ECS P55H-A motherboard review - Introduction

So over the last week or so you have been able to read a fair share of Lynnfield and P55 related articles here at the website, and being Guru3D... we tend to look at the top of the line stuff first. The ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI motherboards of course shine like sparkling stars, but they come at robust prices as well.

In a somewhat lower price segment you can however always find ECS, originally being an OEM supplier that slowly penetrated the retail market they make really nice gear these days, but always with a lower budget in mind. Face it, the high-end market is crowded and as such ECS always tries to deliver a product that certainly can compete at a baseline level, yet at a better price.

Today as such we'll have a look at yet another P55 motherboard, ECS is launching their P55H-A which is a Black Edition board that comes with some nifty additional features and really tasty looks. What we are looking at is a sub 160 USD / 125 EUR product that offers more than a reference based product, yet a little less than the uber high-end gear out there.

You will have slightly less features like 'just' one Gigabit Ethernet connector, six instead of 8 SATA ports and that uber-overclockability experience has gone AWOL, though a little overclock lovin' is still a possibility.

The reality is also, the design is right, the looks are right and the baseline performance definitely is right, and thus for the people that like a good looking motherboard and want to enjoy the fruits and labor of the new Lynnfield processors, a motherboard like the one shown below is more then enough. Pair it with a sub 200 USD Core i5 750 and you certainly have a small powerhouse.

Let's investigate shall we? Next page my man.