ECS P55H-A P55 Lynnfield Motherboard Review

Features, Layout, Included Extras

Features

Certified For Windows Vista
The latest generation Microsoft O.S., delivers better personal productivity and digital entertainment on your PC through its improved reliability, security, and performance.
    
LGA1156 Core i7/ Core i5 Processor
Supports the Intel Corei7/ Corei5 Processors the the LGA1156 package.

Certified For Windows® 7
Windows® 7 platform introduces a number of manageability improvements that can reduce total cost of ownership by helping to increase automation, improve user productivity, and provide flexible administrative control to meet compliance requirements. It is more user-friendly and has been optimized to consume less system resources with Windows® 7 as well. Furthermore, the VT technology is enhanced to support real-time multimedia application including video playback and 3D games.
    
eJIFFY
ECS eJIFFY is a Linux based interface for a fast boot application which is compressed in a CD to install on the hard drive.Within 8 seconds after the computer boots up, eJIFFY is ready to provide users the total enjoyment for web browsing, photo reviewing and on-line chat. Instead of waiting for the regular OS to start up, eJIFFY serves a convenient center to have quick fun or a glance at the hot news in today’s fast pace world where nothing can be too quick.

ATI CrossFire X
The technology not only combines multi-GPU and motherboard power that soars into a new dimension of graphics capability, but also delivers the highest image quality and screen resolutions, even with the most demanding 3D titles.
    
M.I.B II
ECS’s exclusive BIOS tweaking utility, M.I.B. II (Motherboard Intelligent BIOS II), which has gathered all options of overclocking in a single page, provides higher voltage capability for helping users to achieve better overclocking results.

All Solid Capacitors
ECS’s All-Solid-Capacitors design brings the great benefit of better durability to users. Better conductivity and heat resistance can be expected as well thus the system stability can be assured under critical conditions.
   
ROHS
Choose an environment-friendly, fully RoHS-compliant ECS product as the foundation for keeping harmful substances out of our ecosystem.

Overclocking
Maximizes your system performance by selecting from these overclocking options:
(1) Flexible voltage adjustments
(2) Adjustable ratio and Freq
   
PCI EXPRESS 2.0
The exceptionally increased interconnect bit rate from 2.5GT/s up to 5.0GT/s would effectively eliminates the bottle neck of the system performance and brings the most terrific computing experience from the present to the future.

SPDIF Out
S/PDIF (Sony/Philips Digital Interface) is a convenient connectivity and standard audio transfer format. It allows the transfer of audio from one file to another without the conversion to and from an analog format, and keeps the optical connector the best.
   
USB 2.0
The latest connectivity standard which delivers transfer speeds up to 480Mb/s for easy connectivity and ultra-fast data transfers.

8 Channel High Definition Audio
Integrated 8-channel HD Audio CODEC delivering advanced multi-channel audio and bringing you the experience of home theater-quality sound.
    
eSATA
The signal quality and the Max cable length is 2x longer than the conventional one. It also supports external HDD hot plug and keyed connector end for fool-proof.

RAID 0, 1, 5, 10
Supports RAID 0(Striped disk array), RAID 1(Mirroring disk array), RAID 5(Block Interleaved Distributed Parity), RAID 10 (A Stripe of Mirrors). Provides users the performance and protection.
   
SATAII 3.0Gb/s
Doubles the transfer speed of SATA, running at speed up to 3.0Gb/s, and fully compatible with the soon-to-be-released SATA HDD, CD-ROM and other cutting-edge devices with NCQ function support.

ATA133
Supports Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 IDE devices, data transfer rate up to 133MB/s
    
Dual DDR3 1333
Doubles the bandwidth of your system memory up to 21.0GB/s and pumps up the system performance at lower power.

Board Layout

The ECS P55H-A “Black Series” motherboard comes packaged in what you see above, which is the company’s standard fantasy-type graphics depicting a karate master battling a mythical dragon with a sword that shoots lightning. What this has to do with the motherboard or its features is beyond me, but ECS must feel it helps them sell their product. They do have a few small logos under their company logo saying the board supports Intel i5/i7 and it has Intel’s P55 chipset and it also supports CrossfireX video card solutions.

The back panel of the retail packaging has all the real meat of what the P55H-A offers consumers. The back panel outlines a host of features on the board, but ECS goes to the trouble of adding more detailed information about their eJiffy “instant internet” solution, intelligent power saving features, “4E” innovation that includes all the onboard buttons and debug LED display, and lastly they tout that this board is fully compatible with Windows 7.

This board is very attractive with the black PCB and black and gold heatsinks around the power components adds a lot to the sexiness of the P55H-A. They also did a great job of color coding all the PCI expansion slots as well as the DDR3 DIMMs. The layout leaves plenty of room around the CPU and PCI-E slots for abnormal hardware and cooling solutions too.

The back panel of the PCB only includes a small aluminum backplate behind the CPU socket.

The back I/O panel has PS/2 ports for a keyboard and mouse, eight USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA port, one Gigabit LAN jack, CMOS button, and support for 8-channel high definition audio.

The P55H-A supports two PCI-E graphics cards in CrossfireX configurations only. NVIDIA users will have to look elsewhere for an SLI supported board. Each PCI-E slot runs at x16, but drops to x8 a piece when using two graphics cards.

The bottom of the motherboard has front panel audio headers, legacy CD-in header, S/PDIF out header, and a serial port header.

The bottom right-hand corner houses three USB 2.0 headers and the front panel headers. Our readers will also notice a debug LED display and power and reset buttons. Those buttons aren’t the prettiest we’ve seen on many of the P55 boards we’ve tested recently, but they will definitely get the job done.

The right-side of the motherboard houses six SATA 3GB/s ports that are managed by the P55 chipset. Users will also have access to RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10 through these ports.

There are four DIMMs on board that support 16GB of dual-channel DDR3 2130 (OC), 1333, 1066, 800MHz memory.

Lastly, the power components around the CPU socket are low enough for users to add their own third-party cooling solution. On a side note, those black and copper-colored heatsinks surrounding the CPU socket are damn sexy.

Included Extras

ECS included a couple accessories give consumers more reasons to purchase the P55H-A. Some of the accessories include the four right-angle SATA cables in the photo above.

The bundle also includes a legacy PATA cable and black backplate that has easy-to-read labels for each port.

They also included two discs for eJiffy and the usual driver support CD.

Lastly, ECS included a user manual and hardware installation guide for novice PC builders.