Archive for the ‘p55’ tag

SSD performance tips for Intel chipsets and RAID-0

Posted at 20:02 by Richard Swinburne with 4 comments

Richard Swinburne
We had a chat with the Kingston labs team this week in California and noted down some free performance improvements, and limitations, you should be aware of if you own one or more SSDs:
  • The Intel SATA ICH9R/10R/P55 controller under RAID-0 has a maximum real world performance capacity of about 600MB/s in total between it and the CPU.

    Despite the fact you'll need several (four+) SSDs to hit this limit at the moment, it's worth bearing in mind that to get ludicrous performance you'll need at least a PCI-Express x8 card.

    Until Intel increases its DMI and/or SATA controller bandwidth, this could prove a more regular limiting issue when future SATA 6Gbps parts arrive.

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Written on 16th October 2009
Tags ich10r, intel, kingston, p55, performance, raid, sata, ssd

Lab Update: Many-a-P55 Motherboard

Posted at 10:56 by Richard Swinburne with 16 comments

Richard Swinburne
I wouldn't be understating the situation when I say we've got a lot of P55 boards to get through: three Asus (P7P55D Deluxe, Vanilla and Maximus III Formula), two Gigabyte (UD5 and mATX UD4), three MSI (GD80, GD65 and CD53), ECS (something-or-other) and requests for more.

As it stands we've already reviewed the P7P55D Deluxe and found it just too expensive to justify a purchase. That's not Asus' fault, but Intel and Foxconn for making the platform cost just prohibitively expensive. To be honest, in the time we've already spent with the Gigabyte UD5 we highly suspect it to end up the same way.

In fact, we'd have had a full UD5 review already but someone got cake in the CPU socket. I kid you not.

Despite suffering assault via a Victoria sponge (we suspect, on evaluating the evidence), the board still worked and overclocked very well, even though six socket pins were damaged. The memory capacity constantly flicked between single 2GB and dual channel 4GB, so it took us all day to pin-point the problem with inconsistent results.

The plus side of all this is that we can conclude Intel's Lynnfield CPU and socket design is remarkably resilient to damage. And dessert. The downside is that it makes our job harder to work out what the hell is going on!

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Written on 23rd September 2009
Tags intel, lynnfield, mobo, motherboard, p55, reviews

First Look: The first P55 RoG board, the Maximus III Formula

Posted at 10:02 by Clive Webster with 17 comments

Clive Webster
Morning! I realise that when it comes to P55, most of you just want performance numbers, but sadly I can't quite put you out of your misery. I can however, offer a preview of what's likely to be a very special P55 motherboard - the first to wear the Republic of Gamers badge, namely the Maximus III Formula. Shots and discussion below the break.

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Written on 10th August 2009
Tags asus, intel, layout, lga1156, lynnfield, motherboard, overclocking, p55, republic of gamers, rog

More shots of the Asus P55, LGA1156, Lynnfield motherboard

Posted at 11:36 by Clive Webster with 11 comments

Clive Webster
Egads, just how many buzz-words can an IT journo fit into a blog post title these days? I blame Google, to whom all us online folk are beholden. Maybe I should just add a few hot search terms...

Or not. The purpose of this blog post is I thought I'd share some new shots Asus has sent through of its first P55 board to supplement James' preview of the Asus P7P55-Evo that went up a week or so ago.

Supposedly these are of the final retail board. The main update is the Southbridge cooler, which seems massive, and that weird Turbo-V thing. Pics and more discussion below the break.

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Written on 30th July 2009
Tags asus, core i5, core i7, cpu, design, heatsink, intel, lga1156, lynnfield, motherboard, p55

WIN: Asus Xtreme Global Summit Competition Week 1

Posted at 11:14 by Alex Watson with 54 comments

Alex Watson
By now you’ve hopefully read all about the Asus Xtreme GlobalSummit competition we’re running, and marvelled at the excellent selection of hardware prizes on offer. Unlike most of the competitions we’ve run in the past, this one adds interesting experience to the mix – firstly, there’s an afternoon in London talking with Asus’ R&D team, playing games and tinkering with the latest hardware.

It’s also about communication. Asus has a great reputation for the design and innovation that goes into its motherboards, and the firm is keen to get the opinions of real enthusiasts (hence the blogging/forum posting part of the competition), and to give you a peek behind the scenes of the design and development process. Read on to find out more, and for your chance to win one of the first five tickets for the event!

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Written on 28th July 2009
Tags asus, competition, motherboards, p55, xtreme global summit

Series 3, Episode 3 - P55, Chrome OS, Monkey Island

Posted at 18:52 by Podcast with 10 comments

Podcast
The mixer is back and so now Episode 3 of Series 3 of the combined Custom PC and bit-tech podcast is here. CPC’s Alex and Mark are joined by Richard and Joe from bit-tech. On the hardware side of things, the panel discusses the upcoming P55 chipset and Lynnfield CPUs from Intel. Software wise, Chrome OS from Google is cause for much discussion, and there is a lot of games news, including Battlefield 1943, Left 4 Dead 2 and of course, the return of Monkey Island.

Subscribe in iTunes
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Written on 24th July 2009
Tags chrome, google, intel, left 4 dead 2, lynnfield, monkey island, p55

Is LGA1366 the most future-proof choice?

Posted at 10:29 by Clive Webster with 46 comments

Clive Webster
I was chatting to Rich yesterday about P55 and socket LGA1156, and how its imminent arrival makes it pretty tricky to pick a CPU type with decent upgrade potential. LGA775 isn't going to see anything new, so a Q9650 is pretty much the pinnacle of Core 2; meanwhile on the AMD side, it really doesn't seem that Socket AM3 has much further to go. However, we know Intel plans future LGA1366 releases, so this seems like the best option if you desperately need an upgrade now.

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Written on 16th July 2009
Tags amd, bus, choices, core i7, intel, lga1156, lga1366, lga775, lynnfield, motherboard, p55, upgrade
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