ASUS P7H55D-M EVO Intel H55 mATX Motherboard Review

Intel has released some pretty radical stuff in the past 15 or so months. First came the LGA 1366 processors and the X58 chipset, sporting Intel’s first on-processor memory controller and triple-channel memory. The architecture of the processor had some huge changes from the very successful Core 2 series. Next, at the end of last summer, the first round of LGA 1156 processors and the P55 chipset appeared. More architecture changes and the elimination of the Northbridge made this series even more radical.

All of these changes in processor and chipset design, along with Intel’s new 32nm manufacture process, opened the door for their latest and most radical change yet…placing the VGA on the processor. Yes, Intel’s new 2010 Core i5 600 series processors have on-die graphics processing. Of course to accommodate this, Intel has released a new motherboard chipset, the H55 Express. Sporting the same LGA 1156 socket as the P55, this new design has monitor ports in the I/O panel.

So far I’ve seen 20 H55 motherboards for sale at my favorite online retailer. Of these 20 boards, 19 are mATX boards, including the motherboard I am looking at today, the Asus P7H55D-M EVO. Sporting Asus’ EVO cosmetics and onboard extras, this motherboard also natively supports the new “Superspeed” USB 3.0. Read on to check out the Asus P7H55D-M EVO!

Packaging:
Obviously Asus has a new color scheme for 2010, at least for their EVO line of motherboards, the P7H55D-M EVO comes in a box with a blue sky theme. But like always, the box has a full display of specs and features found on the board.

ASUS P7H55D-M EVO Intel H55 mATX Motherboard ASUS P7H55D-M EVO Intel H55 mATX Motherboard

Not being an upper-end Asus board, the motherboard is separated from the bundle items by a cardboard divider. The board is wrapped in an Asus static-free bag.

ASUS P7H55D-M EVO Intel H55 mATX Motherboard