The CPU Socket

Since the ASUS P7P55D uses the same layout as the ASUS P7P55D Deluxe, the CPU socket area is pretty luxurious. It has no known compatibility issues with big coolers, or in my case, the Swiftech Apogee XT waterblock. It uses the Lotes-manufactured LGA1156 socket, not the Foxconn-manufactured socket which is known to burn the socket pin due to insufficient contact as reported by Anandtech.

The Japanese-made conductive polymer capacitors were all placed a good distance from the socket. As you can see, the ASUS P7P55D uses 12+2 power phase VRM, clearly better than most competing models at this same price range. This can be very important if you intend to push your CPU beyond the recommended voltage (more than 1.35V) as many other motherboards are known to burn out the VRMs when stressed. Clearly, ASUS made the right choice implementing this beefier setup.

The Heatsinks

ASUS did not use any heatpipes or any gigantic heatsinks on the VRMs and the PCH, because the PCH only has a thermal output of 4.7 W. The VRMs do get a little hot during heavy loads though.

The DIMM Area

The Intel P55 Express chipset only supports dual channel DDR3. Therefore, this motherboard only has 4 DIMM slots, unlike the X58-based motherboards which have 6 slots (because the chipset supports triple channel DDR3).

The ASUS P7P55D can support up to 1666 MHz DDR3 modules via Intel Extreme Memory Profile (XMP), but ASUS claims it is capable of hitting 2200 MHz if you raise the BCLK clock. However, you will need to purchase really expensive pre-tested DDR3 modules if you want to attain that kind of speed.

Incidentally, this motherboard allows you to overvolt the memory modules. To do that, you will need to look for the OV_DRAM jumper which is placed just beside the DIMM slots. Enabling this jumper will allow you to overvolt up to 2.5V from the default 2.0V! Unless you are willing to sacrifice your memory modules, I wouldn't advise you to enable the jumper.

The MemOK button is located right below the DIMM slots. You can use that to fix any memory incompatibility issues you may encounter.

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