PCB Design and Functionality

Unlike Gigabyte that have made their top GA-P55-UD6 mainboard extremely complex without real good reason for it and mostly in order to impress the potential customer, ASRock decided not to take the same deliberately erroneous direction. ASRock P55 Deluxe mainboard looks exactly what an Intel P55 Express based mainboard is supposed to look like. Of course, there are a few excessive extras, but we can forgive the top of the line flagship product for that.

We see 16 phases of the processor voltage regulator circuitry at the top of the PCB. The number of active phases may vary automatically depending on the current load level. There are two large aluminum heatsinks connected with a heatpipe cooling the voltage regulator components. Four DDR3 DIMM slots can hold the same 16 GB of RAM as the six DIMM slots of Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6. The power supply connectors are all very conveniently located. The Power On and Reset buttons are highlighted during work.

I can’t help mentioning that ASRock P55 Deluxe allows using the coolers designed for LGA775 platforms. This feature is called C.C.O. (Combo Cooler Option). We know a few LGA1366 mainboards that features two sets of cooler retention holes, but it is much more complicated to implement this on an LGA1156 mainboard. Even on an LGA1366 the gap between the two different retention holes is so small that they nearly overlap.

How could they ensure that the board will be compatible with the cooling solutions of both types is the distance between the LGA1156 retention holes and LGA775 retention holes is half the size of the distance between LGA775 and LGA1366? It seems totally impossible to ensure this combination compatibility, as the retention holes for LGA775 and LGA1156 coolers should inevitably overlap. However, ASRock engineers introduced a truly unique solution to this problem by moving the LGA775 retention holes a little bit to the right, nearly turning them clockwise by a few degrees.

Of course, not all LGA775 coolers will be compatible with ASRock P55 Deluxe mainboard, but we have to give ASRock engineers due credit for inventiveness.

The first blue graphics card slot out of the three available on this board works at full PCI Express 2.0 x16 speed. When you install a second graphics card, the connectors’ bandwidth drops to PCI Express 2.0 x8, while the third connector works only as PCI Express 2.0 x4. Intel P55 Express chip is covered with a pretty big but low-profile heatsink and provides support for six SATA ports. They used an additional JMicron JMB363 controller to implement PATA interface and Powered eSATA on the back panel. The board is also equipped with a POST codes indicator.

ASRock P55 Deluxe mainboard has the following ports and connectors on the back:

• PS/2 connectors for keyboard and mouse;
• Glowing Clear CMOS button;
• Optical and coaxial S/PDIF and six analog audio-jacks supported by eight-channel Realtek ALC890 codec;
• Eight USB ports including the combination Powered eSATAII/USB connector, another six ports are available as onboard pin-connectors;
• IEEE1394 (FireWire) port is implemented via VIA VT6308S controller, the second port is available as an onboard pin-connector;
• Two local network ports (network adapters are built around Gigabit Realtek RTL8111DL controllers).

The components layout will give you a better idea of the ASRock P55 Deluxe PCB design and its advantages:

As usual, we would like to wind up our discussion of the mainboard design and functionality with the detailed list of its technical specifications:

At this point we can only praise ASRock P55 Deluxe mainboard, as there is nothing to complain about. It has very convenient layout, fully-fledged and contemporary set of technical features. We didn’t discover any serious drawbacks or design issues. The use of plastic push-pin retention for the cooling heatsinks is totally acceptable as the components do not heat too much at all, and not the best location of the FDD connector is something we don’t even mention these days anymore. Therefore, ASRock P55 Deluxe mainboard and its developers receive our first high score.