ASUS P7P55D Deluxe Lynnfield Motherboard Review

A Closer Look at the ASUS P7P55D Deluxe

Without further ado, here is the P7P55D Deluxe in all its glory:


Upon first glance this motherboard's layout is nearly perfect. The 8-pin CPU power connector, overvoltage switches, 24-pin ATX power connector, IDE connector, SATA ports, USB and FireWire headers and onboard power/reset buttons are all ideally located on the edges of the motherboard. The TurboV remote connector is a little hard to reach, and the CPU fan header is in a slightly unusual position, but none of these are deal-breakers. We definitely like the black PCB and it looks great with the new blue & white theme, especially with the striking low profile chipset cooler.


The general CPU socket area on this motherboard is quite interesting. The LGA1156 socket and the retention module are both obviously new designs, but the truly eye-catching feature is definitely the 16+3 phase power design, as evidenced by the 19 sealed chokes. The MOSFET heatsinks are connected to each other by a heatpipe, and they are fairly low profile, so interference problems are highly unlikely with any well-designed CPU cooler. We are not too keen on the bucket load of capacitors so near to the CPU socket since it will make insulating the socket a tough job but few users will ever encounter this issue.


The DDR3 memory slots support overclocked memory frequencies up to DDR3-2133, however the truly impressive specification is the 4-phase power design. We are glad to see that the Q-DIMM memory slot design, which is clipless on one end, has found its way from the Maximus II GENE to this model. The reason for this innovative design is due to the fact that the clips would have come into contact with the back of the graphics card and would have made removal of the memory modules impossible without first removing the graphics card.


Around the memory slots is the MemOk! button, which can fix any compatibility issues between the motherboard and the memory and allow the system to boot. To the right of the MemOk! button is the TurboV EVO chip, a real-time hardware overclocking processor. Above the memory slots are the new overvoltage switches for the DRAM, the Integrated Memory Controller (IMC) and the CPU, which allow you to unlock higher voltages in the BIOS...but remember that these unlocked voltages are insanely high, so be careful. By the way, the use of switches for this feature has made the P7P55D Deluxe a jumper-less motherboard.


The P7P55D Deluxe features six right-angle SATA II (3Gb/s) ports, which are supplied by the P55 chipset. The dark blue and light gray SATA ports are provided by the popular JMicron JMB322 controller, which also plays a role in the Drive Xpert RAID 0/1 feature. A JMicron JMB363 controller, which is hidden under the heatsink, supplies the black SATA port and IDE port.

Speaking of the chipset heatsink, we like its low profile and interesting design and look forward to testing its cooling capabilities.


The overall expansion slot layout and assortment is excellent. There are three full-sized PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots, two PCI-E x1 slots, and two legacy PCI slots. In a single graphics card configuration, the blue PCI-E x16 slot will operate at the full x16 speed, while the black slot will run at x4. When two graphics cards are installed in the blue and white PCI-E x16 slots, they will operate at x8 each with the black slot once again operating at x4. This motherboard does support Quad-GPU CrossFireX and Quad-GPU SLI with two dual-GPU graphics cards. Attempting to run three graphics cards would be pointless for gaming purposes since the third card would run at x4 and thus be a huge bottleneck.However, if you partake in Folding@Home, you could feasibly run three graphics cards on this motherboard without issue.

Below the expansion slots are the always welcome onboard power and reset buttons, and you can also spot the socketed BIOS chip. This is a good design choice since ASUS can simply ship you a new BIOS chip should an update go terribly wrong. However, we would prefer to see two BIOS chips since that would prevent any downtime.



Starting clockwise from the top-left, we see the VIA VT2020 10-channel High Definition Audio CODEC. This is a newer, previously unseen onboard audio solution which should prove to be a tough competitor to the dominant Realtek ALC888/889 series. It supports such niceties as DTS Surround Sensation and the ASUS Noise Filter feature. The Realtek 8110SC and 8112L are both Gigabit LAN controllers. At this point, we aren't entirely sure why ASUS chose two difference models, nor why they did not make use of the P55's native Intel Gigabit LAN support, but we assume it has something to do with the ASUS AI NET 2 feature.

In the last image we have three different chips. The well-known EPU2 chip has been enhanced with newer functions, but it continues to work to help maximize energy efficiency based on the system load. The T.Probe (at the bottom) and PEM ICs are the brand new power phase management controllers. These chips manages the VRM area in real-time to balance load across the power phases and ensure the best possible efficiency and temperatures.


As labeled, the TURBO_CON is where to plug in the TurboV remote. We would have prefered to see this header on the I/O panel, but for now all you need to do is slide the remote's wire in between two I/O panel modules which isn't a big deal. The space between the I/O module and the MOSFET heatsink is rather small though, so those with larger fingers may have to use pliers to connect/disconnect the remote's connector from the header.

The entire P7P55D series features a proper 8-pin CPU power connector, but judging by the fact that our board came with a plastic cap covering four pins, you may still be able to get by with a 4-pin connector.


Starting from left to right, the rear I/O panel features a PS/2 mouse port, PS2/ keyboard port, a CMOS reset button, two USB 2.0 ports, coaxial and optical S/PDIF connectors, a Gigabit LAN port and two additional USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire port and two additional USB 2.0 ports, the second Gigabit LAN port and two additional USB 2.0 ports, and finally the six audio jacks on the audio module.


The back of the motherboard is interesting in that ASUS have installed a second set of MOSFETs there, and they have even outfitted them with their own heatsinks. This proves ASUS is listening to our collective feedback, since we previously demonstrated that those back-mounted MOSFETs can get exceedingly hot. We are glad to see that the chipset cooler is held in place with proper mounting screws, gone are the days of the problematic push-pins