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The key features of the P55 Deluxe3 includes USB 3.0, 4 DIMM slots, an 8 + 2 power phase, 9 SATA ports, powered eSATA, Firewire, 10-channel audio and Gigabit LAN.
Some other features are standard across all P55-based boards such as multi-GPU support using either Crossfire or SLI technology. Also provided by the chipset are six SATA2 (3.0Gb/s) ports, which is the bare minimum you will see on any P55 motherboard since it's a stock characteristic.
Accompanying the default six SATA2 (3.0Gb/s) ports in the P55 Deluxe3 is a single eSATA3 port using the Marvell 88SE9128 chip. This SATA port is self-powered meaning eSATA Flash Drives won't need to be powered externally or by a USB port. However please note that this eSATA port is shared with the second SATA3 onboard connector.
The same Marvell 88SE9128 chip which was industry's first 6Gb/s SATA RAID controller also powers a pair of onboard SATA3 ports supporting RAID0, 1, 5 and 10. This chip uses a dedicated PCIe 2.0 x1 lane which is delivered by the PLX Technology PEX 8606 controller which is a PCIe 2.0 switch of sorts. The controller itself offers 6 lanes in total, each lane features a bandwidth of 5.0 GT/s.
Also connected to the PEX 8606 PCIe 2.0 switch is an NEC D720200F1 chip which features support for a pair of USB 3.0 ports. These new USB 3.0 ports have a bandwidth of 5Gb/s which is considerably greater than that of USB 2.0. While USB 2.0 (otherwise known as USB Hi-Speed) boosted the original 12Mbps data rate to 480Mmb/s over eight years ago, USB 3.0 (dubbed USB Superspeed) is set to multiply that bandwidth tenfold.
Improving USB performance has been a must for years now as flash memory devices has increased in speed while becoming much more affordable in the process. Even conventional hard drives are limited by the USB 2.0 bus which has become a problem for larger capacity portable drives. Although we are unable to test USB 3.0 performance just yet it is nice to see this feature being offered by the Asrock P55 Deluxe3. Moving on we have Gigabit LAN which is delivered via the Realtek RTL8111DL controller. This is another modern controller that utilizes the PCI Express bus for maximum throughput. The P55 Deluxe3 only offers a single Gigabit LAN port, though we suspect most users will find this sufficient.
The P55 Deluxe3 gets its audio from the VIA VT2020 (BD192/24 ENVY HD) codec, which supports DTS Surround Sensation. This 10-Channel HD Audio CODEC features support for jack detection, multi streaming and front panel jack re-tasking while Coaxial/Optical S/PDIF ports are provided on the I/O panel.
Finally we have one more VIA chip and this one provides Firewire support. The VT6315N chip uses the PCI Express bus and offers a pair of Firewire (IEEE1394a) ports. However, interestingly enough Asrock has elected to provide just one of the two ports sticking a single connector on the I/O panel. |
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release date |
Posted on: 03/03/2010 06:00 PM
I'm super excited for this board, any idea on the release date? to purchase at Newegg. |
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ProX |
Posted on: 03/03/2010 08:48 PM
Nice review and nice board. I would also like to know when these will become available? |
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Alice |
Posted on: 03/09/2010 01:44 AM
Really nice board!! Very good looking~~ Thanks for yor nice review I'll consider this board for my P55 platform. |
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Kosti |
Posted on: 04/07/2010 09:46 AM
My simple question is should one buy one of these or look at a cheaper solution like the ASUS P7P55D-E PRO ? |
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ts |
Posted on: 04/11/2010 03:02 PM
Nice review thank you - i like Asrock products. My dumb question here: Wich cpu cooler used this on board? |
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ProX |
Posted on: 04/11/2010 10:57 PM
@ ts - the heatsink in the photos is the Noctua NH-U12P. |
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Calle2003 Posts: 14 Joined: 2010-04-27 |
Posted on: 05/02/2010 08:52 AM
USB 3.0 and SATA6 and full PCI-e 16x 2.0 rocks on Asrock but I'm really into energy savings as well (mostly because I pay my own bills). According to this review: http://techgage.com/article/evga_p55_ftw/11 EVGA P55 FTW consumes less power than most (MSI not included). Who's review shall I trust? PS My system (Gigabyte P55 UD3, Core i7 860@3.8 GHz, 8800 GTS 512@738/1836/1000 MHz, 3 hard disks) consumes about 150 W idle but I only use a cheap (about 14 US dollars) energy measuring device. What kind of equipment did you use?  |
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Steve Posts: 74 Joined: 2010-02-08 |
Posted on: 05/02/2010 11:45 PM
We don’t use anything special. Just a meter that reads from the wall though ours cost considerably more than $14 US but that does not meant it is any better. As long as you are using the same meter to compare all boards then it doesn’t really matter, you are performing an apples to apples comparison. Also comparing review is useless for a number of reasons. It is also worth mentioning that BIOS revisions can play a huge role here, not so much for the stress results but certainly for the idle results. |
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Calle2003 Posts: 14 Joined: 2010-04-27 |
Posted on: 05/19/2010 09:20 AM
Posted by Steve on 05/03/2010 12:45 AM
The EVGA P55 FTW has considerably lower Power Consumption according to the review at techgage. It almost made me buy it for that reason (but I didn't since it's considerably more expensive and it lacks a Floppy connector, not used floppy for years, it's more for nostalgic reasons). When I see another review that states the opposite it confuses me. I did however notice one indisputable error, it should be (Lower is better), not (Higher is better) on the Power Consumption comparison. PS Don't see this as criticism, only a neutral point of view. I still think LH is one of the best HW sites out there. |