DFI LANParty DK P55-T3eH9 Motherboard

DFI is a well known and rather popular brand among enthusiast everywhere. It is known for its high performance motherboards that take overclocking to the next level. DFI achieves this through a mix of design innovations, with the software to match. As many other top ranked manufacturers have done, DFI split its more enthusiast-friendly products in to a separate line aptly named LANParty. Their latest board to join this line seems poised to continue in the performance tradition that past DFI boards have set.

The DFI LANParty DK P55-T3eH9 motherboard is designed around the Intel P55 chipset. This chipset allows the board to support the following technologies innately: Intel LGA 1156 Core i7 and Core i5 processors, DDR3 memory operating in Dual Channel mode up to 1333MHz officially, and either NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFireX graphics mode using matching video cards. 

DFI chose to integrate the following onboard devices in to the DK P55-T3eH9: six SATA II ports (RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 5 capable) on the Intel P55 controller; one e-SATA port and one ATA-133 IDE port on the JMicron JMB363 controller; two SATA II ports (RAID 0 and 1 capable) on the JMICRON JMB322 controller; fifteen USB 2.0 capable ports (7 in rear panel, and 4 onboard headers supporting 2 ports each); one Intel GigE Ethernet port in the rear panel; Realtek 8-channel HD audio codec with integrated S/PDIF optical and RCA component output ports; integrated power, system reset, and CMOS reset buttons; 2-digit diagnostic LED display; and PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports in the rear panel.

Specifications Overview:

 

 

Board Layout

The DK P55-T3eH9’s layout is well thought out, with no real tight areas on the board. DFI seemed to cover the board hot spots with an interconnected heat pipe cooling solution as well. The one flaw was the lack of active cooling integrated in to the heat pipe cooler, but this is easily remedied. While I could find no definitive serial number marking on the board, the board revision is silk-screened to its surface just above the PCI slots, with the board tested being a revision A. For the board’s power needs, DFI chose to use high quality polymer solid-electrolyte capacitors.

The board’s CPU socket area is obstruction free, with all power components directly surrounding the socket of an unobtrusive low profile design. The heat sinks covering the power components are far enough back so as to not interfere with CPU cooler placement. DFI chose to use the standard LGA1156 4-hole based hold-down mechanism for securing the CPU cooler. Just above the CPU socket and hidden behind the cooler are the rear panel USB standby power jumper, the S/PDIF header, and the PWM fan header. The rear panel PS/2 standby power jumper and the 8-pin ATX12V power connector are to the upper right of the socket. The CPU fan header is located to the right of the socket, along the edge of the board.

The onboard DDR3 slots are located underneath the CPU socket, sporting a bi-colored arrangement scheme. Dual Channel memory mode is active with modules placed in like colored slots, with the black colored slots being reserved for the primary memory modules. Below the DIMM slots are the ATA-133 IDE port, the 24-pin ATX power connector, and the fan 4 header. The DRAM power indicator LED is located in the lower right corner of the board.

The board’s P55 chipset is located just under the secondary and tertiary PCI-Express x16 slots, covered by a low profile cooler. This cooler also acts as a termination point for the onboard heat pipe cooler. The 8 onboard SATA II port are located just below the chipset cooler, with the Intel controlled ports being those colored florescent orange. The standby power LED, Chipset fan header and BIOS flash header are located to the left and upper left of the SATA II ports, with the front panel header being in the lower left corner of the board. The onboard power and system reset buttons, as well as the CMOS reset and backup BIOS clear jumpers are located just above it. The 4 onboard USB 2.0 headers, as well as their tied standby power jumpers, are located to the upper left of the chipset cooler.

DFI incorporated 7 total card slots in to the DK P55-T3eH9’s design: 3 PCI-Express x16 slots, 2 PCI-Express x1 slots, and 2 PCI slots. The onboard floppy port and serial port header are located along the outer edge of PCI slot 2, with the 2-digit diagnostic LED display located just above them. The diagnostic display is useful in troubleshooting system boot related issues, using the debug codes that it displays during system initialization. The CMOS battery is located in between the lower portion of the secondary and tertiary PCI-Express x16 slot. A floppy style power port, as well as the infra-red and front panel audio headers, are located just above the secondary PCI-Express x1 slot. The floppy power connector is used to provide additional power to the board and video card slots when 2 or more video cards are in use. The chassis fan and CD_IN headers are located directly above the primary PCI-Express x16 slot.

DFI integrated with following ports in to the DK P55-T3eH9’s rear panel: PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports; a CMOS reset button; 5 USB 2.0 ports; 1 shared e-SATA / USB 2.0 port; 1 mini-USB port for use with the BIOSecure cable; 1 Intel GigE Ethernet port; and 6 analogue and S/PDIF optical and RCA component audio output ports. The integrated mini-USB port is used in conjunction with the included BIOSecure interface cable for flashing the BIOS to or from a connected remote device or board.

EVGA 55 Classified Motherboard

   The P55 chipset has been relegated to being the middle of the Intel motherboard chipset market with the X58 Express chipset being the high end and the H55 and Q57 chipsets being for the low end or integrated graphics support. The moving of the PCI Express lanes to the CPU means that the H55 and Q57 chipsets means they don’t need a Northbridge chip and use a PCH chip for the Southbridge functionality. 

   

















   EVGA is best known for their award winning NVIDIA based video cards. They have been in business over the last 11 years with a wide variety of computer hardware including video cards, motherboards, cooling solutions and other peripherals. EVGA launched their motherboard line with the release of the nForce 590 SLI series a while back. Today’s review is on the Intel P55 Classified 200 motherboards which are targeted at the extreme overclocker and tweaker. 

 Features:

• Support Intel Socket 1156 Processors
• Intel P55 Express chipset
• Support 2-way SLI plus PhysX and 3-Way SLI plus PhysX
• 4 DIMM Dual Channel DDR3 2600MHz up to 16GB
• 6 PCI Express graphics expansion slots
• 13 USB 2.0 PORTS
• 8 SATA II Ports
• 2 1394 Ports
• 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports
• 8-channel audio with S/PDIF and Coax
• 10+2 Phase PWM with swathing
• EGVGA Double Play heatsink
• EVGA Vdroop Control
• EVGA Dummy OC
• EVGA E-LEET Tuning Utility
• EVGA EZ voltage read points
• Onboard Clear CMOS, Power, and Reset buttons
• Onboard CPU Temperature Monitor
• 300% more gold content
• Passive chipset heatsink
• Triple BIOS
• 100% Solid State Capacitors
• Dual Clock Generators CPU and PCIe
• EVGA Show-Volt
• EVGA ECP V2 support
• PCIe Disable Jumpers
• EVGA EVbot support

Part Number	160-LF-E659-KR
Manufacturer	EVGA
Chipset	P55 Express
North Bridge	N/A
Socket	LGA-1156
Memory speed	2600 (OC)/2133 (OC)/1866 (OC)/1600 (OC)/1333/1066
Processor Types	Intel Core i7, Core i5, Core i3 LGA-1156
Number of CPUs	1
QPI	Up to 4.8GT/second
Memory Type	DDR3
Memory Channels	Double
Maximum Memory	16GB
External Graphics	PCI Express x16 x6
IGP	N/A
SCSI	None
SATA	3.0 GB/s
RAID	N/A
LAN	10/100/1000
Firewire	N/A
USB	USB 2.0
BIOS	AMIBIOS
Form Factor	ATX

  The P55 Classified 200 board from EVGA is as the name suggests based upon Intel’s P55 Express chipset. This was released in conjunction with the Core i7 LGA-1156 CPUs late last year. The EVGA board has an ICH10R Southbridge to go along with the P55 Northbridge. One thing that differentiates this board is that the CPU pins have 300% more gold content meaning that they will have better power delivery.

  EVGA’s board supports 2-way SLI plus PhysX and 3-way SLI plus PhysX. NVIDIA cards are the only one with official support for the physics in their hardware and this board is designed to take up to three dual slot video cards at one time plus another card for PhysX effects. The board has a NF200 bridge chip that takes 8 of the PCI Express lanes from the P55 chipset. To understand this feature we need to look at PCIe lanes.

   EVGA has a Dummy OC feature on this board. What this does it allows the user to overclock their system with the push of a button. To aid in the testing of the board there are onboard Clear CMOS, Power and Reset buttons on the board. There are also dual clock generators for the CPU and PCIE allowing for independent 

   The P55 chipset itself has 16 PCI Express lanes eight of those are taken up by the topmost PCI Express x16 slot when two or more video cards are installed in the video cards slots on the board the first card gets x8. The second PCI Express x16 slot gets x4 lanes from the PCH and the remaining four PCI Express slots get bandwidth split from the x8 remaining from the P55 chipset. In this way you could say the NF200 splits the bandwidth into x8/x4/x4 with x4 going to the 4th slot from the PCH. Or alternatively x8/x8/x4 with two NVIDIA cards and a PhysX card. Each of the PCIe slots can be disabled.

   The advent of having multiple BIOS by motherboard manufacturers has allowed for some piece of mind when updating BIOS as there is a backup BIOS to fall back to if one is corrupt. EVGA went a step further with the P55 Classified 200 by having three separate BIOS onboard, good for having a backup or when you want an OC profile to use with your system. The board has an onboard CPU Temperature monitor that uses the LED when in Windows. You can also use the Show Volt utility to show the voltage with the embedded Voltimeter. As I delve into the motherboard layout and bundle I will cover the other features of the board.

   Starting on the upper right hand corner of the board there are two yes two 8-pin power connectors for the CPU. Overclocker’s wanting to use the board to its fullest will want to connect two 8-pin power connectors to the board, but the board will work just fine with one connector. The two connectors are for the extreme overclocker’s that want to have the most power to the CPU and stability. The next item on the board is the two I-limit jumpers then the CPU Fan header.

    The Voltage Control Points are next. There are eight VCPs where you can measure the voltage of the CPU Vcore, the VTT, the memory, the PCH, the CPU PLL, and the ground. The CPU area is clear of obstacles, with plenty of room for large CPU coolers. One special feature of this board among many others is the CPU Cooler mounting holes. There are two sets of holes, one for LGA-1156 and the other for LGA-775 CPU coolers. This allows the use of either set and I was able to fit a large Thermaltake cooler with no issue. The next item is the Show Volt LED. Once the test probe is plugged in use the other end on the Voltage Control Points as indicated earlier and the board will show the voltage of the appropriate device. The next item is the 24-pin power connector. Note there is also a 4-pin Molex connector on top of the board, providing power and stability for when more than one video card is installed.

   The MOSFETs are covered by a heatsink/pipe combination that will cool the ten phase power PWMs and MOSFETs very well. The area where the Northbridge sits on most motherboards is where the heatsink for the NF200 chip that controls the PCIE lanes is located. The top of the heatsink has an EVGA logo which lights up and glows when the system is connected to a PSU. The P55 PCH is located in the normal spot for the Southbridge on this motherboard. There are four DIMM slots that take up to 16GB of DDR3 memory that can be clocked as high as 2600+ MHz if overclocked.

   There are six SATA ports on the board the maximum supported by the P55 Express PCH. The P55 Express PCH supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD modes. Intel is not scheduled to support SATA 6 Gb/Second ports until 2011 but it does provide support for SATA 3 Gb/second and supports Intel’s Matrix Storage Technology and external SATA ports on this board. EVGA situates the SATA ports sideways in three groups of two, meaning that installing a video card will not interfere with installing a SSD or HDD.

   The onboard audio on the board is provided by the Realtek ALC889 CODEC that has been used in many motherboards on the market including this one. The ALC889 CODEC has support for multi-streaming 7.1+2 channel at the same time and Content Protection for lossless Blu-ray playback or HD-DVD playback. The ALC889 has high performance DACs with 108dB signal to noise ratio and ADCs with a 104dB SNR. There are ten DAC channels supporting 16/20/24-bit5 PCM format and three stereo ADCs supporting 16/20/24-bit PCM format. The Rear I/O on the board consists of a PS/2 keyboard port, six USB 2.0 ports, a combo ESATA/USB port, a PCIE connector for the ECP v2, two LAN jacks controlled by two Marvell PHYs, a Firewire port and six audio jacks for the onboard audio.

ASRock X58 Extreme 3 Motherboard

   Intel continues its multiple chipset strategy for separation of their highest end CPUs and their more mainstream and value CPUs. They have two Sockets on the market, Socket LGA-1366 for the high end CPUs (9xx series) and LGA-1156 for the mainstream and value (8xx, 7xx, 6xx) CPUs. This has the advantage to Intel of requiring the user to buy a more expensive chipset to use the more expensive CPU.

    

















   ASRock is a spin-off of ASUS and has been known in the past for their special features on some of their motherboards. They were one of the first motherboard manufacturers to embrace the SATA 6 Gb/second protocol and USB 3.0 interface. Today, ASRock is on the forefront of technology again being the first to offer external SATA ports on the motherboard based upon the SATA 6 Gb/second interface. Today’s review is on ASRock’s latest motherboard to use the x58 chipset the ASRock X58 Extreme3. 

Features:

• True 333
• X58 Northbridge
• ICH10R Southbridge
• Gulftown CPU (980X) support
• ASRock DuraCaps
• V8 Power Phase Design
• Triple Channel DDR3-2000 support
• Support ATI CrossfireX and Quad CrossfireX
• Support NVIDIA Quad SLI and SLI
• 1 Powered ESATAIII/USB connector
• ErP/EUP Ready, Dr Debug
• Smart Switch Design
• Supports ASRock Instant Boot, Instant Flash, OC DNA, Multi-Speed Fan Control, OC Tuner, IES, Good Night LED
• 7.1 CH HD Audio
• Combo Cooler Option (CCO)
• CyberLink DVD Suite: OEM and Trial, Creative Sound Blaster X-FI MB Trial  

Manufacturer	ASRock
Chipset	X58
North Bridge	Intel X58
Socket	LGA1366 Socket
Memory speed	2000 (OC)/1866 (OC)/1600 (OC)/1333 (OC)/1066
Processor Types	Core i7
Number of CPUs	1
QPI	Up to 6.4GT/second
Memory Type	DDR3
Memory Channels	Triple
Maximum Memory	24GB
External Graphics	PCI Express x16 x3
IGP	N/A
South Bridge	ICH10R
Audio	8-channel
IDE	133/100/66
SCSI	None
SATA	6.0 GB/s
RAID	0, 1, 0+1, 5, 10
LAN	10/100/1000 4 LAN Ports
Firewire	IEEE 1394a
USB	USB 3.0
BIOS	8MB AMI Legal BIOS

  The ASRock Extreme3 motherboard is based upon the Intel X58 chipset launched in 2008 by Intel along with their Core i7 CPUs. This chipset was the first on the market to support both ATI’s Crossfire and NVIDIA’s SLI multiple GPU solutions. This was also the first motherboard chipset on the consumer side to support triple channel DDR3 memory. 

   ASRock calls their innovative features True 333. SATA 6 Gb/second is now a standard among many motherboards being released today with every motherboard having at least two of these ports. The issue with the X58 chipset is the chipset was released far earlier than the SATA 6 Gb/second ports appeared on a motherboard and drives appeared on the market. 

   The reason they declare it True 333 is due to the fact that on the P55 Express, H55, and H57 platforms the PCI Express lanes available is limited to 24 PCIE lanes with 16 lanes for the graphics portion of the motherboard and 8 for PCI Express slots and other uses. As the introduction of SATA 6 Gb/second and USB 3.0 required 5 Gb/second of bandwidth that means that each set of two ports requires an x2 connection each way or x4 connection total and would operate in normal mode when CrossfireX or SLI was activated. The X58 chipset has plenty of PCI Express lanes (36) meaning that this is not a problem.

   ASRock delivered the first SATA 6 Gb/second solution on the market with their add-on cards included on some of their motherboard bundles. Today, they have moved to including SATA 6 Gb/second on their motherboards, in this instance with a Marvell SE9128 controller. USB 3.0 is the second tier of the True 333 concept with 2 USB 3.0 ports controlled by a NEC MPD 720200. The third leg of the triad is an external SATA 6 Gb/second connector.

    Instant Boot is ASRock’s implementation of using the S3 and S4 Suspend and Sleep modes depending on the hardware configuration. With Instant Boot, this boot time is cut into a few seconds giving a 10x speed up in the boot process over traditional boot times. There are two modes Fast Instant Boot and Regular Instant Boot. Fast Instant Boot time is a few seconds Regular IB time is around 20-22 seconds.

   

   The X58 Extreme3 motherboard supports Intel’s LGA-1366 CPUs including the latest Core i7-980X Gulftown 6-core CPU and the various Xeon 55xx series CPUs. The memory controller is on the CPU itself, meaning the Core i7-980X brings support for DDR3-1066MHz natively. The board supports DDR3 memory up to 2000MHz but requires overclocking to support the higher clocked memory. The X58 Extreme3 motherboard has six DIMM slots, allowing for up to 24GB of DDR3 memory and Triple channel memory, but note that if you want the higher clocked memory using Intel’s XMP Profiles only one DIMM per channel is supported.

 

   ASRock uses a standard ATX layout for their Extreme3 motherboard. The color scheme they have decided to go with is black with the upper right hand corner having the 8-pin power connector. Next to the 8-pin power connector is something different, a heatsink/fan/heatpipe combination covering the MOSFETs.

   A heatpipe leads out into the heatsink for the X58 chipset, keeping both the MOSFETS and X58 Express chipset cool in operation. The two heatsinks surround the CPU Socket which can take all of the released Core i7 LGA-1366 CPUs on the market including the Core i7-980X Gulftown CPU recently released. The heatsink/fan assembly is far enough away from the CPU Socket to allow after-market CPU coolers.

   One special feature of this motherboard is the Combo Cooler Option (CCO). Normally, LGA-1366 CPU coolers are much larger than the equivalent LGA-1156 cooler, with different pin holes. ASRock has implemented two sets of holes for the CPU cooler, one for LGA-1156 coolers and the other for LGA-1366 CPU coolers. This flexibility allows for the use of smaller, less expensive coolers than the LGA-1366 Socket normally requires.

    To the left of the CPU cooler are the PowerFan and ChassisFan headers. The CPUFan header is next to the MOSFET. Below the CPU Socket are six DIMM Sockets for up to 24GB of DDR3 memory. The Core i7 980X CPU natively supports DDR3-1066MHz, with higher frequencies supported under Intel XMP memory profiles. Note again that if you are using XMP one DIMM per channel can be populated per Intel policies. 

   The 24-pin power connector is on the bottom right hand corner of the board. The Front Panel I/O is next. This is an interesting position as normally this is located on the far left side of the motherboard. The next item is a USB header. To the left of the USB header is an IDE connector. That’s right, an IDE connector. With every motherboard having SATA ports and DVDs and Blu-ray drives coming in SATA this is a good add-on for those wanting legacy support.

The next item on the board is the SATA ports. There are six SATA 2.0 ports available controlled by the ICH10R Southbridge. These ports are in the sideways alignment, allowing for long video cards to be installed without interfering with the SATA ports. To the left of the SATA ports are headers for the PowerLED1 and Speaker connections. The left side of the board starts off with a Diagnostic LED to let you know of problem areas on boot. Power and Reset buttons are next followed by the Front Firewire header.

   

   The next item on the left side of the board is a 4-pin Chassis Fan header, followed by the Trusted Program Monitor (TPM), a COM1 port, the Floppy port and the HDMI S/PDIF header. Two SATA 6Gb/s ports are located next to the first PCIE X16 slot. The X58 Extreme3 board has three PCI-E x16 slots for graphics cards. Note the first two slots are at x16 mode with the third slot operating at x4 mode. There are also two PCI slots and a PCI Express x1 slot. The graphics slots supports CrossfireX and Quad CrossfireX as well as SLI and Quad SLI.

  

   Onboard sound is provided by a Via VT2020 Audio CODEC. This supports 7.1 Ch HD Audio with Content protection and has DACs with 110dB dynamic range. Premium Blu-ray audio support is present and the board comes with Creative’s Sound Blaster X-Fi MB Trial software that allows you to use EAX 3.0 and 4.0 on supported sound solutions. The rear I/O on the board consists of a PS/2 Mouse, a PS/2 Keyboard, a Coaxial S/PDIF Out port, an Optical S/PDIF Out port, 5 Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 ports, 1 Powered ESATAIII/USB2.0 connector, 2 Ready-to-Use USB 3.0 Ports, a RJ45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED), and a Firewire port. There are also the six audio jacks for the onboard audio and a Clear CMOS Switch with LED.

ASUS M4A89TD-Pro/USB 3.0 Motherboard

   AMD and Intel are the two biggest CPU and chipset makers in the world with each making specific motherboard chipsets for their CPUs. The ultimate goal is to provide a complete solution with the CPU, the graphics chip, the North and Southbridges all gone with a single chip replacing them all. Intel has launched the Clarkdale CPU series with integrated graphics on the die, meaning that the Northbridge on those CPUs are no longer there.

 

   
















AMD has a project called Fusion which will also integrate their integrated graphics onto the CPU, allowing users to purchase a CPU with graphics, and the I/O controller, the SATA controller and much more. It should be interesting to see how the market evolves in the future. The best solution for gaming has always been to add an external graphics card to the motherboard to improve graphics performance. 

   AMD recently launched the 8 series chipsets to coincide with the launch of their six core CPUs, the Phenom II X6 1090T and 1055T. The new features of these chipsets include a new integrated graphics chip and support for USB 3.0. There are four chipsets in the 8-series family: 890FX, 890GX, 880G and the 870. The highest end 8 series chipset is the 890FX. Today’s review is on the M4A89TD-Pro/USB 3.0 board from ASUS based upon AMD’s 890FX chipset. 

Features:

• AMD AM3 Phenom II/Athlon II/Sempron 100 Series Processors
• CrossfireX Support
• AMD 890FX Chipset
• PCIe 2.0 support
• HDMI Support
• DVI Support
• True USB 3.0 support
• True SATA 6Gb/second support
• Dual Channel DDR3 2000 (O.C.)/1333/1066 support
• Core Unlocker
• Turbo Key II
• TurboV EVO
• Turbo Unlocker
• Auto Tuning
• GPU Boost
• CPU Level Up
• Express Gate
• ASUS 8+2 Phase Power
• MemOK!
• EPU
• ASUS Fanless Design
• Fan Xpert
• EZ Flash 2
• CrashFree BIOS 3
• OC Profile
• Power eSATA
• ASUS Q-Connector
• DTS
• S/PDIF-out on back I/O
• High Definition Audio
• Noise Filter
• RoHS

 

Part Number	M4A89TD PRO/USB 3
Manufacturer	ASUS
Chipset	890FX
Northbridge	890FX
Socket	AM3
Memory speed	DDR3 2000 (OC)/1333/1066/800
Processor Types	Phenom II/Athlon II/ Sempron 100 Up to 6 core
Number of CPUs	1
QPI	5200MT/s
Memory Typ	e DDR3
Memory Channels	Double
Maximum Memory	16GB
External Graphics	PCI Express x16 x2
IGP	N/A
South Bridge	SB 850
Audio	8-channel
IDE	133/100/66
SCSI	None
SATA	6Gb/second
RAID	0, 1, 0+1, 5, 10
LAN	10/100/1000 4 LAN Ports
Firewire	IEEE 1394a
USB	USB 3.0
BIOS	AMIBIOS
Form Factor	ATX

   The M4A89TD Pro/USB 3.0 motherboard is based upon the AMD 890FX chipset which is the fastest chipset on the AMD platform. The motherboard uses the 890FX and SB 850 chipset combination that is the high end of the AMD platform much like the 890GX is the high end on the integrated graphics chips.

   To the right of the CPU Socket is where the 4-pin fan header is for the CPU cooler. Under the CPU Socket are four DIMM slots for up to 16GB of DDR3 memory. ASUS says the boards supports DDR3-2000MHz memory but note that the CPU has had the memory controller since the Athlon 64 was launched and is limited to 1333MHz without overclocking. The memory slots are arranged in alternating colors. Installing memory in two like colored slots results in dual channel memory.

  













  Continuing on the right side of the board there are two Dip switches which are the Turbo Key II and Core Unlocker. Assuming you have a 3 core CPU that can be unlocked, it will turn your 3 core CPU into a 4 core CPU. Simply flip the switch and the CPU cores are unlocked. The Turbo Key II Dip Switch enables the Turbo Key (Power button by default) to automatically overclock the CPU based upon load. The next button is the MEMOK! button on the bottom of the board which sets memory settings to a default set of parameters useful when the memory causes a problem.

   Next to the MemOK! button is a COM1 header. The next item is a 24-pin power connector. A legacy IDE port with a sideways facing orientation is next. ASUS includes six SATA 6 Gb/second ports for the storage. Note that the SB850 Southbridge supports SATA 6 Gb/second ports so all ports on this board are SATA 6 GB/second ports. The next item is the SB850 Southbridge which is covered by another purple heatsink above the IDE controller. The left side of the board starts off with the FP I/O with everything labeled for easy installation.

   Three USB headers are next followed by a IEEE-1394 header and. Note that AMD and Intel have not implemented USB 3.0 into their chipsets as of yet and motherboard manufacturers have to use bridge chips or take PCI Express lanes from the chipset or CPU (Intel Arrandale) to get the necessary bandwidth for full USB 3.0. ASUS implements a PLX bridge chip which have an x4 PCIe interface to provide the necessary bandwidth for USB 3.0. There is an S/PDIF Out header followed by the AAFP header is next.

   The board has two PCI Express x16 slots each of which is Generation 2.0. This allows the graphics card to have up to 5GB of bandwidth at x16 speed, or 2.5GB/second when two cards are installed in CrossfireX at x8 each. There is plenty of spacing between the two graphics card slots for dual-slot Crossfire cards like the HD 5970 to be installed. Also on the board are a single PCIe x1 slot, a PCI Express x4 slot and two legacy PCI slots. 

   The onboard audio is provided by a Realtek ALC892 CODEC. This is the latest audio solution from Realtek and has been included on several of the newer motherboards. The ALC892 is a fully High Definition Audio compliant sound solution and is capable of doing 7.1 surround sound+2 additional channels for multi-streaming. The Rear I/O on the board consists of a PS/2 keyboard connector, a PS/2 Mouse connector six USB 2.0 ports, an external SATA/USB combo port, two USB 3.0 ports, and six audio jacks for the ALC892 and an S/PDIF port.

GIGABYTE GA-H55N-USB3 Motherboard

  

GIGABYTE GA-H55N-USB3 (rev 1.0) Features:

• Intel Core i7/Core i5/ Core i3 support
• On/off charge support
• USB 3.0 Support
• 3x USB Power Boost
• Ultra Durable 3
• 2oz Copper PCB
• Smart 6
• Dynamic Energy Saver 2
• Cloud OC
• Hotkey OC
• HDMI
• AutoGreen
• DualBIOS
• Norton Internet Security
• Qualified for Windows 7
• ErP Lot 6 Support

Part Number	H55N-USB3
Manufacturer	GIGABYTE
Chipset	H55 Express
North Bridge	N/A
Socket	LGA-1156
Memory	DDR3 1333/1066
Processor Types	Core i7, Core i5, Core i3
Number of CPUs	1
QPI	Up to 4.8GT/second
Memory Type	DDR3
Memory Channels	Dual
Maximum Memory	8GB
External Graphics	PCI Express x16 2.0 x1
IGP	Intel GMA HD
SCSI	None
SATA	3.0 GB/s
RAID	N/A
LAN	10/100/1000
Firewire	N/A
USB	USB 2.0
BIOS	AMIBIOS
Form Factor	mATX

   The GIGABYTE H55N-USB3 motherboard is based upon Intel’s H55 Express chipset. Intel moved the PCI Express controller from the Northbridge to the CPU, meaning that there is no need for a Northbridge on the motherboard as previous chipsets had. The Clarkdale CPUs which are the new 32nm CPUs with integrated graphics on the chipset are fully supported by the H55 chipset as are the Core i7-8xx and 7xx CPUs. 

   The GMA HD is a modified version of the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator from previous motherboard chipsets like the G45 and G35 chipsets that preceded the H55. One issue with the launch of Intel chipsets with the LGA-1156 interface was there was no integrated solution to go along with it, meaning everyone needed a discrete graphics card to use the P55 chipset with the new CPUs. For most enthusiasts external graphics is a must. For most business users and HTPC users which this board is targeted towards, this was an issue.

   USB 3.0 is the new standard for the Universal Serial Bus that was introduced into computer motherboards last year. USB has 10x the bandwidth of that provided by 2.0 at 5 Gigabits/second of bandwidth. This also provides 900 micro Amps of power to devices compared to the 500 micro Amps on USB 2.0. GIGABYTE goes three steps further by providing 3x the power to USB 3.0 devices at 2700 micro Amps. One side benefit of this is the ability to Fast Charge USB devices like the iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 takes up to 4 hours to charge on a regular motherboard with USB 2.0. On motherboards with the 3x Power the iPhone 4 takes 2 hours and 55 minutes which is a huge improvement over regular USB charging of the iPhone.

   Smart 6 is a series of utilities that are3 designed to work with your new motherboard to give you more control of the system. They consist of Smart QuickBoot, Smart DualBIOS, Smart QuickBoost, Smart Recorder, Smart Recovery and Smart TimeLock. Quick Boot allows you to boot your computer in a few seconds instead of the up to a minute it takes a regular computer. GIGABYTE pioneered the idea of a second BIOS taking over for the first one if it fails Smart DualBIOS acts like a personal memo taker also keeping important numbers safe. Smart QuickBoost gives you one-click overclocking. Smart Recorder monitors your system activity, and when it was turned on/off. It also records when large amounts of data have been copied from your PC. Smart Recovery works much like Windows System Restore but with more functionality. It takes a “Snapshot” every day and makes a record of any added, deleted or modified files. Smart Recovery makes a copy of the changed file and saves it. You can use Smart Recovery to go back to an earlier version of a file like a Word document or presentation. You can set up the amount of space, and the time for the backup. Smart TimeLock allows you to keep a time limit on your computer so that your children don’t spend all day on it. 


   The board is designed to fit into a Home Theater PC designed to fit inside the smallest cases the board is fully featured as we shall see. Starting on the upper right hand corner of the board we find that GIGABYTE has located the 4-pin CPU Fan header here.

   The CPU area is a bit cramped for installation of after-market CPU coolers with memory installation. With the size of the board there really was no getting around it. I was able to install a Thermaltake cooler with no issue and was able to install the reference cooler without issue but installing the wider cooler may cause interference.

    The top of the board is where the SATA ports are located on this board. The board has four SATA ports which is sufficient for most users as the H55 Express chipset does not support RAID, requiring the motherboard manufacturer to add a separate RAID controller to support it. The 4-pin power connector is above the CPU area with the 24-pin power connector below the FP I/O which is below the SATA ports. The FP I/O is color coded and labeled with two USB headers next to them. 

   The bottom of the board is where GIGABYTE has decided to place the DIMM slots. The LGA-1156 CPUs support dual channel memory at up to 8GB of DDR memory supported by this board. Memory speeds of up to DDR3 1333 are natively supported by the Intel Core i3/i5 CPUs and the board supports Intel’s Extreme Memory Profiles. DDR3 1600MHz is also supported via overclocking as the memory controller is on the CPU for both Intel and AMD on their platforms. The next item of note is the video card slot which is located directly next to the CPU Socket hence the cramped nature of the CPU Socket area.

 

   The board has a single PCI Express x16 slot for an external graphics card. Note that the Radeon HD 4870 we use for testing overlaps both the PCI Express slot but also the motherboard in terms of length. The card also overlaps the board on the side so if you buy a case designed for this sized board you might run into a small issue. As this board is meant for the HTPC and small server crowd, these people will not likely install a dual-slot video card, or a long one like a HD 5870 or HD 5970. The board design is perfect for the target markets as the I/O is a fully featured one. 

    GIGABYTE uses a Realtek ALC892 sound card on their H55N-USB3 motherboard. This is the latest iteration of sound card from the makers of quality onboard sound. The ALC892 supports Intel’s High Definition Audio standard with support for 2/4/5.1/7.1 speaker systems and supports S/PDIF Out. The rear I/O has a combination PS/2 Mouse or Keyboard port in case you have one of those legacy devices, 4 USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, an external SATA port, a S/PDIF Out port, a LAN jack, and six audio jacks for the onboard audio. There are also the video connections for an HDMI port, A DVI port and a VGA port. This should allow you to connect your new motherboard to the most popular monitors or HDTV connections.

Kinds of Computer Motherboards

   Computer motherboards act as the backbone for every computing solution. The computer's motherboard is a common area for devices to interface and interact through disparate connection technologies and communications protocols. There are many ways for devices to connect and many technologies for them to communicate, and as such there are many different types of motherboards, each designed with specific computing duties in mind.

Form Factor

Form factors are design specifications that set guidelines for motherboard sizes, mounting screw locations and recommendations for connection socket locations on the motherboard itself. There are two classes of form factors that are of major concern. There is the ATX specification, which has several subclasses such as mini-ATX, ATX and Extended ATX. The ATX specification is used mainly for home computing solutions such as desktops and laptops. The second form factor of concern is the SSI specification, which has subclasses such as SSI CEB and SSI EEB. These motherboard specifications are designed for high-end enterprise solutions such as data servers, workstations and rack mount servers.

CPU Socket

The next consideration in differentiating a motherboard once a form factor has been determined is the CPU socket type. Every CPU has its own connective socket that is designed to accept a particular type or family of processors. Thus a motherboard is defined secondly by the processor type it is compatible with. Socket types are designed by their respective CPU companies. Enterprise-level motherboards often support dual, quad or even octal processor sockets.

Chip Set

A motherboard's intended use often dictates the chip sets it will have. Chip sets are controllers built into a motherboard that control such things as PCIe, SATA, EIDE and RAM communications. There are traditionally two chip sets on a motherboard, the north bridge and the south bridge. Their respective functions are varied by design and can often be designed to do the same tasks. The features of a motherboard's chip sets determine if and how well a motherboard will perform in a specific application.

Features

Motherboards can be designed to connect and communicate between a multitude of system devices. The current connective features on modern computer motherboards are designed to connect hard drives, add-on cards, CPU, system memory and peripheral device ports such as USB, Firewire and eSATA. Further, it is becoming more common for motherboard BIOS software to provide embedded tools for processor, RAM and chip set overclocking.

Considerations

When choosing a motherboard for a specific purpose, it is key to begin the selection process in a specific order to ensure your motherboard is compatible with the various devices on your computing solution. Form factor, CPU type, chip sets and finally connective sockets are the order in which you should begin the motherboard selection process. Narrowing your choices by any other order can lead to selecting a motherboard that is not compatible with your computing solution.

 

ASUS Mainboard

Socket LGA775

   LGA775 (occasionally called Socket T) is a current processor socket used for Intel desktop processors and has been in use since mid-2004. As such, it is the basis of most current consumer motherboards and supports a variety of processors including versions of the Pentium 4, Pentium D, and Core 2 processors. As actual compatibility with a particular processor is determined by the chipset used on the board, it is still important to check the motherboard's actual compatible processors.

Built-in Graphics

  These motherboards feature an on-board graphics processor, alleviating the need to purchase a graphics card. This can be a good choice for a cheaper system that is not expected to need the latest and greatest in graphical processing power. Even better, many of these still have a acceptable graphics card slot on the motherboard, allowing it to be upgraded later.

   Not all on-board graphics are alike. Some are versions of actual graphics processors, mounted on the motherboard with built-in video RAM, which can give decent performance; others are integrated graphics solutions, which are built into the main chipset of the board itself. These latter have been getting better, and can provide enough performance for standard office tasks, but still fall far behind any of the dedicated solutions.

   Asus P5KPL-AM SE supports DDR2 800 memory up to 4GB, PCI-E 16x, USB 2.0, 8-channel audio, LAN, SATA II, and ATA100. And it features an onboard integrated Intel GMA 3100 graphic controller and Live Update. For outstanding performance at a price that fits your budget, order the Asus P5KPL-AM SE Intel G31 Socket 775 motherboard.

Specifications

CPU	Intel® Socket 775 Core™2 Quad/Core™2 Extreme/Core™2 Duo/Pentium® D/Pentium® 4/Celeron® E1000 Series and Celeron 400 Series Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology ready *Refer to www.asus.com for Intel CPU support list
Chipset	Intel® G31 Intel ICH7
Front Side Bus	1600*/1333/1066/800 MHz (*1600 is overclock speed)
Memory	2 x DIMM, Max. 4 GB, DDR2 1066(O.C.)/800/667 Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory Dual Channel memory architecture *Overclock speed **Refer to www.asus.com or user manual for Memory QVL (Qualify Vendor List) ***When installing total memory of 4GB capacity or more, WindowsR 32-bit operation system may only recognize less than 3GB. Hence, a total installed memory of less than 3GB is recommended.
Expansion Slots	1 x PCIe x16 1 x PCIe x1 2 x PCI
VGA	Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (Intel® GMA 3100) Max. resolution:2048x1536X32bpp, Horizontal:127.5KHz Vertical:85Hz
Storage	Southbridge 1 xUltraDMA 100/66/33 4 xSATA 3 Gb/s ports
LAN	Realtek RTL8102EL 100/10 LAN
Audio	VIA VT1708B 8 -Channel High-Definition Audio CODEC Anti-Pop Function Jack-detect & Multi-Streaming Support S/PDIF Out connector
USB	8 USB 2.0 ports (4 ports at mid-board, 4 ports at back panel)
Overclocking Features	SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection) - FSB tuning from 200MHz up to 600MHz at 1MHz increment Overclocking Protection - ASUS C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall)
Special Features	ASUS MyLogo 2 ASUS EZ Flash 2 ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 ASUS Q-Fan
Back Panel I/O Ports	1 x Parallel 1 x VGA 1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 1 x LAN(RJ45) port 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 1 x COM port 8 -Channel Audio I/O
Internal I/O Connectors	2 x USB connectors support additional 4 USB ports 1 x Floppy disk drive connector 1 x IDE connector 4 x SATA connectors 1 x internal speaker connector 1 x S/PDIF Out connector 1 x CPU/ Chassis/ Power Fan connector 1 x Front panel High Definition audio connector 1 x Chassis Intrusion connector 1 x CD audio in connector 24-pin EPS 12V Power connector 4-pin ATX 12V Power connector 1 x System Panel connector
BIOS	8 Mb Flash ROM DMI 2.0 AMI BIOS PnP WfM 2.0 SM BIOS 2.5 ACPI 2.0
Manageability	WOL,PXE,RPL,WOR ,PME Wake Up
Accessories	User's manual 1 x UltraDMA 133/100/66 cable 1 x Floppy disk drive cable 1 x SATA cable 1 x SATA power cable I/O Shield
Support Disc	Drivers ASUS PC Probe II Anti-virus software (OEM version) ASUS Update
Form Factor	uATX Form Factor 9.6 inch x8 inch ( 24.4 cm x 20.3 cm )