ASUS P7H55D-M EVO Motherboard Review :: Board Layout

Board

8-pin power

MOSFET and Phase Power

CPU Socket

Starting at the upper right hand corner of the board we find the first hole for the standoffs to mount the motherboard into a case. The P7H55D-M EVO is a Micro-ATX motherboard designed to fit into a M-ATX case or larger. This is followed by a set of capacitors then the 8-pin power connector. A cap is in place during shipping if you want to use a 8-pin power connector remove the cap.

MemOK

DIMM Sockets

Via chip

Winbond chip

The MOSFETs are covered by two heatsinks with an angled design. These surround the power circuitry which shows the 8+3 Power Phases. Two rows of low-height capacitors surround the LGA-1156 CPU Socket. ASUS includes a cover for the CPU and when there isn't a CPU installed you should always replace the cover. If you need to have the board serviced the cover must be installed before returning it.

24-pin power

EPU

H55 IOH

Rear of PCB

Below the CPU Socket are the four DIMM Sockets. This allows the motherboard to take up to 16GB of DDR3 memory total. The Core i5 CPUs only support DDR3 memory up to 1333MHz on the internal memory controller, but higher clocked memory can be supported if the CPU is overclocked or if the Xtreme Memory Profiles are utilized. The four memory sockets are arranged in two banks with matching colors forming one channel.

ASMedia

USB headers

FP I/O

Firewire header

Q-DIMMs are a rather unique and innovative idea. The idea behind Q-DIMM is to make memory installation painless without interfering with other installation. One side of the Q-DIMM socket stays in place, whereas the normal DIMM Socket requires you to insert the memory stick forcing the side up. The bottom of the board has the 24-pin power connector and the IDE port. The H55 chipset supports six SATA ports and these are in a face-up position on the board.

Power Fan header

CPU Fan header

ASMT chip

COM1

Expansion options on the board consist of a single PCI Express x16 slot for external graphics, two PCI Express x1 slot and a PCI slot. While this board is perfect for the Home Theater PC user that doesn't need a powerful graphics card to run Blu-ray, the option is there if an enthusiast wants to install a Radeon HD 5970 or 5870 card. The H55 chip is covered by a blue heatsink. As the H55 is a cool running chip this is sufficient for most users.

Expansion

ALC889

Realtek Digital Output

Sound Driver

ASUS decided to equip this motherboard with the Realtek ALC889 CODEC which is quite popular among motherboard manufacturers. This chip supports 8-channel+2 channel audio simultaneously (Multi-Streaming) and supports all of the latest features of the High Definition Audio protocol. The left side of the board starts off with the FP I/O, then the COM1 header, followed by three USB headers and a Firewire header. The AAFP header is the last item on the list.

SATA ports

AAFP

Marvell chip

IDE port

The Rear I/O on the board consists of a PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port, four USB 2.0 ports, an external SATA/USB 2.0 Combo port, HDMI, DVI-D, VGA connections for the onboard video, two blue USB 3.0 ports, a Digital Output port, a Firewire port, an Ethernet port and six audio jacks for the onboard audio solution. The inclusion of a HDMI, DVI-D and VGA port gives you the option to install two monitors on the motherboard without an external adapter. The blue USB 3.0 ports are controlled by the NEC chip on the board.

ICS

Realtek RTL81112L

NEC USB 3.0 controller

Rear I/O