Introduction and Specifications

ASRock shipped us one of their P55 Extreme motherboards to review, which was created for the LGA 1156 crowd and comes bundled with decent features like quad CrossfireX and SLI support, an add-on card for SATA 6GB/s devices, and custom overclocking options that will make newcomers to overclocking foam at the mouth.

ASRock gives users P55-based solution with easy overclocking features

ASRock P55 Deluxe LGA 1156 ATX Motherboard Review - Motherboards 70
Courtesy of ASRock

 

ASRock is a relatively new company to the motherboard scene, but their latest P55 lineup includes a few good offerings for both AMD and Intel platforms in the budget and higher-end class of motherboards. ASRock shipped us one of their P55 Extreme motherboards to review, which was created for the LGA 1156 crowd and comes bundled with decent features like quad CrossfireX and SLI support,  an add-on card for SATA 6GB/s devices, and custom overclocking options that will make any newcomers to OCing foam at the mouth.

ASRock P55 Deluxe LGA 1156 ATX Motherboard Review - Motherboards 71
Courtesy of ASRock

ASRock was originally established in 2002 and their company’s main goal was to develop innovative and reliable motherboards. The company states on their website that their engineers pay a lot of attention to “EMI, thermal, acoustics and other details to achieve complete customer satisfaction.”  We haven’t had a lot of experience examining their products here at PC Perspective in the past, so this review will serve as a “first date” to see how the P55 Extreme fairs against other P55-based boards during our synthetic benchmark and gaming tests.

The P55 Deluxe was released last year when Intel announced the LGA 1156 platform with the P55 chipset. This new technology was welcomed with open arms by the enthusiast community with hopes the LGA 1156 would match the performance offerings of the LGA 1366, but at a fraction of the cost of that platform. True to form, the LGA 1156 was able to deliver and ASRock has incorporated it into every aspect of the P55 Extreme’s design and feature set.

The P55 Deluxe includes a host of performance-enhancing features like two PCI-E x16 slots and eight SATA 3GB/s ports with RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 support courtesy of Intel’s Matrix Storage technology. ASRock also extended the board’s memory support by allowing users to install up to 16GBs of DDR3-2600+ unbuffered memory. They also included two firewire ports and even dropped the cash to add Japanese-made Conductive Polymer Capacitors to help stabilize the board’s 16+2 power phase design.

 

ASRock P55 Deluxe motherboard specifications (taken from ASRock’s website)

General

 

 

 

CPU

 

 

 

– Supports Intel® Core™ i7 / i5 / i3 and Pentium® G6950 Processors in LGA1156 Package
– Advanced V16 + 2 Power Phase Design
– Supports Intel® Turbo Boost Technology
– Supports Hyper-Threading Technology
– Supports Untied Overclocking Technology
– Supports EM64T CPU

 

 

 

Chipset

 

 

 

– Intel® P55

 

 

 

Memory

 

 

 

– Dual Channel DDR3 memory technology
– 4 x DDR3 DIMM slots
– Supports DDR3 2600+(OC)/2133(OC)/1866(OC)/1600/1333/1066 non-ECC, un-buffered memory
– Max. capacity of system memory: 16GB
*
– Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)

 

 

 

*Due to the operating system limitation, the actual memory size may be less than 4GB for the reservation for system usage under Windows® 32-bit OS. For Windows® 64-bit OS with 64-bit CPU, there is no such limitation.

 

 

 

BIOS

 

 

 

– 16Mb AMI BIOS
– AMI Legal BIOS
– Supports “Plug and Play”
– ACPI 1.1 Compliance Wake Up Events
– Supports jumperfree
– SMBIOS 2.3.1 Support
– CPU, VCCM, SB, VTT Voltage Multi-adjustment
– Supports I. O. T. (Intelligent Overclocking Technology)
– Supports Smart BIOS

 

 

 

 Audio, Video and Networking

 

 

 

Graphics

 

 

 

– n/a

 

 

 

Audio

 

 

 

– 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection
– DAC with 110dB dynamic range (ALC890 Audio Codec)
– DTS (Digital Theater Systems) support
– Premium Blu-ray audio support

 

 

 

LAN

 

 

 

– PCIE x1 Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
– Realtek RTL8111DL
– Supports Wake-On-LAN
– Supports Dual LAN with Teaming function

 

 

 

 Expansion / Connectivity

 

 

 

Slots

 

 

 

– 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (Single at x16 or Dual at x8/x8 mode)
– 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot (at x4 mode, 2.5GT/s)
– 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slot (2.5GT/s)
– 3 x PCI slots
– Supports ATI™ CrossFireX™, 3-Way CrossFireX™ and Quad CrossFireX™
– Supports NVIDIA® SLI™ and Quad SLI™

 

 

 

Connector

 

 

 

– 2 x SATA3 6 Gb/s connectors (including 1 x external SATA3 6 Gb/s connector), supported by ASRock SATA3 card
– 6 x SATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 10, RAID 5 and Intel® Matrix Storage), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug functions
– 1 x ATA133 IDE connector (supports 2 x IDE devices)
– 1 x Floppy connector
– 1 x IR header
– 1 x COM port header
– 1 x HDMI_SPDIF header
– 1 x IEEE 1394 header
– 1 x TPM header
– CPU/Chassis/Power FAN connector
– 24 pin ATX power connector
– 8 pin 12V power connector
– CD in header
– Front panel audio connector
– 3 x USB 2.0 headers (support 6 USB 2.0 ports)

 

 

 

Rear Panel I/O

 

 

 

I/O Panel
– 1 x PS/2 Mouse Port
– 1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port
– 1 x Coaxial SPDIF Out Port
– 1 x Optical SPDIF Out Port
– 7 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports
– 1 x Powered eSATAII/USB Connector
– 2 x RJ-45 LAN Ports with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
– 1 x IEEE 1394 Port
– 1 x Clear CMOS Switch with LED
– HD Audio Jack: Side Speaker / Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone

 

 

 

 Other Features / Miscellaneous

 

 

 

Unique Feature

 

 

 

– ASRock OC Tuner
– Intelligent Energy Saver
– Instant Boot
– ASRock Instant Flash
– ASRock OC DNA
Hybrid Booster:
– CPU Frequency Stepless Control
– ASRock U-COP
– Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G.)
– Combo Cooler Option (C.C.O.)
– Good Night LED

 

 

 

Smart Switch

 

 

 

– 1 x Power Switch with LED
– 1 x Reset Switch with LED
– 1 x Clear CMOS Switch with LED

 

 

 

Support CD

 

 

 

– Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software (Trial Version)

 

 

 

Accessories

 

 

 

– 1 x ASRock SLI_Bridge_2S Card
– 1 x ASRock SATA3 Card
– Quick Installation Guide, Support CD, I/O Shield
– Floppy/ATA 133 Cables
– 4 x SATA Data Cables (optional)
– 2 x SATA 1 to 1 Power Cables (optional)
– 1 x LED lead (optional)

 

 

 

Hardware Monitor

 

 

 

– CPU Temperature Sensing
– Chassis Temperature Sensing
– CPU/Chassis/Power Fan Tachometer
– CPU Quiet Fan
– CPU/Chassis Fan Multi-Speed Control
– Voltage Monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, CPU Vcore

 

 

 

Form Factor

 

 

 

– ATX Form Factor: 12.0-in x 9.6-in, 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm
– All Solid Capacitor design (100% Japan-made high-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors)

 

 

 

OS

 

 

 

– Microsoft® Windows® 7 / 7 64-bit / Vista™ / Vista™ 64-bit / XP / XP 64-bit compliant

 

 

 

Certifications

 

 

 

– FCC, CE, WHQL
– EuP 2.0 Ready (EuP ready power supply is required)

 

 

 

 


« PreviousNext »