Shootouts

Intel P55 Motherboard Shootout - The New Mainstream

By Vincent Chang - 11 Oct 2009

Temperature & Power Consumption

Temperature Testing

The thicker heat pipes on MSI's P55-GD80 showed that they were not merely marketing as we recorded the lowest temperature on the rear heatsink of the MSI. Gigabyte's emphasis on its quality and build also extended to the temperature stakes, with the second lowest temperature close behind the MSI. From what we saw, the ASUS and Intel had rather typical temperatures of between 40 and 50 degrees Celsius for this class of motherboard.

Meanwhile, the ECS P55H-A could not build on the positive momentum from its benchmark results and it was clearly the warmest of the lot.

Power Consumption

We soon found out the reason for the ECS's higher temperatures - its relatively higher power consumption. The bigger vendors emphasizing their dynamic, multi-phase power schemes got their 'patented' technologies working at least. MSI was notable for its low idling power draw. Gigabyte's 24-phase power also can take some credit for helping the board score the lowest power draw at full load. The rest fell in between them and Intel's own solution looked very decent too.

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