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When I began testing Intel’s Lynnfield-based processors a couple of months ago, there were two motherboards that kept my attention during the process. Of those, one was Gigabyte’s P55-UD5, already reviewed, and ASUS’ P7P55D Pro, also known as the one being discussed here. The reason for delay for this review isn’t too important, but it comes down to the fact that after the initial Lynnfield content was finished, our CPU cooler’s mounting bracket was rendered useless.
This seems like a simple problem, because getting a replacement should be simple. In this case, it wasn’t, and it took more than a month to finally receive what I sought out for. Had I known in the beginning just how long it was going to take, I would have looked at other options, but lesson learned. Now we have what we need, and we’ll be looking at many more P55 boards in the months to come.
Because I benchmarked this motherboard months ago, the performance data shown throughout the review has been borrowed from our aforementioned review of the P55-UD6. The reason I held off on posting a review had to do with overclocking, and overclocking only. Obviously, there’s not much overclocking headroom with Intel’s stock cooler, as you’d expect, so I wanted to wait for our replacement Thermalright MUX-120 to show up.
In addition to the performance results, images and general information on this page has also been borrowed from a preview we did prior to Lynnfield’s launch, with some modifications. So without further ado, let’s see what ASUS’ P7P55D Pro is made of from a feature’s standpoint.
When Intel launched its Lynnfield processors, ASUS wasted no time in unveiling its fleet of P55 motherboards, nine in total. That number has since increased, but most aren’t full-fledged brand-new models, but rather revisions of what’s been out there. One exception is the addition of the WS SuperComputer, a board that focuses on the high-end aspect of P55, bringing back full PCI-E 16x multi-GPU graphics to the platform, thanks to NVIDIA’s NF200 chip.
Since ASUS’ initial P55 boards were launched, prices have gone down on all of them by at least $5 or $10 (based on current Newegg pricing). The model I’m looking at here, the Pro, sells for $170, and as such, it’s placed in ASUS’ “mid-range” category. This means that the board isn’t overflowing with bling and seemingly unnecessary features, but it delivers just what the enthusiast is looking for, along with ample overclocking ability.
Some select ASUS P55 motherboards have experienced S-ATA 3.0 upgrades, such as the Premium, but the Pro has been left alone. Given the infancy of S-ATA 6, and the overall lack of drives in the marketplace, not to mention the fact that even SSDs can’t generally exceed the available bandwidth of S-ATA 3Gb/s, this isn’t a major, or even a minor concern at the current time.
ASUS doesn’t believe in shipping out plain Jane motherboards, but rather aims to deliver a quality set of features that can prove useful to anyone using the board. One of the major features with this and select other ASUS motherboards is the TurboV EVO hardware and software overclocking feature. I’ll touch on this later in the review, but let me say now that this is an overclocking tool done right.
In addition to that, there’s also a robust power phase solution, 12+2 (the +2 is dedicated to the integrated memory controller), along with T.Probe, a hardware solution that monitors the effectiveness of currently-used phases. If the computer is under high load, it’ll work to spread it across as many phases as it deems necessary to increase both stability and power efficiency.
Another cool feature is “MemOK!”, yet another hardware solution that helps make memory issues a thing of the past. If the RAM kit installed fails to allow the PC to boot, pushing the MemOK! button the motherboard will force modest settings to allow the board to boot, and in turn, let you into the BIOS to manually set stable settings. All of this and more is included on the motherboard, and I recommend that if you want to get to the nitty gritty of it all, then you take a look at the feature page on ASUS’ official product page.
It goes without saying that power efficiency is at the forefront of many consumers’ minds today, and for good reason. Whether you are trying to save money or the environment – or both – it’s good to know just how much effort certain vendors are putting into their products to help them excel in this area. Both AMD and Intel have worked hard to develop efficient chips, and that’s evident with each new launch. The CPUs are getting faster, and use less power, and hopefully things will stay that way.
To help see what kind of wattage a given processor draws on average, we use a Kill-A-Watt that’s plugged into a power bar that’s in turn plugged into one of the wall sockets, with the test system plugged directly into that. The monitor and other components are plugged into the other socket and is not connected to the Kill-A-Watt.
To test, the computer is first boot up and left to sit at idle for five minutes, at which point the current wattage is recorded if stable. To test for full CPU load, LinX is run with 2560MB memory usage for a total of five minutes. During that run, the highest point the wattage reaches on the meter is captured and becomes our “Max Load”.
I admit that these results surprised me a bit. The Gigabyte board costs about $50 more than the ASUS board, so by that logic alone, I’d figure that the P55-UD5 was more robust overall, and would of course result in greater power consumption. That wasn’t at all the case though, as the P7P55D Pro actually drew an additional 17W at full load, and 10W at idle.
Whew, it’s sure taken a while, but I’m glad I was finally able to get this review posted. Overall, I’m quite pleased with the first ASUS P55 offering I’ve touched, and I look forward to getting more boards in our lab in the coming months to see what else is out there, at a variety of different price-ranges. I came to like the P7P55D Pro quite a bit two months ago when I first started testing with it, and since then, not a thing has changed.
From a price and features standpoint, the P7P55D Pro at $170 offers a great bang for the buck. It doesn’t overwhelm with features, but it doesn’t hold anything important back either. It offers a lot of HDD/ODD connectivity, an ample supply of PCI/PCI-E slots for most people, a great design and good looks, and a set of hardware and software features that are well worth acknowledging.
It might seem a little odd to praise something so simple, but I really do like the modified PCI-E tabs and altered design to the DIMM slots. Both are designed to make installing GPUs and memory modules a lot easier, and that’s what’s important. It’s hard to believe that ASUS has a patent on each one of these features (perhaps it shouldn’t be), so it’s unfortunate we won’t see the same implementation on other vendor’s motherboards – at least with the exact same design.
On the lookout for a P55 motherboard to match that shiny new Lynnfield CPU? Given the sheer selection available, deciding on one can be a hassle. ASUS’ P7P55D Pro looks to appeal to a large crowd, though, by offering a slew of useful options, impressive overclocking abilities and a great design for an easy-to-stomach $170.
Given its robust feature-set, smart design, great overclocking ability and price-point, I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending the P7P55D Pro to anyone looking for a board that does it all, but doesn’t break the bank. Unfortunately, even though P55 boards have been out for a few months, this is the first ASUS board we’ve had the pleasure in taking a look at. That’ll change soon, however, and I hope to be able to deliver follow-up reviews of ASUS (and others) P55 motherboards in the near-future.
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