Thread: ASUS P7P55D EVO Core i5 Motherboard

The upcoming ASUS P7P55D EVO motherboard that will be released in conjunction with Intel Core i5 processors down the road. The sad thing is that many news and review sites are showing old prototype P7P55D EVO motherboard images. Where we in fact talk to the companies to make sure our information is accurate before posting it on the web, we have several latest information for our readers that you might not have seen yet. We were capable to get in touch with ASUS Taiwan this morning and were able to land a pair of photos that show the ASUS P7P55D EVO motherboard including the new Southbridge heatsink and have received news that the Marvell SATA 6G controller has been removed.

The P7P55D 'EVO' motherboard is based on Intel's LGA1156 socket intended for Intel Lynnfield Processors or else Core i5, so this is an entire new-fangled socket for a new generation of processors that will be upcoming out soon. To our knowledge the P55 Express chipset will no longer mark a QPI bus (Quick Path Interconnect) and so has no Northbridge, which will likely have a bang on performance when compared to the Intel X58 Express chipset. Also misplaced is triple channel DDR3, which was reinstated by dual channel DDR3. This is good news as it will lower system costs, and it is good for those upgrading from preceding invention DDR3 platforms like the X38/X48 as they might be able to carry on using the similar memory kit if they like. The major unhelpful that we can see with the P55 chipset is that Intel has limited the bandwidth of the x16 PCI express to 8 lanes. This is considerable if you plan on running a multi-GPU system like NVIDIA SLI or else ATI CrossFire. For the normal customer that runs just one video card this shouldn't be a huge deal as the complete advantage of PCIe 2.0 with 16 lanes is accessible when one card is being used. When two video cards are being used the full 16 lanes is divided among two PCIe slots (x8 + x8). It's not official and/or public that NVIDIA SLI will be supported on the P55 chipset, but we think it's extremely possible that it will be. ATI CrossFire is, of course, supported again, so no worries there.

The color scheme has been updated and I/O ports have been updated as well to incorporate External SATA (eSATA). It should also be well-known that SATA6G is not here any longer due to Marvell limitations (yield and other issues of the Marvell controller are to blame according to our sources in Taiwan). As a result, the SATA color scheme has been adjusted. Due to the Marvell yield problem SATA6G was detached from the EVO and also all of ASUS' P55 mass production boards. The only board that will ship with SATA6G support now is the ASUS P55 Premium motherboard. Once Marvell gets all issues determined in terms of yield and a few other areas ASUS will reintroduce this feature into their P55 boards. As a side note, Marvell, as well as ASUS, wanted to make it clear that SATA 6G is not SATA III as it puzzles end users who may think it is SATA II/2 which has 300MB throughput.

The I/O backplate area on the P7P55D 'EVO' motherboard looks like it has all the bells and whistles that all the current high-end X58 motherboards recommend. ASUS included the legacy PS/2 ports for both keyboard as well as mouse, but also positioned 8 USB ports, Firewire, double LAN ports, 10 Channel audio considerations of six 3.5mm audio jacks or the S/PDiff output, as well as the new eSATA port on the I/O backplate.