SATA and eSATA Performance

Website: HD Tach 3.0

We tested the SATA and eSATA performance with an Intel X25-M SSD to maximise the use of the SATA connections and reveal any differences in performance.


Gigabyte suffers from the same Lynnfield CPU idle sleep state issue that the Asus does when it comes to SATA performance. Under the BIOS's default settings that aggressively clock the CPU down to save power, it also seems to reduce the SATA clock and therefore bandwidth unless the CPU is at full speed.

MSI does not seem to suffer this issue as it hits a nice 216MB/sec. However, like the Asus, the Gigabyte board(s) can't even crack the 200MB/s mark with an Intel X25-M G1. It does, however, have an improved performance compared to the UD4 and does manage to squeeze out a decent 187.5MB/s, but it still isn't using the full potential of our SSD.

We tested everyone of the four white SATA ports and found they all perform around 174MB/s, with the eSATA a fraction slower at 172.2MB/s: both are very good results is we look at the Asus alternative, although Gigabyte's P55M-UD4 extra SATA ports are 10MB/s faster? Given the fact we're using the exact same hardware and software setup, some consistency would be nice in Gigabyte's products.

Disabling the CPU sleep states, forcing it to run at its native speed all the time, gives the best SATA performance from the Intel P55 ports, so be wary those of you with SSDs and RAID-0 setups. This is especially annoying, as disabling the sleep states of a Lynnfield CPU means you can't use Turbo Boost (rev 2) which is actually very good. Still, you have to disable Turbo Boost when overclocking, so this might not be a big issue anyway.

USB 2.0 Performance

Website: HD Tach 3.0

We tested the USB performance with an Intel X25-M SSD and a SATA to USB adapter to saturate the USB bus in order to look for any performance drops.


For some reason the USB performance just can't crack the usual standard of 34MB/s. We tested multiple USB ports, restarted the machine several times and rechecked all the connections but received a consistent sub-32MB/s result. Something is taking USB bandwidth away. (Om, nom nom nom - Ed.)