Gigabyte's embracing new technologies such as USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gbps in making motherboards has taken the shape of an entire series of motherboards, which intends to cover every price point the company was eying with its large socket LGA-1156 motherboard lineup. The series is designated by GA-P55A before the model identifier. The series is lead by the high-end GA-P55A-UD6, followed (in order) by GA-P55A-UD5, GA-P55A-UD4P, GA-P55A-UD4, GA-P55A-UD3P, GA-P55A-UD3R, and GA-P55A-UD3. All of these are ATX motherboards. Some of these, such as the UD4s, UD5, and UD6, are multi-GPU friendlier with PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots that split into x8, and share 8 lanes with the next slot, while in lower models, the second PCI-E x16 slot is electrical x4, and wired to the P55 PCH. In all these motherboards, the SATA 6 Gb/s ports are two in number, and are color-coded white. Similarly, USB 3.0 ports on all these models are two in number, and color-coded blue, located on the rear-panel. These motherboards support socket LGA-1156 processors from Intel, currently available as the quad-core Core i5, and Core i7 "Lynnfield" series. It remains unclear whether all of these new models replace the existing GA-P55 series motherboards (that lack USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s) from the market, or somehow coexist at slightly higher price-points. What is certain however, is that you need to pay attention to the model names, and look out for P55A in the model names, since the rest of the nomenclature is identical. Detailed specifications are found in the specs sheets below.


Source: TechConnect Magazine