ASUS P7P55D-E PRO

[Rob Williams]

A couple of weeks ago, ASUS released its first two under-$200 P55 motherboards that support both S-ATA and USB 3.0. We're taking a look at the higher-end of the two, the P7P55D-E PRO. As you'd expect, this is one packed board, featuring a great design and a number of improvements over the company's P55 launch boards.

You can read the full review here and discuss it here.

In the last paragraph, you stated that the non-E version does not have the PLX solution, as I would expect because it doesn't support USB 3.0 and SATA 6G. Did you mean to write non-E, or non-PRO?

If you did mean to write non-E, any news on the
P7P55D-E non-PRO version?

[Rob Williams]

Whoops, I did indeed mean the non-PRO version.

Thanks, I've fixed it.

So what are the differences between Pro, Evo, Deluxe and Premium??

I was looking for it but didnt actually find big changes? For the price they are sold at ^^

[Rob Williams]

I really wish I could help you there. I'll see if I can get a features matrix from ASUS or something. They really need to simplify things... it's a little foolish to be so complicated, especially when all the different model types overlap the pricing of all the other boards.

"Lastly, the non-PRO version of this board does not include a PLX solution, which is why ASUS is promoting this board more."
The P7P55D-E has no PLX solution? Good or bad?? God da** i allready ordered....

Arf sorry---> very nice review btw!!!

Thanks for an awesome review. Lots of info there, and it's all really helpful as I get ready to buy new parts.

A few questions:

- Fan control: Can you explain what you meant by enhanced fan control over the non-"e" version? I like a quiet system, so fan control is very important to me and it tends to get skipped over in reviews. Does the motherboard have software control over the CPU fan? Chassis fan?

- Can you further explain the situation for the p7p55d-e? If there is no PLX bridge, how does it offer USB3/Sata3?

- This might be beyond the scope of the article, but how does the PLX bridge work? It seems like magic to me, generating extra i/o capabilities out of thin air. Could this implementation explain the low video creation scores seen in the review?

Again, thanks so much!

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

The P7P55D-E has no PLX solution? Good or bad?? God da** i allready ordered....

Correct, the non-PRO does not feature the PLX chip. It's not "good", but I still don't know whether it's bad, either. Soon, I'll be getting in S-ATA and USB 3.0 devices in order to test things out, but as it stands, I really don't think the PLX chip is going to make a major difference in the performance of either the 3.0 devices or the GPU. I'd only be concerned if you are looking to add in a high bandwidth card, like an HD 5970.

Originally Posted by DragonFire

A few questions:

Fan control: To be honest, I have no idea. I meant to look into it after the article was posted, but time hasn't allowed it. I'll touch base with ASUS again and see if I can get a specific answer to this. I looked through our BIOS screenshots, and there doesn't seem to be a section for advanced fan control.

If fan control is really important to you, you may like to consider EVGA's P55 FTW, as it seems unmatched in that regard:

http://techgage.com/article/evga_p55_ftw/3 (Pictures 4 & 5)

PLX bridge: This chip is not what offers either of the 3.0 technologies... those are handled by separate chips on the motherboard. At this point in time, all USB 3.0 motherboards include a chip manufactured by NEC, and for S-ATA 3.0, the chip is from Marvell. This may change as time passes and other companies begin to trickle out their own chips.

Both 3.0 technologies share the PCI-Express bandwidth, and because that's limited on the P55 platform, it means that some component will have to suffer with slightly degraded performance. Without a PLX bridge, using either 3.0 device would decrease the primary PCI-E x16 slot to x8 speeds, meaning half the bandwidth. The PLX bridge almost remedies this 100% because it takes available PCI-E lanes from the PCH, and splits those into two halves, one for USB and the other for S-ATA.

The PCI-E lanes that the PLX chip creates are 500MB/s each, so in essence, we're still not dealing with a full speed S-ATA 6Gbit/s port, since that's roughly 600MB/s. But as it stands today, even the highest-end consumer SSDs on a S-ATA 3.0 bus would come nowhere near the theoretical limit, so for the most part, this issue doesn't matter.

Because the X58 platform has a lot of available PCI-Express bandwidth, there's no need for a PLX bridge, nor will the PCI-E slots degrade in performance when using either or both 3.0 technologies.

Hope this helps, and thanks to both of you for the nice comments!

Having reviewed both Gigabyte P55A UD4P and this ASUS board, which would you recommend?
Thx for the reply...

[Rob Williams]

I'm not a good measure for this, since I seem to look for different things than others, but I'd go with Gigabyte's, because I appreciate the extra functionality (S-ATA and USB-wise) and don't truly care about the 3.0 technologies at this point in time. But aside from these two, I'd pick up EVGA's P55 FTW board I reviewed last week above all. It doesn't have the 3.0 technologies, but it does everything else right.

I've been looking to buy this motherboard but have read reviews on Newegg and a couple of other sites that the board emits a high pitch noise while in operation. Have you noticed anything similar?

Great review btw...

[Rob Williams]

During all the use I've had with the board, it never emitted a high-pitched noise at all. I tend to be fiercely annoyed whenever any piece of equipment emits a noise like that, but I definitely have no issue at all.

[DeludedBuzz]

Does anyone know if we use Sata 6gb/s with crossfire, that the two crossfired cards will still get x8/x8 speeds?

Thanks

In the picture on the introduction page you can clearly see the 8 pin ATX 12V power connector with 4 pins covered by a black cover-plate:

http://techgage.com/reviews/asus/p7p...o_05_thumb.jpg

This connector is also refered to in the manual as the EATX12V8-pin power connector.

I have installed this motherboard (with a Core i5 and Sapphire HD5850 Toxic video card). My power supply has two 4-pin 12v plugs. Should I uncap the 8-pin connector and plug both my 4-pin 12V plugs into the 8-pin socket, or is that only required for over-clocking or Core i7 purposes?

Thanks for the great review.