ASUS P7P55D-E Deluxe Socket 1156 Motherboard Review

The newest motherboard from ASUS is a prime example of what ASUS is all about. The P7P55-E Deluxe is based on the Intel P55 chip-set, which is more or less the budget version of the Intel X58 chipset. After you read this review, you will see there isn’t anything budget about it. The P7P55-E Deluxe is a fully loaded motherboard with more bells and whistles than a new Lexus. Built from components geared toward maximum performance, this baby is aimed at the individual who wants it all. You can expect everything from great overclocking to the newest standard in data transportation in USB 3.0 and SATA III.

Introduction to the ASUS P7P55D-E Deluxe

Today, we get to bring to you a motherboard from a company we have wanted to deal with for some time. ASUS has been the world leader in producing the most sought-after motherboards on the planet. From their value line to the Maximus, ASUS has always given consumers the features, quality and excitement they crave, when building their new rig. ASUS is not only a leader in motherboards, but video cards, monitors, networking components and laptops – like the W2j workhouse I am typing this review on – as well as many other devices.

The newest motherboard from ASUS is a prime example of what ASUS is all about. The P7P55-E Deluxe is based on the Intel P55 chip-set, which is more or less the budget version of the Intel X58 chipset. After you read this review, you will see there isn’t anything budget about it. The P7P55-E Deluxe is a fully loaded motherboard with more bells and whistles than a new Lexus. Built from components geared toward maximum performance, this baby is aimed at the individual who wants it all. You can expect everything from great overclocking to the newest standard in data transportation in USB 3.0 and SATA III.

About ASUS

ASUS comes from the last four letters of Pegasus, the winged horse in Greek mythology that represents the inspiration of art and learning. ASUS embodies the strength, creative spirit and purity symbolized by this regal and agile mythical creature, soaring to new heights of quality and innovation with each product it introduces to the market.

The ASUS brand is founded on four core values known as ASUS DNA. ASUS DNA comprises “the 5 ASUS Virtues of Humility, Integrity, Diligence, Agility and Courage”, “Focus on Fundamentals and Results”, “Innovation and Aesthetics” and “Lean Thinking”. In order to achieve our vision of turning ASUS into the world’s most admired leading enterprise in the new digital era, our employees are encouraged to practice and develop these four foundational “genes”.

Specifications

Intel P55 Chipset Benefits

Closer look

The ASUS P7P55-E Deluxe is equipped with all the “must-have” stuff everyone is looking for in a new motherboard. Possibly the top two technologies would be USB 3.0, which is pumped through the motherboard using a NEC chipset, and SATA 3.0 provided via a Marvel. As of late, these are the two biggest additions to a motherboard’s makeup. As enthusiasts, we can never have enough speed, especially when it comes to retrieving and backing up our precious data. Each of the two protocols are linked to a 4x PCIe and not th 1x lanes which ASUS credits its 2x/10x performance increase.

With ASUS, you are always guaranteed to get way more on a board than what everyone else is putting onto theirs. One of biggest additions I like and plan on getting more familiar with is the TurboV Remote. It’s a cool way of tweaking and adjusting our overclock via a side device without entering the BIOS or even accessing a Windows-based app. All this can be done without exiting your video games. More on this in a bit.

Lets get into the layout of the motherboard which is ideal. It is a full size ATX motherboard, which is a delight to see with the rash of mATX boards I have been reviewing. A rush of blue and black greets the eyes once you get the board out of the box. The color combination is one of the best looking available. If you were to browse many of the popular tech forums, black PCB motherboards are en vogue. Coincidentally, ASUS started the trend. Just as we are seeing many other companies follow, ASUS changes gears again. Unlike their ROG line of boards, this one does not include large heat sinks. Here we have a very low profile, passive heat sink covering the chipset and mosfets around the CPU socket. Above the top heat sinks is the 8-pin CPU power plug and the connection used for the TurboV module. Looking at the overall area around the CPU socket, we see there isn’t everything that should impede mounting any sort of cooler on this board.

There are four DIMM slots color-coded blue and black, representing dual channel. Being the overclocking monster ASUS normally is, the board supports up to DDR3 2200MHz. For those that are not into overclocking or don’t know how to and want to run the fastest ram possible, you can dial in the Intel XMP function. This will allow you to run the ram and CPU at increased levels without having to venture too far into the BIOS.

In another step to show compatibly with ram modules, ASUS implemented the MemOK button, which is a surefire way to guarantee compatibility With a simple press of this button, the motherboard determines the right settings for a proper boot up. This has little to do with XMP settings as they are not always guaranteed to work on all motherboards. It all begins before the system is booted. Once a ram issue is detected a series of steps that includes relaxing memory timings and voltage.These steps are done until a safe boot-up is possible or the system determine the ram is not going to work at all. The MemOK feature is based on a IC embedded onto the motherboard.

If you are in the know, ASUS as opted to give the extreme overclocker the ability to over-ride the basic voltage limitation for memory, CPU, GPU and boot device. In fact, as much as 2.1 volts. This is territory in which only elite modders and expert users should venture.

Lastly, we would like to showoff the clips that secure the ram modules in place. Here there are only clips at one end and a more permanent piece at the opposite end. Making ram easy to secure. Another unique feature I find with this board is the way ram modules are secured into their slots. Normally, there are one clips at the end of each slot. Not with this board. One end has the normal push/pull clip and the other end is a permanent clip locked in place.

Want to run multiple graphic cards in parallel? Well, the P7P supports Crossfire and SLI. Quad GPU setups are supported when using dual GPU cards. One thing to remember is dual PCIe 16x slots are reduced to 8x/8x lanes. Additionally, there are two standard PCI slots alongside dual PCIe 1x slots. Many will like the fact that if you do decide to use two large graphic cards, you will still have access to one of each of the lesser slots. Just below the last small PCIe slot is what every enthusiast, overclocker and bencher are looking for.

And that is on-board power and reset buttons. After a failed overclock, it is nice to be able to reach over and press a single button to get the rig to reboot.

The rear of the board contains the usual set of plug-ins. Included are dual PS/2, one fire wire, eight USB ports which two are of the new USB 3.0 or SuperSpeed technology and dual LAN ports using the typical Realtek class chip we see on most Intel P55 motherboards. And there is enough audio to blast the whole neighborhood. For those who have misfortunes while overclocking, there is a clear CMOS button on the rear.

BIOS of the P7P55D-E Deluxe

ASUS P7P55 series of motherboards have a very complete set of BIOS options, and yet it is simple to navigate. Simply put, it is not overwhelming to look at and after a little time and effort, a noobie would be able to understand it. All the overclocking settings are under the A.I. Tweaker tab. One location for everything you need to up the performance of your processor.

In order to get easily accessible performance from this motherboard and the processor, the BIOS offers a feature called CPU Level Up. Depending on the processor used you have the option of AUTO which is the default CPU speeds. You can opt for one of the other three settings. In the case of our i5 750, we had the options of the i7 860 and 870. And lastly, 3.2GHz which would be the i7 965 Extreme.

You are not without voltage settings as the -E Deluxe allows you to tinker with CPU, Dram and various other voltage settings. A neat feature of the BIOS’s voltage settings is that can be changed simple by dialing in your voltage desire (i.e. typing in 1.65) instead of constantly hitting the -/+ keys.

CPU settings.

If you are a bench gamer or other and use several different profiles for various reasons, you can save up to eight different profiles via the BIOS.

Testing Begins

Testing Hardware:

Motherboard: ASUS P7P55D-E Deluxe
Processor: Intel Core i5 750
Ram: OCZ DDR3 PC12800 4GB Dual-Channel (8-8-8-24)
Video Card: Sapphire HD 5750 Video Card
HDD: Seagate 7200.11
Power: Thermaltake Tough Power XT 1000 (Donated by Thermaltake for our test bench)
Case: Open Air
Cooling: Thermaltake Silent 1156
OS: Windows 7 64-bit

Competing Systems:

Motherboard: Asrock H55M Pro
Processor: Intel Core i3 540 (overclocked to 4GHz)
Ram: OCZ DDR3 PC12800 4GB Dual-Channel (8-8-8-24)
Video Card: XFX HD 4770
HDD: Seagate 7200.11
Power: Thermaltake Tough Power XT 1000 (Donated by Thermaltake for our test bench)
Case: Open Air
Cooling: Thermaltake Silent 1156
OS: Windows 7 RC

Motherboard: Gigabyte P55A-UD6
Processor: Intel Core i5 750
Ram: OCZ DDR3 PC12800 4GB Dual-Channel (8-8-8-24)
Video Card: Sapphire HD 5750 Video Card
HDD: Seagate 7200.11
Power: Thermaltake Tough Power XT 1000 (Donated by Thermaltake for our test bench)
Case: Open Air
Cooling: Thermaltake Silent 1156
OS: Windows 7 64-bit

Testing Begins

Futuremark PCMark Vantage
3DMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed to test the DirectX10 performance of your graphics card. We’ve been making 3DMark for over 10 years, with each new edition using the latest 3D technology to determine real-world performance.

Futuremark 3DVantage
3DMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed to test the DirectX10 performance of your graphics card. We’ve been making 3DMark for over 10 years, with each new edition using the latest 3D technology to determine real-world performance.

A 3DMark score is an overall measure of your system’s 3D gaming capabilities, based on comprehensive real-time 3D graphics and processor tests. By comparing your score with those submitted by millions of other gamers you can see how your gaming rig performs, making it easier to choose the most effective upgrades or finding other ways to optimize your system.

3DMark is widely used by the PC industry, press and media as well as individual users and gamers, for comparing performance levels between whole systems or even specific components

SiSoftware Sandra Lite 2007 SP1
SiSoftware has announced the availability of Service Release 2 (SR2) for SiSoftware Sandra 2005, the latest version of its award-winning utility. The focus of this service release has been improved support, compatibility and reliability rather than new features. We have been working closely with more hardware vendors than before to be able to bring greater direct support of an increased market share of commodity and server technologies.

Lavalys Everest
Lavalys EVEREST Home Edition is freeware system information, system diagnostics and benchmarking solution for home PC users, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. It offers the world’s most accurate system information and diagnostics capabilities, including online features, memory benchmarks, hardware monitoring, and low-level hardware information. EVEREST Home Edition is uniquely available for home users without any charges, based on the freeware license.

Maxon Cinebench
CINEBENCH is a real-world test suite that assesses your computer’s performance capabilities. MAXON CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

Super PI Modded 1.5
In August 1995, the calculation of pi up to 4,294,960,000 decimal digits was succeeded by using a supercomputer at the University of Tokyo. The program was written by D.Takahashi in collaboration with Dr. Y.Kanada at the computer center. This record should be the current world record. (Details are shown in the windows help.) This record-breaking program was ported to personal computer environment such as Windows NT and Windows 95. In order to calculate 33.55 million digits, it takes within 3 days with a Pentium 90 MHz, 40 MB main memory and 340 MB available storage.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
The events of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat unfold shortly after the end of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. Having discovered about the open path to the Zone center, the government decides to hold a large-scale military “Fairway” operation aimed to take the CNPP under control.

According to the operation’s plan, the first military group is to conduct an air scouting of the territory to map out the detailed layouts of anomalous fields location. Thereafter, making use of the maps, the main military forces are to be dispatched.

Despite thorough preparations, the operation fails. Most of the avant-garde helicopters crash. In order to collect information on reasons behind the operation failure, Ukraine’s Security Service send their agent into the Zone center.
From now on everything depends on the player.

Tech ARP x264 HD 3.15
Simply put, it is a reproducible measure of fast your machine can encode a short HD-quality video clip into a high quality x264 video file. It’s nice because everyone running it will use the same video clip and software. The video encoder (x264.exe) reports a fairly accurate internal benchmark (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encode and it also uses multi-core processors very efficiently. All these factors make this an ideal benchmark to compare different processors and systems to each other.

HD Tune
HD Tune is a hard disk utility with many functions. It can be used to measure the drive’s performance, scan for errors, check the health status (S.M.A.R.T.), securely erase all data and much more.

Overclocking the ASUS P7P55D-E Deluxe and the Intel Core i5 750

ASUS always many ways to overclock your CPU using their series of motherboards. Though we prefer doing it ourselves, we looked at the built-in solutions and software that makes things easier on an individual. Our first impression of these methods were positive.  If you are a noobie, it is a good way to get more from your system with extreme ease. If you consider yourself an expert, it is a good starting point to find out what the board can and cannot do.

ASUS aids the overclocker in his/her quest for more performance through the TurboV EVO application. As you guessed it, this is a Windows application but a front for the settings in the BIOS. As settings are changed in the application and then applied the changes are done in the BIOS instantly through the on-board IC controller. You can also adjust various BIOS options like voltages. ASUS should be proud of themselves for making the TurboV application one of the best overclocking applications around. An overclocker can adjust BIOS within Windows without constantly rebooting but until a Windows crash or freeze happens. Stability is determined by a real-time series of test.

Another option which is great part of the TurboV Evo is the TurboV Remote. With the use of this little remote and the TurboV EVO application, you have the ability to adjust CPU setting right in the palm of your hands. If you have the time, you can create your own settings or use the default ones. No matter what you are using the PC for at the time, you can change the settings with rebooting, but only if your settings are stable. You can even deploy the EPU function and regulate total power of the system. And for the individual looking for added features the remote can power the system off and on as well as clear the CMOS.

In order to get the most out of our board, we opted for the old-fashioned way of overclocking this motherboard and that was through the BIOS. As we stated above, the P7P55D-E Deluxe has a pretty rich BIOS for overclocking. When we started the overclocking process with our lowly Intel Core i5 750, we left the CPU multiplier alone. We set the voltage on the CPU core a faily safe 1.32, dialed the memory in at 1.65 which is the factory default and raised the BLK. With this we were able to reach 3.9GHz up from the standard 2.66.

Next, we took a look at how high we could get the BLK on this new board. We left the BIOS settings alone, but  lowered the CPU multiplier down to 15x. We netted a clock of 226MHz. Not bad at all with minimal BIOS changes.

Conclusion

Our first impression of ASUS is a great one, because of the P7P55-E Deluxe. The P7P55-E Deluxe is a prime example of the best ASUS is able to provide. It all began with the layout and appearance of the motherboard. The black, blue and white is a pleasure to look at. The color combination shows ASUS is willing to give us pretty as well as performance. With the increase in sales of black exterior cases, the addition of ASUS P7P55-E Deluxe is a no-brainer. The layout is great functionally as well. The distance between the two 16x PCIe slots is ideal spacing for those that use to use dual graphic cards as a decent flow of air can squeeze between the two. Another thing we liked about the layout is the non-use of tall or over-sized heat sinks. This made it easier to install after-market heat sinks of our choosing. All ports are located along the side of the motherboard, making them easily accessible.

One reason many people would choose a motherboard like this is because, they intend to overclock to some degree. Honestly, overclocking the ASUS P7P55-E Deluxe is fairly eas,y but some knowledge in the procedure is highly recommended. We were able to get very high clocks on air as well as a high BLK level. We used an Intel Core i5 750 in our testing that naturally runs at 2.66GHz, we were able to hit 3.9GHz with little effort and time. And the 226 BLK, we hit was the highest we have experienced with any other P55 suited motherboard. Yes, we did this using nothing but BIOS settings. ASUS implemented many ways to overclock your CPU. TurboV EVO, TurboV Remote and CPU Level Up are just a few ways of overclocking on this board. Each user will have his/her way of adding extra performance ASUS just wants to give you options…..and plenty of them.

Two other reasons we like this board is the newly implemented USB 3.0 and SATA II standards. Yes, there are many motherboards that offer these, but ASUS upped them as they used a faster PCIe lane to achieve better performance. According to ASUS, this means an increase to near 5Gbps over USB 3.0 connections.

Why would anyone shy away from such a motherboard? It could because of the price. However, ASUS releases several motherboards based on each chipset. With the P55 chipset, the price range spans from $130 to close to $300. The -E Deluxe is nearer the higher end of this price range at $240. Each of these motherboards in the P55 series have different features that will appeal to the different buyers. Features like USB 3.0, SATA III, dual LAN, phase power regulators, eSATA and overclocking remote are just a few.

Besides the pricing, we loved what the ASUS P7P55-E Deluxe had to offer and would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a solid, stable and easily overclocking motherboard. We would like to thank JJ and ASUS for sending us the ASUS P7P55-E Deluxe.

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