Intel DP55KG and DP55SB - Two P55s Reviewed
by Rajinder Gill on April 6, 2010 7:45 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Board Layout
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General layout of both boards is fine upon first glance – the front panel connectors for buttons, leds and USB are all on the side of the board just below the 24-pin ATX power connector, rather than the traditional bottom which might please some as it should lead to easier cable tidying possibilities.
All the SATA ports are right angled – ideal if you’re running two long graphics cards but perhaps a little bit restrictive in small MicroATX cases and a couple of straight ports could’ve ticked another box here.
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The two blue PCI-E slots for dual graphics cards at 8x PCI-E2.0 are 3 spaces apart, with two 1x PCI-E2.0 ports in between. The upside to this is that even with two large dual slot cards installed, you still have one of the PCI-E slots available in between.
Now for the less convincing choices:
Intel has focussed on locating the important system components in positions of highest strength in the board – this typically means in between the motherboard mounting screws. With the PCI-E and DDR3 slots positioned in this way, the area around the CPU socket is restricted to the point that some of the larger CPU heatsinks would block 1, 2 or even more of the DDR3 slots and be close to the back of the GPU.
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Another side-effect of this positioning is that the memory slot latches are inaccessible if you are using a long graphics card. This is an unnecessary hindrance that could be easily avoided.
The decision to arrange the components in this way is primarily for those SI builders that ship pre-built systems to the customer. In this position, a SI needs confidence that despite what the courier tries to do to the package, the system will arrive without the motherboard snapped in half. Intel have done a lot of testing in this department and while I'm not in a position to question if it works, I’m not sure it's worth the restriction for their “Extreme” series. Heatsink compatibility and memory accessibility are almost certainly more important factors in a board purchase to an overclocking-minded user
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vol7ron - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
If you're doing a giveaway with this... it is my birthday coming up :)vol7ron - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
Is that right (8:48 4/5)? I'm not sure where it is that you're 36 hours behind me?Richard Pawley - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
Hi. The article went up with the time we started putting it into the backend - It updated soon after to show when it was actually published. You must've been quick to spot that ;-)Regards,
Richard
vol7ron - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
i browse AT like it's my wifeAnand Lal Shimpi - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
HA! best, quote, ever.silverblue - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
And here's me thinking that would mean "rarely, and only when I'm on my best behaviour"...AstroGuardian - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
Welcome to the club mate ;-)What was funny was some few days ago when my wife said something like: "Stop reading that damn BLUE site of yours...". This made me laugh cause i am with AT for years longer than with her ;). Now she noticed the blue color lol
SunLord - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
I love how the micro atx board literally looks like they just cut off the bottom part of the ATX board kind of coolMadMan007 - Tuesday, April 6, 2010 - link
"While the 2:6 and 2:8 memory ratios were satisfactory"So does that mean that using those ratios you can clock the bclk and CPU higher and just not get the e-peen stretching superhigh memory speeds that mostly seem to help a few synthetic benchmarks? If those ratios are 'satisfactory' and the only purpose of high memory speeds is artifical benchmarks you could focus on getting the best overall overclock and not worry about maxing out the memory speed.
I do hope you tried clocking with those ratios, perhaps the various annoyances go away or are not as bad in that case. If not I'm a little disappointed if a lot of time was spent trying to max out memory speed rather than focusing on 'real world' performance as I expect from AT.
deruberhanyok - Wednesday, April 7, 2010 - link
Thanks for the writeup! quick questions:Was the PCI-Express slot operating at x1 speed a bug only with the i5 670, or is it something in all of the Clarkdale processors until the updated BIOS comes out?
I noticed they both include a bluetooth antenna. I'm guessing the BT module is the tiny green PCB next to the SATA ports. Is that standard on all of the boards? How was reception/performance? I like the idea of not having to have an external bluetooth dongle to connect keyboards, wireless headset, cell phone, etc.