So what ASUS brings to the table is a very mature and extremely high performance P55 based motherboard. With the P7P55D Deluxe you'll get all the features and benefits that the P55 chipset has to offer, and then some more. The motherboards offers a wise variety of features when it comes to overclocking and as such the board really is targeted at the somewhat more advanced end user. The BIOS is a Walhalla for tweakers, and even for the extreme ones among you, stuff like the voltage switches are really l33t stuff. The remote control for overclocking ... well it's certainly nice but a bit of a gimmick as I do not see myself using it really.

For the less advanced tweakers who do have an urge for an overclocked PC, the Automatic overclocking process with the TurboV software really is an outstanding solution. It does take the system half an hour to an hour to completely overclock your PC, but once that's done ... the results are fairly amazing. The application ended up at 3.77GHz completely stable. Now for an automated overclock done and managed by a piece of manufacturer software and a dedicated IC on the motherboard, that's just pure value.

When we forget about all the overclocking features for a minute we find a very stable motherboard that offers really good baseline performance. Next to that then, build quality of the motherboard is pretty darn good. The looks and design are thought through really well, everything seems to be right with this motherboard.

Interesting to see is the new approach to the integrated sound solution. No more Realtek, instead VIA's VT2020 10-channel High Definition Audio CODEC has been embedded. It brings a few more channels to the table, offers very decent sound and starting with this motherboard, there's full DTS compatibility with features such as DTS Surround Sensation and the ASUS Noise Filter feature.

The board also features 14 USB 2.0 ports (six headers/ eight ports on the I/O panel) and support for up to 16GB of dual-channel DDR3 memory with standard BIOS support up to DDR3-2133. Dual Gig Ethernet, OV DRAM, OV IMC, and OV CPU switches, OC remote, MemOK!, SLI/Crossfire compatibility, massive SATA connectivity and the list goes on and on really ...

So overall yeah, great motherboard, great performance, and heaps of features for any purpose. The one thing that might bother you is the price though, the motherboard returns a price of roughly 190 EUR / 210 USD which certainly is a lot of money in what should be the mainstream range. But if you can deal with a little less, the standard P7P55D starts at roughly 125 EUR. This board is designed for the hardcore enthusiast but is also overclocker friendly to the novice that just wants a little more performance without a lot of hassle.

Either way, ASUS is trying to govern the competition with a feature-rich, yet considering all the features, reasonably priced product. For all objectives and functionality, the P7P55D Deluxe certainly is very impressive and was the fastest performing P55 motherboard we've tested to date.

The P7P55D Deluxe is very much recommended by Guru3D.com

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