Any opinion/experience about Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3P or UD3R?

[erminardi]

As in title I'm oriented to this i3/i5/i7 with 4xPCI and e-sata.
I think that Gigabyte motherboards are quite good products.
Any experience here in PlanetZ?

Thanks in advance.

[dawman]

Yes, through association , but none the less the UD series has been very good for Scoping.
As usual these days there are always problems with any new release, but Gigabyte solved it's early i7 issues with PCI-e audio connectors in the first 6 months.
As for the UD's and 32bit PCI there were zero issues as PCI-e was still in it's infancy, where as PCI had been around quite a while.
I still would be using PCI 32bit Scope cards if there wasn't an XITE-1.

[ThomasT]

And? Did you bought one? Any problems?

I'm also looking for a new board. And since I had good experience with gigabyte in the past I considered them, too.

[erminardi]

@Jimi, thanks
@Thomas, not yed, but I will next weeks (actually I'm working on a project, so no time to experiment...)

[ThomasT]

@Thomas, not yed, but I will next weeks (actually I'm working on a project, so no time to experiment...)

That means you actually consider a Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3 ?
I ask because this would shorten my own research ...
(hoping you checked another ones before and Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3 were not the only ones you looked at.)

[erminardi]

A couple days ago I bought finally the GA-P55-UD3L with an iNTEL i7 quad core, 3GB ram, etc.
today was the "windows XP installation day" (I will remain in XP until a mature scope 5.x XTC enviroment)
next days I will install the audio programs + scope 5.0 and I will report all my impressions

All I can say now is that the CPU pure power is unexpected!!!
I predict a very huge number of stereo tracks + VSTi opened!
Now I can understand why Powercore and SSL stopped making DSP boards... with this kind of power it's really hard to put the system in crisis.

wow!

[garyb]

Now I can understand why Powercore and SSL stopped making DSP boards... with this kind of power it's really hard to put the system in crisis.

wow!

well, yes, unless you are using plugins of the quality of the best Scope, UAD or SSL plugins. those will still bring the system to it's kness. most users don't know the difference, that's the main disadvantage for such systems...

[erminardi]

Yeah, Jimmi, obviously the scope and UAD plugins IMO are unbeatable compared to native, more focus at low and high frequencies.
But the average of user aren't conscious of theese differences.

[erminardi]

After a couple of days of hard work for the system (my last project must be finished soon) I can say that this board (Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3L) is a very good choice for those want 4 PCI slots.
The i7 870 is a rocket and my heaviest project remains under the 30%!!!
I'm very happy with my 8 tasks

With 32bit XP pro SP3 + 3 GB DDR3 it's a rocket, and with 6Gb and 64bit I expect a Shuttle Enedeavour!!!
But for now I prefer to remain into 32 bit until the 5.x becomes more mature (XTC!!!!!)