Extreme P55: Four LGA 1156 Motherboards Over $250

I will comment the same as in the previous motherboard roundup: please add more details the CODECs on each board. There is almost nothing about the Via VT2020 and many crucial features of the ALC889 are vendor-dependant. It would be really good to know if they support Dolby Digital Live, DTS connect, Dolby Headphone and so on.

Keep spreading the love for the best platform PERIOD.
1156 FTW !!!!!

"Already several years old, we have yet to build a system that can overcome Crysis’ system demands at 2560x1600 and 8x anti-aliasing (AA). That makes this outdated game a solid benchmark application."

"Already several years old, we have yet to build a system that can overcome Crysis’ system demands at 2560x1600 and 8x anti-aliasing (AA). That makes this outdated game a solid benchmark application."

So socket 1156 is supposed to be the most awesome thing in the world?

- No six core CPU's, EVER.
- Requires a glued on chip for more then 16 lanes.
- Motherboards overpriced compared to socket AM3.

When you buy a socket 1156 system that is all the performance you're going go get out of it. The top-end CPU's won't come down in price by much and Intel made it clear it's a mainstream platform. My socket AM3 has playable FPS, the motherboard is high end and under $200, and I'll be able to continue upgrading in the future. That is what matters to me. The Intel fan boy articles are getting so old.

They don't.



It might surprise you that new motherboard series articles follow new chipsets. So AMD fanboy, where's the new AMD chipset?

1. Do you mean on these boards or in general?
2. If it is for these boards, did you install the drivers/software from each manufaturer or used the default Windows drivers?

Thanks for the reply

None of the manufacturers list support for DDL or DTS Connect any longer. Those technologies were most likely licensed in the past and neglected due to lack of demand and cost, because typical buyers don't know what they are and won't pay extra for them.

Sorry, I'm not an Intel fanboy, but AMD thoroughly sucks right now. Heck, even with their top of the line 5xxx series graphics, they still can't damn write a driver.

It may well be Intel's monopolize actions that got AMD to this point when AMD had the top processors, but the truth is AMD products suck right now.

There are P55 mobos under $160 that you can easily find, which will still beat AM3 systems quite handily. For example, get a DFI Lanparty P55-T36.

First of all, most reviewers are begging AMD to pull a rabbit out of the hat just to get the competition moving again. Second, AMD does give you more chipset for your money.

Thanks again for including mainstream application benchmarks.

Only an idiot would buy these boards over 1366 socket.

Here we had a perfect chance to test Tri-Fire 5870s, or QuadfireX dual-5970s, and instead we get a 280? What is the point of even testing the NF200 boards if you aren't going to test the capability of the NF200 on an 1156!

I was wondering that myself, really. How does those 250$+ board compare to lower-priced ones? Where is the budget breaking point where you should go from LGA1156 to LGA1366? Maybe the budget itself doesn't even matter, it might be only features.

The problem is this, if 1156 can support bottleneck free pci-e solutions then there is no reason to go with 1366. Triple channel memory and support for a 1k+ future cpus do no justify the latency and heat caused by the NB, 130w tdp vs 90w tdp and higher initial cost (these motherboards should be being compared to the Asus WS Supercomputer and EVGA Classified 3x SLI, 400$ mobos).

Don't rule out P55 as a viable upgrade path, While the vast majority of people will pass on Gulftown due to price, the 32nm Sandybridge will support 1156. Give me low-thermal, high effeciency, super-overclockability in an affordable quadcore package, I'd take that over a hexacore all day long.

But 1156 has to support bottleneck free pci-e. I'm already 98pct sure the NF200 can't pull it off, but was really hoping we'd have a definitive answer.

They make 200 dollar AMD boards to if you really want to o/c you might check out their features. Another thing, 790 AMD will never run dual gpu Nvidia. With Fermi about to rock the gaming world, I'm sure we will have a whole slew of new turncoats in 2010. Do yourselves a favor and join us

I don't know why sites like this keep trying to convince people that a low-end technology is well suited for high end processors.

I agree with the others who wonder why anyone would want this lobotomized platform instead of the x58. There are serious compromises with this. It's great for the Clarksdale, which is a low-end product with a lot of compromises made so it's mainstream, but when you start to go high-end, it just makes no sense at all.

First of all, despite the opening page's assertion that these overclock better than Bloomfields - they don't. They overclock worse, and generally need significantly higher voltages to hit the same clock speeds. They also have to multiplex the already more restricted memory bus of the processor when using video cards that access main memory (since PCI-E is on the processor, it's got to use processor pins to reach memory). On top of this, to get full performance from modern technologies like USB 3.0, or SATA 6.0 GB, you have to do weird things with the PCI-E lanes, which increase latency and/or steal lanes from the video card so it can't use all 16.

This platform is a kludge. It's a series of compromises made to keep costs and power down. It's fine for a mainstream platform, but when we're told it's good for high-end too, it's got a lot of us scratching our heads wondering why we're being told this. It just makes no sense and we're not buying it. Intel can put all the lipstick they want on this pig, but it's still not a Hippo.

Ok this attitude is the EXACT opposite conclusion show here
http://www.fudzilla.com/content/view/16729/40/1/4/
Let's keep it simple: the Socket 1366 platform is obsolete. The turbo modes are very limiting and the three channel memory setup gives only a slight advantage. Of course, Socket 1366 CPUs don't come cheap either. The quite new i5 CPU is much easier to overclock and it's not that hard to achieve higher memory speeds.

Considering system cost, then the P55 platform is the clear winner. We have already proven that Hyperthreading/SMT is more or less a marketing gimmick. It works only with very few applications and in highly optimized applications such as x264 or games, it decreases performance. That's also the reason why we did not consider to use the i7-800 CPU series for this review.

Looking for the best performance money can buy, we recommend the i5-750 CPU. If you need SLI or Crossfire, shop for boards with an additional NF200 chip to get the most out of your two graphics cards, otherwise the P55 does just fine.

System costs are less, no northbridge, never going to have to worry about cooling that. less to troubleshoot.

But I don't think either is a "kludge" whatever that is. Theres a right choice for everyone. It seems if a personal choice is threatened in a tech article people lose it !

You sound like AMD fanboy to me..
And what a bs about upgrading lol, AMD or Intel they all will make you to upgrade, as for pricing, 965 cost same as i5 750, so do the math mate.
Both Intel and AMD here 4 profit, you just need to find a better deal.