ASUS P7P55DX Deluxe Motherboard Preview :: Layout

8-pin power

EPU6

Winbond chip

ICS chip

The layout of a board is important as the placement of a component can have consequences on another. Starting on the upper right hand corner, ASUS has positioned the 8-pin power connector a little further down the PCB than most manufacturers. This is good placement; however, as the 8-pin power connector has a straight line to the Power Supply.

MOSFET heatsinks

CPU area

P55 Express PCH

Solid Capacitors

To the right of that are the MOSFET heatsinks that are connected by a heatpipe. These surround the CPU cooling on two sides and are low profile; meaning after market CPU coolers will not interfere with them. The CPU Socket itself is of the new LGA-1156 variety. This is the mainstream socket that Intel is promoting for the Core i5 CPU. However, Intel will also be releasing Core i7 CPUs on this Socket. Note the LGA-1366 CPU will NOT work with this motherboard. Here is where the EPU6 chip is located.

Overvoltage switches

Rear of PCB

DIMM slots

Fan headers

To the right of the MOSFET heatsinks are the Overvoltage switches for the DRAM, the Integrated Memory Controller and the CPU. To use it, simply flip the switch and the system is ready for higher voltage than default. The rear of the board has the Stack Cool 2 sticker. Two metal plates are where the MOSFETs are located on the top of the board. The memory DIMMs are located below the CPU socket. The P7P55D Deluxe has four DIMM slots for up to 16GB of dual channel DDR3 1333MHz memory (2133MHz maximum overclocked).

Front Panel IO

MEMOK

24-pin power

IDE

The bottom of the board starts with the Power Fan header, a COM1 port, the MEMOK, Button, the 24-pin power connector a sideways facing IDE port and six SATA ports. The MEMOK button is a failsafe memory button that allows the board to use memory that is not stable or poor. Just push the button and the memory will boot from a failsafe memory presets. The SATA ports are of the new 6 Gb/second variety supporting the next generation of SATA interfaces.

SATA

FP I/O

external SATA

TurboV Remote connector

The left side of the board starts off with the Front Panel I/O. Each connection is labeled so even the most novice computer builder will not get the Power Switch mixed up with the Reset switch connector. ASUS also includes a Q-Connector accessory in the bundle that allows the user to insert everything at one time. To the left of the FP I/O are three external SATA ports, then three USB 2.0 headers, bringing the total on the board to 14 USB 2.0 on the board when combined with the eight on the rear I/O. To the left of the USB is the Onboard Power and Reset buttons, followed by the headers for the audio.

VT2020

Via VT6308

Realtek RTL8110C

Power Reset

Onboard sound is provided by a new VT2020 CODEC from VIA and not the normal Realtek CODEC that I've come to expect from ASUS. ASUS feels that the onboard sound provided by the VIA solution is superior to the latest Realtek CODECs and after fooling around with the audio I would have to agree. The VT2020 supports 10 channel audio with 7.1+2 channel multi-streaming. The product is not yet on VIA's website so more technical details will have to wait till the board is fully reviewed and tested to see how the audio stacks up.

Expansion slots

TurboV chip

JMB322 chip

Realtek RTL8112L

The expansion on the board consists of three PCI Express x16 slots two PCI slots and two PCI Express x1 slots. The board supports both SLI and Crossfire mode. The cards will operate at x8 x8 x4 mode if three cards are installed or x8 x8 mode if two cards, as the P55 Express chipset only support up to 20 PCI Express lanes maximum. This should have little effect on performance as the 2nd generation PCI Express slot offers twice the performance as the 1st generation slot.

PCI Express x1

AAFP

CD-In

Rear IO

The rear I/O on the board consists of a PS/2 mouse, PS/2 keyboard port, 8 USB 2.0 ports, the Clear CMOS button, S/PDIF Out and TOS digital outputs, two Gigabit LAN connections, a Firewire port and six jacks for the onboard audio. The Gigabit LAN connections are controlled by two Realtek RTL8110C PHYs and are capable of teaming. This board has two Clear CMOS buttons, one on the TurboV Remote, and one on the Rear I/O of the board.