Gigabyte Unleashes Extras-laden P55 Motherboard

Gigabyte has released a statement on the launch of a new flagship motherboard for the Intel P55 chipset platform, the GA-P55A-UD7.  A DigiTimes report on the releases says the GA-P55A-UD7 will continue the tradition of the company’s UD7-series of “packing as many extra features on the board as it can find space for”.

Extra Extra!

In the case on the GA-P55A-UD7 value-added extras not seen on common P55-based boards include support for Nvidia 3-Way SLI. USB 3.0 with Power Boost, and SATA 6Gbpss, as well as a 24-phase power design to increase overclocking potential. Before we get into more of the details, DigiTimes asked the quite pertinent question of whether there really is logic behind adding so many extra features, which increase the selling price of the board, to what is essentially a mid-range platform (Intel has its X58 chipset for the high-end segment).

Review of the Reviews: Intel Core i3

We trawl the net so you don’t have to…

With the Intel Core 2 finding itself phased out late last year, the Core i3 – along with Core i7 and Core i5 – has been released to generally good reviews thus far. Considering how utterly successful the Core 2 processors were Intel has a lot of eyes focusing on their work this time around. However, as we sifted through some of the reviews out there of the i3 530 and 540 since their release a few weeks back, it became clear that Intel has met most expectations.

Early reports on Intel’s Core i3 capabilities have been positive

The two Core i3 models are dual-core, hyper-threading-equipped CPUs with 3MB shared L3 cache which is DDR3-1066-compatible. While most run-downs on the merits of the new range note that the Core i3 and Core i5 CPUs are “intended to be slower” than the i7, they are considerably cheaper to boot.

The sub-€1000 Core i3 Build

So, with the recent release of Intel’s latest line of processors, the Core i3 line, we’ve had an awful lot of requests from people hoping we’d put together a solid Core i3 build on a reasonable budget. I was going to ask Ryan from our RMA department about this, but then I remembered that every time I say the word “budget” he tries to fit as much as humanly possible into the build.

Instead, myself and the entirely more reasonably minded and generally stable Shelton sat down and went over the various bits and pieces we’d like to see in a Core i3 build with a vague budget of €1,000. We initially agreed to be a little loose with the budget, but Shelton decided to get strict when we were over by three cent…

Anyway, without any further delay, here’s the build we’ve come up with

CPU:

The CPU is what’s prompted this whole build, so we figured it might be best to make sure we got it out of the way as early as possible. It’s an Intel Core i3-540, which will probably say enough to those of you who’ve been keeping a close eye on it, but for those who haven’t bear with us.

Click through to check out our page on Intel's Core i3

The Core i3-540 is a dual core, socket 1156 processor with a 4MB L3 cache. It’s a solid arrangement, but for those who are interested in getting as much detail as possible, you’d do well to check out this (quite long winded) but very in-depth piece from XbitLabs, which goes into a tremendous amount of detail about Intel’s current processor line up.

Aside from all that, the Core i3-540 weighs in at €135.

Special Offers – Week of January 11th

Good afternoon all, hopefully we find you well this rainy, suspiciously snowless Monday afternoon. It’s nice to see that the “much worse” that was “still to come” on Friday hasn’t quite materialised, leaving us with a pleasant (if somewhat rainy) week ahead of us.

As anyone who reads the blog regularly will know, we like to post the special offers for the coming week on a Monday afternoon; it gives everyone the longest possible time to consider a purchase while the price is knocked down, which is always nice

Anyway, without any more delay, this week our special offers are on RAM, an upgrade kit and a media player.

4GB Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600MHz

Corsair’s Dominator is a solid RAM kit, with a full 4GB (that’s on two 2GB sticks) that shouldn’t break the bank. Still, it’s not on the low end of the performance scale.

Click through to see our page for the Corsair Dominator 4GB kit

Considering the performance, it’s nice to see Corsair’s Dominator on special offer, with the price dropped by 7%. Of course, it’s not for everyone, with high-end memory there will always be those whose machines don’t support it. In this case, you’re going to want to make sure that your motherboard supports DDR3, but aside from that you should be good to go.

It’s also worth mentioning that whenever we do a PC build, one of the guys in RMA (whether Ryan or Shetlon) will always advise that we roll with Corsair RAM, since they’re a reliable company with a solid reputation when it comes to memory. It might seem like a relatively small thing when you’re considering performance and a multitude of other things in your build… but it can save headaches later.

For this week, Corsair’s Dominator DDR3 1600MHz 4G kit will set you back €128.47.