Pity that it's gonna be hard to get anything stronger than 2x 4870s on these machines.

I was running them with a pair of 4870 X2s without a problem. Though I can't publish numbers yet, you'd be surprised how close comparably-clocked i7 and i5-based machines will come.

I think the eSATA ports at the back panel are the eSATA/USB combo ports as there are only 2 more headers for 4 front USB ports...
=)

Have you had a go at overclocking the new Lynnfields yet? It was reported in Custom PC magazine (a publication we get in the UK) that MSI engineers didn't find it hard to push the new Lynnfields to 5Ghz on air.

Haven't yet JeanLuc. I'm waiting on two new coolers from a couple of different vendors that should allow a bit more overclocking flexibility. As of now, I'm currently limited to a fairly makeshift cooling setup that isn't really any good for overclocking.

Is there any chance that the new directx 11 cards will be so powerfull, that only one high end card will be sufficent to max out all the bandwith available, disabling the chance to run a crossfire/sli setup on this boards???
I could be saying something really stupid, but that max 16x bandwith available seems fishy to mee...

You have to remember on PCI express v2 x16 lanes is more like x32 lanes since PCI express V2 offers twice the bandwidth for the same amount of lanes (v1 can handle 250Mb's per lane V2 500mb's per lane). Now say if ATI's 5870 was twice as quick as the HD 4870 there would still be enough bandwidth in a PCI express X16 v1 lane to run that card without any troubles.

I'm not sure there is much of a difference between Core i5 and i7...i mean of course we will wait for the results, i just don't see a big difference.

nice boards.. wish they would produce some with 10 or more SATA ports... for the data storage packrats that some of us are!

Wow, seems like Tom's is a little behind on the knowledge. lol
They say:
"why 6 dimm slots when i5 is limited to dual channel"?
"why 3 pci-e slots wehn i5 is limited to two lanes"?
It's almost like Tom's doesn't know theres gonna be s1156 i7's running on the P55.

Regarding the need/want for dual gigabit ethernet on mainstream boards, I'd have to say there's quite a few features on these boards that's even less useful.

Of the top of my head, in no particular order.

Floppy.
COM.
PAR.
PS2.
PCI.
PATA.
Firewire.
More SATA then the chipset already provide.

When I bought my first PC motherboard in 2003/4 all these were already redundant. Six years down the line I've yet to find a use for any single one of the above and wince inwardly at having to pay, regardless of amount, for these features.

Dual gigabit ethernet though, I could make use of that. Even more so with Teaming support.

There's nothing wrong with PS2 ports. Trying using a text based Linux (such as DSL) with a USB keyboard and see how far you get. Even on my Windows machine I use USB to PS2 converters just so I can keep my USB ports spare.

I won't be surprised to see how i5 comes to i7. I figured that would be the case. The thing that would make nervous though is the upgrade path available for it.

I won't be in the market for a whole new set up for a while though. So in the end I'll have to settle to upgrade to a C2Q when I have the extra funds and a little cooler weather here in which to overclock it.

Oh BTW for mouse and keyboard PS2 > USB.

USB uses polling, so the more USB devices you have the lower performance you'll get out of it. PS2 doesn't it. It's still perfect for keyboards and mice.

Is the i7 and i5 using different cooler holes? i7's are a bit further apart than C2D's so is i5's in between?

Yup, 1366 and 1156 aren't compatible, though I'm sure many vendors will start including clips for i5, just as many include clips for AMD/Intel platforms today.

I just bought an Intel i7 920 the other day. I hope that the 1156 version is just the same thing. Yesh, I'm starting to have buyer's remorse.

While I personally find PS2 utterly useless, as would the vast majority of uses that neither know of or would notice the difference between a PS2 or USB mouse and keyboard, I never said that it were.

Just that's it's less useful than having two gigabit ethernet ports would be.

Every argument I've seen so far, a total of two, in favor of PS2 relies on archaic issues - and I use the word issues very lightly here - that are only still around because motherboard makers haven't removed the legacy support quickly enough.

Do you believe we'd even have any PCI audio cards on the market today if the ports had been taken off all mainstream motherboards in '06, two years after the introduction of PCIe?

As for polling...

SCSI > ATA
BETAMAX > VHS

I could go on but I'm sure the point has been made. Polling hasn't been an issue in this millennium, the vast majority of users don't make use of more than 3-4 USB devices and retaining legacy support for PS2 when USB does more for less doesn't make the least bit of sense.

Especially when considering a mainstream motherboard, which the P55-based ones are.

WHY WHY WHY WHY WHY DO THEY KEEP GETTING RID OF THE DROP BAR NAVAGATION???

This is a picture story--you can navigate the whole thing using thumbnails at the top. In regular editorial content, the drop-bar is still there!