Asus P7P55D Premium Lynnfield Motherboard Sneak Peek

As we creep ever closer to the official launch of Intel's Lynnfield platform, more news and information regarding the processors, motherboards, and chipset seems to be hitting the web almost daily. The latest piece of interesting Lynnfield-related information we have for you comes in the form of Asus' high-end P7P55D Premium P55-based motherboard.

The Asus P7P55D Premium packs some interesting features to compliment Intel's upcoming Core i5 and Core i7 socket 1156 processors... 

Asus P7P55D Premium Motherboard

  

 

As you can see, the board sports a dark PCB, with some aggressive looking heatsinks on the VRM and chipset. An interesting note about the VRM design on this board is that it has a hybrid 32+3 phase configuration, where 32-phases are dedicated to the processor core and three to the CPU's integrated memory controller. In addition, the VRM is made up of low RDS (on) MOSFETs, Ferrite core chokes, and 100% Japanese-made, high quality conductive polymer caps. There's even a heat-plate on the underside.

Other interesting features of the P7P55D Premium include an integrated Asus T.Probe chip which detects and balances power phase loads and temperatures in real-time. According to Asus, T.Probe allows the components in the VRM to run cooler with more even power distribution across phases, which should extend the board's lifespan while offering more stable power ouput as well.

The P7P55D Premium also sports Asus' Turbo V EVO chip for real-time overclocking and tweaking assistance. And the Turbo V EVO chip is complimented by the Turbo V Remote, which gives users the ability to overclock / underclock and adjust EPU settings directly from the controller, without having to exit whatever application may be loaded on the system.

Source: Asus

Another noteworthy feature of the P7P55D Premium in the integration of a Marvell 9123 6G SATA controller. Instead of connecting directly to the PCIe Gen 1 lanes available in the P55 chipset though, the Marvell 6G SATA controller is linked to the chipset via a PLX8613 PCI Express Gen 2 bridge. The PLX8613 connected to the P55 via four Gen 1 PCIe lanes, but links to the Marvell controller via single Gen 2 lane. Although the 500MB/s available with a single Gen 2 PCIe lane is 100MB/s lower than the SATA 6G spec, Asus notes, "The 600MB/s is the theoretical transfer rate. Due to the limitation of current SATA 6Gb/s HDDs, the 500MB/s is quite Enough for the SATA 6Gb/s HDDs."

We'll be taking an in-depth look at the P7P55D Premium in the not too distant future, so be sure to come back after the Lynnfield launch for the full scoop.