Asus P7P55D
The $150 P7P55D doesn’t have as many features as the cheaper ASRock competitor, but some are arguably of better quality.
For example, Asus skips the power, reset, and CLR_CMOS buttons, but instead includes a “Mem OK” feature to make booting with low-quality RAM easier. Asus has not included a Port 80 diagnostics module knowing that many users won’t even be able to see it, but instead adds "Q-LED" indicators which flash once when initializing the CPU, DRAM, and hard drive and stay lit if a problem is detected. Asus has one less eSATA port on the I/O panel, instead placing one of its eSATA controller ports internally for use with a case's front-panel eSATA connector. And while the digital audio output features only the optical connector, it’s tied to an arguably-better VIA Vinyl VT1828S codec.
Owners won’t find backwards-compatibility for their old LGA 775 water blocks, but instead get a beefier 12+2 phase voltage regulator. Asus even added an extra expansion slot compared to its lower-priced competitor, though it’s located under the top PCIe x16 slot where folks with dual-slot graphics cards won’t be able to use it.
But what about that second PCIe x16 slot? We hoped that the highest-priced motherboard in today's lineup would provided electronic lane switches to automatically detect a second graphics card and configure both slots in x8 mode but the P7P55D, like many lower-cost competitors, instead takes four pathways from the chipset. The P55 PCH does however provide bandwidth-doubling PCIe 2.0 technology and is compatible with lesser graphics cards and RAID controllers, features that open up a multitude of other expansion options even if its performance doesn’t sound suitable for high-end graphics.
Also missing is the floppy header so often needed by Windows XP users to add RAID drivers during installation, which is even more surprising since this particular motherboard seems so spacious (Ed.: let's hope this ceases to be a "feature" once Windows 7 launches). The spaciousness comes by way of a PCB that can reach the third row of a case's standoffs, for better support under DIMMs.
Asus moved its primary PCIe x16 slot all the way to the top, making installation in low-profile “riser card”-style cases completely possible and relevant. Doing so normally crowds DIMM latches, but Asus went “latch free” on the lower end of each memory slot. We’ve heard that the memory can fall out if you mount this motherboard in a case with super-heavy modules and drop the case very hard on its side, but we don’t treat our equipment that way. Thus, the biggest drawback we can think of for this design is its inability to support certain clamp-on memory fans.
Other than the missing floppy header, the two layout concerns we found were a front-panel audio connector in the impossible-to-reach bottom-rear corner and a single SATA connector that could be blocked by super-long graphics cards, such as the new Radeon HD 5870. Asus includes a right-angle cable to overcome that obstacle, but the included cable might not be long enough to reach the front-panel eSATA connector of some super-tower cases.
BIOS
New to recent Asus models is the OC Tuner application in BIOS, which performs automatic overclock and stress testing. It didn’t work well for us, stopping short of our processor’s Turbo Boost limit at 3,315 MHz while disabling Turbo and picking a 19x CPU multiplier to boost memory speed.
Manual overclocking works just as it always has, with Load-Line Calibration keeping voltage relatively constant under changing loads.
The P7P55D includes many advanced memory timing adjustments, eased by an “auto” configuration value for each.
Priced at the top of the $100-$150 category, the P7P55D includes class-topping BIOS adjustments, such as drive strength and skew controls.
Asus even includes enough space on the BIOS IC to store eight user profiles. Anyone who wants to send his or her profile to a friend in need of help with settings will find an application for that as well.
Accessories
Focusing on motherboard quality rather than added features, Asus includes only four SATA cables (two with right-angle ends) and an 80-conductor Ultra ATA ribbon in its P7P55D installation kit.
