ECS P55 motherboard tips up in Taipei
ECS' P55 motherboard features a copper southbridge cooler.
The Lynnfield CPU socket itself is, well, strange, with the abnormally large retention clip. The actual socket size and CPU are similar to LGA775, however the pin pitch is largely reduced to pack more in to make up the extra few hundred to 1156.
ECS P55H-A motherboard sports a few new features like an automatic power phase indicator to show how many power phases are being used by the CPU, as well as a copper P55 heatsink as well.
For the rest, it's pretty standard affair, with dual x8 (x16 physical) lanes from the CPU, dual channel DDR3 1,333MHz, PCI-Express x1, x4 and two PCI slots. There are no extra SATA ports other than the standard six and ECS does frankly quite little in the way of unique features. Still.
Discuss in the forums.
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Discuss in the forums ReplyNo ClearCMOS, though? Or is it the grey big chunk next to the ATX plug?
And I really hoped it wasn't the red jumper... will be fun to reach it inside the case with a couple of HDDs and a graphics card installed.
Doesn't look like a very nice motherboard to me
IMO Intel are truly trying to segregate the market and profit to the maximum.. at the customer's loss. Two different sockets? No more double x16 lanes?
Is there any chance of a non-i7 X-series (Express) Intel chipset?
With the discontinuation of the i7 920 and 940, i7 will become a preposterously expensive option, but then consumers will be left with this under-featured i5. :(
Also is it just me, or does that motherboard look quite small? It's full-size ATX by the PCI slot covers, but it just looks small...
That wouldn't help - the north bridge has moved to the CPU. The PCIe lanes are now on the CPU. What they call the 'P55' is now essentially the ICH10, connected to the CPU via DMI. Any extra lanes on the chipset will be severely bottlenecked.
Exactly: so now you'll have to buy a new CPU if they ever even upgrade the NB in the CPU to a greater number of PCIe lanes.
Aren't Intel trying to detract from motherboard suppliers by doing this? Don't they decrease their product range by taking away the option of different NBs? So they're denying Nvidia the possibility of creating chipsets? Or am I misinterpreting this.
It seems sneaky to me.
Also, do the PCI-E lanes come straight off the CPU or does it go through the DMI>ICH10>PCI-E? And won't the latter hurt throughput?
The future sounds rather bleak to me as far as I/O performance goes with cutting the PCI-E lanes and forcing customers to choose between two ends of the performance spectrum with no real middle ground. That conclusion may be mislead though.
Why the hell is Intel changing their CPU socket again?!?!?
And I don't care for ECS, I want my ASUS or my Gigabyte boards.
And after all that money Intel's still being sneaky?? I think somone needs to be fired...
Did nobody else notice the connector in the SATA port and raise an eyebrow ?
Is that just a "unbooted" connector, or is it some kinda flash module/HDD ?
also, ECS? Electronics and Computer Science in Southampton Uni?