Like most major motherboard manufacturers Asrock has numerous P55 motherboards on offer starting with the P55M Pro, a mATX model selling for just $100 US and then the P55DE3 at $105 US. Moving up the ladder there is the P55 Pro ($115 US) and P55 Extreme ($140 US). Then finally at the upper end of the scale, Asrock offers the P55 Deluxe that still keeps a relatively low price of $180.

Since the arrival of the Intel P55 over a dozen motherboards sporting this chipset have passed though our lab. Out of all these boards the Asrock P55 Extreme caught our attention as it is one of the most affordable P55 motherboards available. However despite already providing an extensive range of P55 motherboards Asrock has just recently announced their seventh product based on this chipset.

Known as the Asrock P55 Deluxe3 this new motherboard is a little different as it incorporates support for SATA3 (6Gb/s) and USB3.0 (5Gb/s). Although no official pricing has been released for this new motherboard as yet we estimate that the P55 Deluxe3 will be priced around the $180 US mark and Asrock suggest that this is accurate.

The P55 Deluxe3 and motherboards like it are becoming important products as many users looking to upgrade or build a new computer will want to ensure that they can support future USB3 and SATA3 devices. However in order to properly integrate these new features into P55 motherboards motherboard manufacturers must provide additional PCI Express lanes.

This is because the Intel P55 chipset only supports PCI Express 1.0 x1 bandwidth (2.5GT/s) which is not enough to utilize the latest SATA3 (6Gb/s) and USB 3.0 (5Gb/s) technologies. While it is possible for Asrock to use the PCI Express 2.0 x16 lane featured inside the LGA1156 processors this would have a significant impact on gaming performance.

That single PCIe 2.0 x16 lane is designed to be used by a graphics card and when operating in Crossfire or SLI mode this bus is already halved. Therefore if Asrock was to use this lane a single graphics card would be limited to PCIe 2.0 x8 bandwidth and that is not acceptable. Therefore Asrock has integrated a small bridge chip which provides additional PCIe bandwidth by switching between available lanes.

Apart from the introduction of SATA3 and USB 3.0 support the new Asrock P55 Deluxe3 motherboard is very similar to the P55 Deluxe which currently retails for $180 US with a two port SATA3 6.0Gb/s expansion card included. The P55 Deluxe3 is also quite a step up from the P55 Extreme, a motherboard currently being used in my own personal gaming system. Therefore I am eager to see how the new P55 Deluxe3 performs.

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.

Although the P55 chipset is still manufactured using a 65nm manufacturing process as was the P45, its TDP (Thermal Design Power) has been reduced to a mere 4.7 watts. The older P45 chipset pumped out almost 80% more heat with a TDP of around 22 watts.

The new P55 chipset is far less complex as it doesn't have to carry a memory controller, which takes up a vast amount of space within the chip's package. In fact, much of what the north bridge traditionally does has been removed and as a result Intel has integrated the functions of the north and south bridge chipsets into a single chip, which they call a Platform Controller Hub (PCH), in this case otherwise known as the P55.

The heatsink on top of the P55 chip measures 7 x 7cm and is just 1cm tall. The die surface of the P55 measures roughly 1 x 1cm, so the actual bulk of the heatsink is about 3 x 3cm. The larger heatsinks can be found cooling the board’s power circuitry 8cm long, 3.5cm wide and 3cm tall. There are two of these heatsinks and each cool 10 MOSFETs, which are part of the board's 8 + 2 power phase.

In terms of expansion almost all P55 motherboards will support at least two PCI Express x16 slots, while many will feature three. However it is worth noting that there is just a single true PCI Express x16 slot as this is all the current LGA1156 processors support.

The Asrock P55 Deluxe3 does provide you with two full length PCIe x16 slots, though it is important to note that using two of these with Crossfire or SLI technology will only provide x8 bandwidth each. Additionally, the P55 Deluxe3 features a pair of PCIe x1 slots and two traditional PCI slots.

The primary and secondary PCIe x16 slots have been separated by two slot lengths to help improve air-flow between dual graphics cards, a design that most motherboard manufacturers today use.

With my Asrock P55 Extreme motherboard there were just two very small things that annoyed me about the design. First the CMOS battery was located between the two PCIe x16 connectors making it impossible to access with a graphics card installed.

The other issue involved the DIMM slots which were placed too close to the primary PCIe x16 slot making it hard to remove memory modules with a graphics card installed. The good news is neither of these issues are present on the P55 Deluxe3 motherboard which appears to be a near perfect design.

In fact the P55 Deluxe3 is a very well designed motherboard. The 24-pin power connector is well placed in the top right hand corner of the board where it is easy to access. The six SATA ports are mounted at a 90-degree angle to avoid any conflicts with longer graphics cards and in the bottom right hand corner is a pair of easy access buttons for power an reset.

An impressive design aspect of the P55 Extreme was its ability to use both LGA775 and LGA1136 coolers. This feature has been passed on to the new P55 Deluxe3 motherboard as Asrock has made a clever move by including both sets of mounting holes allowing a majority of LGA775 coolers to work with this motherboard. This feature could potentially save users money as they may find their current aftermarket heatsinks to work just as well with their new motherboard.

Looking at the I/O panel we have a pair of legacy PS/2 ports, a CMOS reset button, 5 USB 2.0 ports, 2 USB 3.0 ports, eSATA port, Firewire port, LAN port, optical and S/PDIF ports along with six audio jacks. All in all, everything the user could want or need can be found on this I/O panel.

Although the board's appearance is not exactly important, it does seem to play a role for many consumers, which doesn't play too well for the older P55 Extreme. Although it was certainly not a bad looking motherboard, it did tend to look quite average when sitting next to other boards from much of the competition. The P55 Deluxe3 on the other hand is an improvement and has stuck to a more subtle color scheme.

Overall we are pleased with the design and layout of the Asrock P55 Deluxe3 as there are no serious design flaws. The board's cooling is sufficient and the layout caters well for multi-GPU setups, while the I/O panel provides all the necessary connectivity.

However it is the next menu titled “OC Tweaker” that we are most interested in as this is where almost all the system tweaking takes place, better known as overclocking. The first setting within this menu is designed for overclocking novices that want to get a little more out of their system at no extra cost. Called “CPU EZ OC” this setting allows the user to overclock their processor to a predefined setting at the click of a button.

With our Core i5 750 test processor installed we could select a frequency ranging from 3.60GHz through to 4.20GHz in 100MHz increments. Coincidently the highest frequency we have been able to achieve without compromising stability with this processor is 4.20GHz which is an impressive 58% overclock on air.

When testing the CPU EZ OC function the 4.20GHz preset did not work as the Asrock P55 Deluxe3 was unable to select turbo mode clock multipliers. Whereas the Asus P7P55D Deluxe can set the clock multiplier for all cores as high as 21x the P55 Deluxe3 was limited to 20x. This meant that there was no difference between the 4.00GHz and 4.20GHz presets as they both used the same 20x multiplier with a 200MHz base clock.

Still the 4.00GHz preset worked perfectly and by changing just one setting in the BIOS we were able to take the Core i5 750 processor from the standard 2.66GHz operating frequency to a 100% stable 4.00GHz.

Unfortunately we were unable to obtain a stable 4.20GHz overclock with the board as we were limited to 4.10GHz. That said the maximum overclock that we have achieved with our Core i5 750 processor using motherboards from ASUS, Gigabyte and DFI was 4.20GHz so the P55 Deluxe3 did quite well.

Using the next option titled “Memory EZ OC” we were able to boost the memory to 1600MHz using the best possible timings for our modules. However it is worth mentioning that if you use this option it will change some of the settings configured by the CPU EZ OC and in all instances we found it lowered our overclock so unfortunately these two settings cannot be used simultaneously.

For the more capable overclocker ignoring the EZ OC options is probably a more attractive option as it allows for even finer tuning of the selected hardware. The P55 Deluxe3 caters for the expert overclock just as well as it does the novice which a massive range of tweakable settings.

Something we like about the EZ OC options is that they have been tied in with the rest of the OC Tweaker menu. For example if you wish to fine tune the CPU EZ OC overclock for better performance or stability you can. Simply choose the frequency that you desire and then scroll down to the more technical settings and modify the values as you see fit.

Hardware - Intel Core i5 750 - x2 2GB G.Skill DDR3 PC3-12800 (CAS 8-8-8-24) - Seagate 500GB 7200-RPM (Serial ATA300) - ATI Radeon HD 5850(1GB) - Asrock P55 Deluxe3 - Asrock P55 Extreme - MSI P55-GD65 - Gigabyte P55-UD6 - EVGA P55 FTW - ECS P55H-A - DFI LanParty DK P55-T3eH9 - Asus P7P55D Deluxe Software - Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit) - ATI Catalyst 10.1

The MaxxPI² memory bandwidth results were very close among the various P55 motherboards with a 4% margin separating the fastest and slowest boards in the write test. The Gigabyte P55-UD6 produced the best write result, while the DFI LanParty DK P55-T3eH9 was about 4% slower. The Asrock P55 Deluxe3 actually delivered the worst write result while the read performance was quite strong, that said I must again stress that there was little difference even between the fastest and slowest boards tested.

Looking at read performance the Asrock P55 Extreme was the slowest of the bunch, while the Gigabyte P55-UD6 was again the fastest by a 4% margin.

EVEREST Ultimate Edition gives us a second opinion on memory bandwidth performance and the results are even tighter with no more than 200MB/s separating the fastest from the slowest motherboards in either the read or write tests.

The SPECviewperf results were no surprise with all eight P55 motherboards delivering very similar results in both the Maya and 3dsMax tests. This further proves that even for heavy duty work a budget P55 motherboard is every bit as good as a high-end model, at least in terms of performance.

CINEBENCH R10 is yet another tool that shows us how little performance difference there is between these P55 motherboards.

The MaxxPI² 16MB calculation test showed a small 3% performance margin standing between the fastest and slowest P55 motherboards. The Asrock P55 Extreme was the weakest link here with all other motherboards delivering roughly the same performance including the new Asrock P55 Deluxe3.

This time the Asrock P55 Extreme stands out amongst the pack once again but this time it was because the board delivered the best MaxxPI² Prime results, even if by minimal margins. The P55 Deluxe3 was never far behind either as it also delivered strong performance.

Now we are firing up some actual applications just to make sure all we just saw pertains to the real world. Starting with Excel 2007, we see a small variance in performance as some motherboards on average completed the large calculation in ~11.56 minutes, while others took almost 20 seconds longer. The P55 Extreme was particularly weak in this test though the P55 Deluxe4 does appear to be an improvement.

The ECS P55H-A, DFI LanParty DK P55-T3eH9 and Gigabyte P55-UD6 stood out as the best performers, while surprisingly the Asus P7P55D Deluxe was the most sluggish.

Using WinRAR we measured the time it took to compress two different types of file archives. The large 720p HD file was compressed in 16.18 minutes using the Asrock P55 Extreme while the Gigabyte P55-UD6 took 36 seconds longer. While tangible, in absolute terms this 3.6% difference is still small between the fastest and the slowest tested motherboard. Although the P55 Deluxe3 was found to be slightly slower than the P55 Extreme the results were still very good.

The Batman Arkham Asylum results saw just 9fps separating the fastest motherboard from the slowest at 1024x768 while the 1920x1200 performance was identical. The Asrock P55 motherboards were impressive here delivering our best results.

The Left 4 Dead results provided us with our most varied results and even at 1920x1200 there was a 3% margin separating the fastest P55 motherboard from the slowest. Not that anyone will notice a 3% performance margin when the average frame rates at 1920x1200 were well over 100fps.

The bottom line, don't choose your motherboard based on what games you play or the (nonexistent) performance advantage you will get with either. Any model in our round-up will serve your needs just well. Instead the PCIe slot configuration and intended graphics setup play the more important role here.

The above power consumption results are very interesting. All eight P55 motherboards are working with SpeedStep and Turbo Mode enabled with all voltages set to auto.

Despite this, the power consumption numbers at both idle and under load are quite different amongst most of the boards. The MSI P55-GD65 was the “greenest” motherboard with a system idle consumption level of just 68 watts, which is incredible. Under load the MSI configuration consumed 160 watts which was again the lowest of any board tested.

At the opposite end of the scale we had the DFI LanParty DK P55-T3eH9 taking the place of a full-sized SUV, consuming the most power at both idle and under load. The DFI board used up 14% more power than the MSI board under load, and a whopping 43% more when at idle. The Asrock P55 Extreme was also power hungry using almost the same level of power as the DFI LanParty and this was again the case with the P55 Deluxe3.

The average idle consumption level was around 84 watts where boards like the ECS P55H-A and Asus P7P55D Deluxe stood up. The EVGA P55 FTW and Gigabyte P55-UD6 consumption was below the average.

Of course Asrock ranks among these elite manufacturers and cutting edge motherboards such as the P55 Deluxe3 prove that they belong side the likes of Asus and Gigabyte. The Asrock P55 Deluxe3 truly is as good as any P55 motherboard we have seen, particularly in its target price range which we expect will be around the $180 US mark.

For that kind of money the Asrock P55 Deluxe3 certainly has a lot on offer while the inclusion of SATA3 (6Gb/s) and USB 3.0 (5Gb/s) support means that it should ward off future upgrades for quite some time. While the ability to support upcoming USB 3.0 devices is an impressive feature of the P55 Deluxe3 there are already a number of motherboards that are USB 3.0 ready and many of them are even cheaper.

That said thus far the majority of USB 3.0 enabled P55 motherboards come from the likes of Asus and Gigabyte while MSI has included USB 3.0 and SATA3 support on their P55-GD85 motherboard which is priced at $230. However Gigabyte is offering USB 3.0 and SATA3 support onboard for as little as $135 US with their P55A-UD3 while Asus has a similar board (P7P55D-E) priced at $160 US.

So although the inclusion of these new technologies do not make the Asrock P55 Deluxe3 a unique product, they certainly add a great deal of value. In fact even without these new technologies the P55 Deluxe3 in an impressive motherboard offering a range of quality features combined with an excellent board design.

Not only is the board itself well designed but so too is the BIOS which we found both easy to navigate and very powerful. The BIOS allows P55 Deluxe3 owners to overclock their LGA1156 processors by more than 50% in just seconds which what we believe to be a very high success rate. Furthermore experienced overclockers will find everything they need to push their Intel processor to the limits.

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The P55 Deluxe3 is a well engineered product that is also well supported. Take the original P55 Deluxe for example this motherboard has already seen six BIOS upgrades since its release which is at least one update per month. These updates have brought better overclocking support, improved memory compatibility, support for new processors and other various enhancements.

Therefore we expect that Asrock will maintain the same level of dedication for their new P55 Deluxe3 motherboard. Overall we honestly feel you cannot go wrong with the Asrock P55 Deluxe3 given the price, performance and features.