Thread: Asus p7p55d-e premium

The P7P55D-E Premium is the top-of-the-line model from Asus' P7P55 series of motherboards based on the Intel P55 chipset. Asus has tried its best to squeeze loads of features in on this board and they have done a good job on all fronts. First up, the board features a 32-phase power design for extreme stability while overclocking. A wired external remote and software are bundled for instant overclocking-no need to reboot to apply the new settings. As a feature of the Intel P55 chipset, the board supports up to 16 GB of DDR3 memory, six SATA ports, and CrossFire in dual-x8 mode. The additional features deserve a special mention. This board is one of the few first ones to feature support for USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s. Two additional SATA 3.0 ports (color-coded white) are present, courtesy a Marvell 9123 controller and a pair of USB 3.0 ports (color-coded blue) are present on the rear panel. Although the board is future-proof, there are hardly any SATA 3.0 and USB 3.0 devices out there, and by the time they become widespread, newer chipsets will support the standards natively. Nevertheless, it's a very good attempt by Asus for early adopters. The motherboard also supports SLI and features the Asus ExpressGate chip for instant access to Internet and media player during boot up.

We didn't have any complaints with the layout, except for the two PCI slots between the two PCle x16 slots. You'll have to sacrifice one if you install a dual-slot graphics card. The PCle xl slots are located right at the bottom. You'll have to sacrifice one of them too if you go in for a multi-GPU setup. The fancy heat spreaders for the power regulators and LED-backlit heatslnk for the southbridge give this board a mean look-and it performs as good as it looks too!

FOR: USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s support, extremely stable, overclocking device.

AGAINST: No eSATA port on the rear panel.