EVGA P55 Classified 200 LGA1156 Motherboard Review

This is obviously the first time we have had the ability to use an onboard DMM to measure voltage from a motherboard and honestly, it may be the only time. It really isn't one of those features we expect to see picked up by anyone else. As for how well the DMM built into the P55 Classified 200 works, flawlessly. We understand EVGA does package a probe but pretty much any DMM probe can be used as well. Single handed operation using the onboard voltage read points make reading voltages a piece of cake.

For testing the voltages we used our max stable overclock settings outline in the Stability and Overclocking section, let's have a look at the results.

The first item of laundry to take care of is the fact that we obviously have VDROOP disabled for our overclock as vCORE raises slightly from idle to load. Now as for the voltages, they all look excellent. No droop at all from idle to load for VTT or vDIMM which is very important. We can also see that what is set in the BIOS is pretty close to what we are actually receiving at the motherboard according to the voltage read points; or at least well within reason. A side bonus for the move from AWARD to AMI BIOS is that VTT appears to be reported correctly now in the BIOS and ultimately E-LEET in Windows. On the X58 boards, VTT was heavily over-reported in the BIOS and thus read high in E-LEET in Windows. It is nice to see it in line with the rest of the voltages finally.

Overall the onboard DMM appears to be pretty close to the UEI DM393 although under load the voltages slightly raise compared to the UEI. The three digit accuracy on the UEI is partially to blame as almost all of the UEI readings would be 0.02v higher if it was only accurate to two digits. Taking that into consideration, we have to give the onboard DMM a thumbs up for a very accurate two digit reading. This feature may not be necessary, but we can think of countless times in support forums where the first question asked is "what voltage does a DMM read?". That question can now be answered 100% of the time when the end user has a P55 Classified 200.

vDROOP Chart from OCCT - vDROOP Enabled

vDROOP Chart from OCCT - vDROOP Disabled

Above are a pair of charts with and without VDROOP enabled. As always, we aren't here to argue the merits of running your system either way as they both serve a purpose, we are simply showing the effects of vDROOP with the system using stock settings (System Defaults Loaded). We cannot run our overclocked settings with VDROOP enabled, even by raising vCORE to compensate for the droop in voltage. So keep that in mind when running a high overclock, VDROOP might need to be disabled.

Below is just a chart of the other voltages we measured during our testing of this section. We simply logged the numbers using OCCT and put them all into a single chart. These numbers pretty much echo what we saw with the measurements above. As always though, voltage readings with software are open for debate for their accuracy.