Right after CES, the Intel Core i5 600 Series processors, with their 32nm construction and onboard graphics processing, entered the market with a fair amount of hype and hoopla. Today’s building excitement is for the soon to be released six-core LGA 1366 Core i9, also built with the 32nm process.
But, if an enthusiast wants to build a gaming rig or workstation today, the Intel processor to consider is still the Core i7 with its massive power coming from four cores. The only real decision is whether to go the more expensive route with the LGA 1366 i7 900 series and its massive triple channel memory bandwidth, or the slightly more modern route with the Core i7 800 series and the many architectural advances found in LGA 1156 and the P55 chipset.
There are a couple of other decisions that will have to be made, mainly whether or not to get ready for the two other new technologies on the market…SATA 6gb/s, and USB 3. Many new P55 motherboards have onboard SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3, but were you aware that most of them actually use PCI-E lanes to compensate for the lack of buses to utilize these new methods of data transfer, taking those valuable lanes away from the video cards?
Today I will be looking at the Asus P7P55D-E Pro, a middle-of-the-road version of Asus’ new P55 motherboards that sport SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3 without PCI-E compensation. Yes, this board prepares you for the future while allowing you the full use of your PCI-E lanes for SLI or CrossfireX by using Asus’ new PLX implementation. Is the P7P55D-E Pro the P55 board to have? Read on to see!
Special thanks to ASUS for providing us with the P7P55D-E Pro Intel P55 LGA 1156 Motherboard to review.
Packaging
The P7P55D-E Pro uses Asus’ new sky blue color scheme. As usual, the box is covered in specs and features both front and back.
Inside the board is protected from the accessories by a cardboard divider, and is protected from static electricity by Asus’ anti-static sleeve.
