot to write a description for this. I didn’t actually mean to make it public, but YouTube fails. I wanted to fix the black borders before making it visible to everyone. I guess it’s out there now so I might as well leave it.

The only difference may be the sticker that comes on the heatsink, but here’s the Gigabyte version of the Radeon HD 5850!

I had totally thought I was done with the Gigabyte P55 unboxing videos, but I wasn’t! I forgot this board was even coming out until I saw it in the warehouse on Friday before the long weekend. I took it with me to Seattle intending to actually shoot the episode while I was there, but it didn’t happen until I got home

Sorry guys!

It’s a bit of a challenge to try to find advantages to give the regular viewers who check out my blog, but maybe I’ll reveal the upcoming videos that you can look forward to once we’re done our Gigabyte P55 unboxing series. The next group of P55 boards coming in are going to be from eVGA, so I’ll be diligently unboxing all of those as soon as I can get my grubby hands on them. Stay tuned!!

This is our first ever episode filmed in Taiwan.

NOT.

Actually it’s just filmed on a giant world map that we found near our office in the area that represents Taiwan. I hope you enjoy my coverage of the Gigabyte P55-UD6 motherboard!

Well that was really embarassing. Yesterday when I meant to upload this video, I accidently uploaded one of the takes that I wrecked. It would have been fine except that while I was uploading I deleted all of the “bad” takes from my camera including the real good take. Oh well. I took some time today and not only re-shot the P55M-UD4, but also the rest of the Gigabyte line up. I’ll be releasing the videos day by day, so stay tuned.

I’ve also got authorization now to do a LOT more unboxing/showcase videos for my blog, so basically I’ll be opening up anything I can get my hands on for your YouTube viewing enjoyment!

My quest for a suitable X58 platform began with the requirement for SLI compatibility. All of the high end X58 boards I’ve seen so far have that checkbox filled. The next big requirement was slot layout. Currently I’m using two dual slot water cooled graphics cards (no desire to go full cover at this time), a PCI sound card (that can go as I’m only using it for mic in with an optical connection to my Onkyo TX-SR605), a PCIe 1x Intel gigabit NIC, and I’d really like to upgrade to a PCIe 8x RAID card in the near future.

Gigabyte really FUBARed the slot layout of the EX58-EXTREME with that weird heatsink that attaches to the northbridge… It blocks the top PCIe 1x and the PCIe 4x slot… But at least you can remove it. Boards like the Foxconn Blood Rage and the ASUS P6T, although appealing, simply won’t accommodate my expansion needs. The P6T Deluxe layout I just don’t understand… Why put the two bottom PCIe 16x slots next to each other?

The Gigabyte board has everything I need: Dual PCIe 16x physical with another that is electrically only 8x for a RAID card (3Ware tech I was talking to today says a lot of consumer boards will not properly work with an 8x card in a 16x electrical slot…). It also has a very robust cooling solution. Above you can see the naked board as well as a shot of how it’s attached to the board from the underside.

Here you can see the integrated water cooling solution with 3/8″ ID 5/8″ OD Primochill tubing on it. It fits great and these barbs are surprisingly good quality for an integrated affair. Gigabyte recommends 1/2″ OD tubing though and you can see the reason for it. With the Extreme Heatpipe dealie installed, 5/8″ OD tubing is a tight fit.

I was a little disappointed with the overall fit and finish of the water cooling solution. It does appear to be ALL copper (kudos to Gigabyte), and the base appears very flat and shiny, but the finish on the actual northbridge heatpipe assembly is VERY rough and not flat at all. I can’t imagine it will make very good contact, especially without thermal compound over the whole thing. That said, it’s good enough for my purposes and I’m not looking to set any world records.