The P55 chipset

So the P55 chipset itself and the Lynnfield processors are still under embargo. We can only share with you the information that already is public.

The upcoming P55 motherboard chipset supports one PCIe 16X or two eight-speed PCIe cards, it is a single chip architecture. Though the final specs are still based on speculation, when it comes to input / output capabilities we are talking about support for 14 USB 2.0 ports with integrated USB 2.0 Rate matching hubs, 6 SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports and an integrated Gigabit LAN Ethernet.

The chipset will also supports Integrated Clocking Buffer Through Mode, provides Thermal Sensor Data via SMBUS for discrete Fan Control Solutions and Intel Matrix Storage Technology 9.0. New Intel matrix storage has a new user interface for managing all storage related tasks, support for RAID 0,1,5 and 10, Rapid recover technology and FIS-based port multiplier support on 2 SATA ports.

Motherboards manufacturers already have been preparing new mainboards for the new processors for a while now. In the enthusiast segment of chipsets Intel has developed the P55 chipset, this chipset will be widely adopted for the more overclocking and tweaking crowd. That's right, it would be you guys.

We have another opportunity to show you a P55 motherboard stripped down butt-nekkid. Now we can't say much more about the chipset, neither can we test it with a processor. So this sneak preview is merely a quickie session with photo's about MSI's P55-GD80 offering.

So my fellow Guru's let's meet and greet the MSI P55-GD80 motherboard.

The motherboard uses a 14-phase power circuit with standard solid-state capacitors. This board has a lot  of overclocker-friendly features, such as on-board controls for clock-speeds, clear-CMOS, OC-Genie, a DIP switch to control voltages, and voltage-sensing points that make measuring voltages convenient.

And next to the six standard SATA II ports an additional JMicron controller provides two internal and one external SATA ports, and one IDE connector. Two gigabit Ethernet connections, 8-channel audio, Firewire, and 14 USB ports make for the rest of the package.

Other specs include support for 4 x DDR3-2133 memories up to 16GB, 3 PCIe x16 slots for 3-way SLI and CrossfireX, 8 SATA ports, 1 eSATA port, 14 USB 2.0 ports, Dual Gbit/s LAN, 8-channel audio.

Head on over to the next page where we'll show you everything there is to be seen on on this motherboard.