Asus P7P55D-E Premium Motherboard Review

Asus P7P55D-E Premium Motherboard Review

Using a Core i5 750, we were hoping for the kind of overclocking performance we got from Asus’ Sabertooth 55i TUF Motherboard (which allowed a BLCK of 200MHz giving us over 4GHz) but were unfortunately disappointed. The P7P55D-E Premium suffered from the same limitation as the P7P55D Deluxe, which meant that we couldn’t reach that magical 4GHz and have all cores remain stable without changing the voltage. In this case the highest bus speed the motherboard could cope with was 190, which gave us 3.8GHz.

Overall then, our advice would simply be to wait, as plenty of other motherboards will be coming out with the P7P55D-E Premium’s USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s combo over the next few weeks, and VIA should soon be releasing a more advanced USB 3.0 controller than the NEC one currently employed, giving you four USB 3.0 ports rather than two. If you do want to buy now, another option is to get a P7P55D Deluxe for around £160 and simply add a PCI-Express USB 3.0 card at a later date, though this might affect performance.

Verdict

While we’re not too impressed with the performance of SATA 6Gb/s on available drives, USB 3.0 provides a huge performance leap compared to its predecessor. However, though Asus’ P7P55D-E Premium is a great all-rounder with some excellent features and obvious future-proofing, we can’t help but feel it’s not worth the £50 premium it currently demands over boards like the excellent P7P55D Deluxe. In fact we would advise holding off if you can; good things come to those who wait. MORE DETAIL...