ECS P55H-AK LGA1156 Motherboard Review

Intel S1156 by stefan @ 2010-09-03

ECS have developed a new, easy to use P55 motherboard named P55H-AK which sports lots of features like USB 3.0, SATA 6Gb/s. The Nvidia NF2100 which functions as x16 PCie lane switch chip in-between the x16 PCIe graphics slots, enabling 3-way SLI as an option in a 16:8:8 configuration. The motherboard also comes with a USB 3.0 front panel, which is very useful.

Introduction

Introduction

ECS have developed a new, easy to use P55 motherboard named P55H-AK which sports lots of features like USB 3.0, SATA 6Gb/s. The Nvidia NF2100 which functions as x16 PCie lane switch chip in-between the x16 PCIe graphics slots, enabling 3-way SLI as an option in a 16:8:8 configuration. The motherboard also comes with a USB 3.0 front panel, which is very useful.

Madshrimps (c)


I want to thank ECS for making a review of their P55H-AK LGA1156 Motherboard possible.

Madshrimps (c)


About ECS
“ECS, the Elitegroup Computer Systems, was established in 1987, and is approaching its 23rd year of business. More than two decades, ECS has overcome a great deal of obstacles facing new businesses and has experienced the joy of significant growth and development. Her main focus has expanded to not only motherboards, but also desktop and notebook computers, graphics cards and other mobile products. ECS is strongly committed to develop cutting-edge technology in order to generate innovative products under environmental friendly designs. ECS comprehensive system of quality control provides our clients with reassurance and fosters long term cooperation.

Green Touch, Good Life
ECS commits to protect the Earth by reducing the global environmental loading as the priority of her corporate sustainable strategy. Confronting more and more global environmental impacts; climate change, natural resources depletion and the crisis of ecological imbalance, ECS devotes the Green Solutions for the Earth sustainable development without compromising customer satisfaction. ECS expects bringing people with more Green Touch for a Good Life.

Starting from 2006, ECS has been implementing the “ECS Green Competitive Advantage and Quality Plan” and introduced Green Products through 4-stages of non-toxic management; including non-toxic suppliers, non-toxic material, non-toxic manufacturing & processing, and, non-toxic quality controls. Besides, ECS is recognized under the IECQQC080000 Certification in her two major manufacturing sites in China; Golden Elite Technology at Shenzhen and ESZ at Suzhou. That empowers ECS desire of providing end users with HSF (Hazardous Substance Free) products to ensure a quality green life.

As a top-down decision, ECS dedicates to offering clean and environmentally friendly computer products for consumers through product design, purchase, production, sale and services to the 3R environmental objectives – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. The ECS engineering teams are engaged to create products under a Green concept by size reduction, product longevity, easy disassembly, recycle potential, substance restriction and energy saving. For example, ECS green motherboards apply to the three environmental directives – the WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) promoted by the European Union; RoHS (Restriction on Hazardous Substance Directive) and EuP (Eco design of Energy-using Products Directive).

Nowadays, ECS integrates Green concept in her daily operation. From the headquarters on Taiwan to worldwide branches, ECS practices energy saving, water recycling, Green data center, planting and so on to reduce greenhouse gas emission for mitigating the climate change. With continuous efforts to conduct business in a sustainable way, ECS recognizes that we are dependent on the Earth and strive to improve the quality of life for people everywhere!

Global Network
The headquarters of ECS is located in Taipei Neihu Technology Park. We have offices in major cities around the world. We are committed to product development and expanding the scale of our business. With our branches all over the Americas, Europe, and Asia, ECS localizes sales and retail in order to provide immediate and convenient service for our customers.

-Taipei, Taiwan
-Tokyo, Japan
-Seoul, Korea
-Wijchen, Netherlands
-Fremont, USA
-Moscow, Russia
-Sao Paulo, Brazil

Manufacturing Sites
ECS adopts a vertical integration structure of design, component manufacturing, and system assembly. At present, ECS has established two manufacturing locations; well-developed supply chain capabilities, and well-monitored production links; and the capacity to adapt to the needs of the ever-changing market.

-Golden Elite Technology (Shenzhen), China
-ESZ (Suzhou), China”

Features, Specifications

Features:

Madshrimps (c)

Madshrimps (c)

Madshrimps (c)


Specifications:

Madshrimps (c)

Madshrimps (c)

Packaging

Packaging:

The P55H-AK motherboard from ECS comes packed in two cardboard boxes, one internal and one external with lots of artwork; on the frontal part we can see lots of icons representing the supported technologies, a large company logo, the full name of the motherboard and the fact that it takes part from the Black Series:

Madshrimps (c)


On one of the laterals, we can see some of the product specifications, written in several languages:

Madshrimps (c)


The back of the box holds information regarding most of the motherboard’s features:

Madshrimps (c)


The box is pretty large, so it is also provided with a handle, so we will be able to carry it easier out of the shop:

Madshrimps (c)


The extra internal box is plain white, but has a clear plastic window on one side, so we can look how the motherboard does look even without opening the box:

Madshrimps (c)


The motherboard is held inside a plastic package and under it we can find another cardboard box, with accessories:

Madshrimps (c)


Inside the accessories box, we can find the documentation on one side, along with the I/O shield, and on the other side, we can find the rest of the bundle:

Madshrimps (c)


Next to the I/O shield which I have mentioned above, we can find 3 SATA cables, a eSATA cable, the CD with drivers and applications, some VGA bridges and a very useful USB 3.0 front panel:

Madshrimps (c)


The User Guide is also present, along with general documentation on how to install generic hardware components:

Madshrimps (c)


Inside the manual, we are explained the basics and how to install step by step the rest of the hardware onto the motherboard:

Madshrimps (c)

A Closer Look Part 1

A Closer Look

The front USB 3.0 panel is a very nice feature included by ECS; we can install inside any case that has 3.5’’ bays. if you have a rare ATX case without 3.5" slot, no worries, you can unscrew the connectors from the bracket and put them in the back of your case in a spare PCI slot:

Madshrimps (c)


Here is a closer look at the USB 3.0 panel; we can see that its front is made from black brushed aluminum, and fits best in cases made in the same color:

Madshrimps (c)


On each side, we can see two fixing holes:

Madshrimps (c)


The overall aspect of the board is hugely improved over the last board generations; we can clearly see that ECS did their best designing this motherboard, with lots of features, like 4 USB 3.0 ports instead of 2 as we can see on many other motherboards, 2 Ethernet controllers or the NVIDIA NF2100 chip:

Madshrimps (c)


Near the I/O shield ports, we can see one NEC D720200F1 USB 3.0 controller:

Madshrimps (c)


One of the Gigabit Ethernet Controllers, the Realtek RTL8111E, can be found on the left side of the PCB:

Madshrimps (c)


Near it, we can find the second identical Gigabit Ethernet Controllers, both which support LAN Teaming:

Madshrimps (c)


The audio interface on this board is provided by a Realtek ALC889 CODEC:

Madshrimps (c)


On the bottom part of the PCB, some more headers can be found: F_AUDIO, SPDIF, FHW, a case fan header and one for the USB 3.0 front panel:

Madshrimps (c)


Here is a closer look on the USB 3.0 header; we can observe that it has much more pins compared with a “normal” USB 2.0 header:

Madshrimps (c)


Surprisingly, near it we can find the second NEC USB 3.0 controller, the same model as the one we have seen near the I/O shield ports:

Madshrimps (c)


Further to the right, we can see a LED display which displays the POST errors, if any, the CMOS battery, the Power and Reset buttons, a little buzzer, and on the bottom we can see a Clear CMOS jumper, two USB 2.0 headers and a Front Panel header:

Madshrimps (c)


On the right side of the motherboard, we can see 6 SATA II ports and near them there are 2 SATA III ones:

Madshrimps (c)


A Closer Look Part 2

The Marvell 88SE9128 PCIe x1 to 2 SATA 6 Gb/s ports RAID controller is located near the P55 chipset:

Madshrimps (c)


Near the ATX 24-pin power header, we can find another fan header:

Madshrimps (c)


In the top right corner of the board, we can find an auxiliary power connector for graphics card along with another fan header:

Madshrimps (c)


The memory slots’ channels are color coded differently, so we can identify them much easier:

Madshrimps (c)


Near the chipset, we can find a PLX PEX 8608 PCIe Gen 2 switch covered with a passive heatsink which offers 8 PCI Express Gen2 (5.0GT/s) lanes:

Madshrimps (c)


The SuperIO chip along with the clock generator can be found between the two first PCI-Express x16 slots:

Madshrimps (c)


The cooling system is composed from multiple heatsinks linked together with heatpipes; each of them has similar artwork and between the VRM heatsinks and the NF2100, we have dual heatpipes traveling between them:

Madshrimps (c)


Between the VRMs and the heatsinks, we can find blue thermal pads:

Madshrimps (c)


The 8-pin ATX power header can be found near the two VRM heatsinks:

Madshrimps (c)


The board does also come with the following connectors and buttons:

  • 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port
  • 1 x CLR_CMOS button
  • 2 x eSATA 6.0Gb/s ports
  • 2 x USB 3.0 ports compatible to both USB 3.0 / 2.0 devices
  • 8 x USB 2.0 ports
  • 2 x RJ45 LAN connectors
  • 1 x Audio port with 6 audio jacks (Center/ Subwoofer/Speaker Out/ Rear Speaker Out / Side Speaker Out / Line in, microphone in, line out, and optical SPDIF out)

    Madshrimps (c)


    The CPU socket contains 15μ gold contact on the pins:

    Madshrimps (c)

  • The BIOS Explored, eJiffy Started

    The BIOS:

    The first screen that the board will display is the Black Series splash screen; on the same screen we are displayed the keys to press for accessing the BIOS setup or the boot menu:

    Madshrimps (c)


    In the POST screen, we can find information regarding the board name, BIOS release date, the name of the CPU and its rated speed, the speed at which the IMC is operating (which is sometimes displayed wrong, in my case I was running at 1600MHz speed), the operating mode, total memory quantity installed and detected HDD/SSD/optical drives:

    Madshrimps (c)


    The main BIOS menu displays the usual options like we have seen on many boards before like Standard CMOS Setup, Advanced Setup and so on:

    Madshrimps (c)


    In the Standard CMOS Setup menu, we can set the date/time or see the installed drives:

    Madshrimps (c)


    In the Advanced Setup menu, most of the Intel CPU features can be enabled/disabled, like Virtualization, EIST; here we also can set the boot priority or enable/disable the eJiffy function:

    Madshrimps (c)


    The Advanced Chipset Setup menu holds only the Memory Remap Feature setting:

    Madshrimps (c)


    In the Integrated Peripherals menu, the SATA Configuration can be modified; the onboard SATA controllers can be enabled/disabled along with the audio, LAN functions or USB functions:

    Madshrimps (c)


    In the Power Management Setup menu, we can see most of the known settings from other boards, with two extra options named Onboard Button LED and Deep Green:

    Madshrimps (c)


    The PCI/PnP Setup menu holds a single option; with its help, we can set which display adapter to initialize first:

    Madshrimps (c)


    The PC Health Status menu holds the Smart Fan Function, along with the shutdown temperature setting; here we can see the CPU and system temperature, the CPU and system fan speeds (not all fan headers are monitored), but also the voltages:

    Madshrimps (c)


    The Smart Fan Function has some advanced options, like setting the fan start PWM, fan start TEMP, DeltaT, or Fan Slope PWM value:

    Madshrimps (c)


    The MB Intelligent BIOS overclock menu has been revised an now it is named X; its ease of use is many times better than the previous versions and I could reach 4GHz without any problems at all. On top of the menu, we can see the CPU, memory and QPI frequencies that will be applied, we can set the DRAM frequency ratio, the RAM timings or let the motherboard set it by SPD, the QPI Ratio, CPU BCLK:

    Madshrimps (c)


    On the bottom of the same menu, we can access the voltage modifier functions, which can be upped by increments:

    Madshrimps (c)


    A very welcome BIOS menu which I have not seen from ECS on previous motherboards is the Load Profile Settings; here we can save or load our preferred CMOS settings, without the need to re-do them every time we need to:

    Madshrimps (c)


    Getting eJiffy

    If the eJiffy Linux distribution is installed and the option in BIOS is enabled, we will be welcomed with the following screen, in which we can select to boot the OS, run eJiffy or run the BIOS setup:

    Madshrimps (c)


    After the eJiffy option is selected, the loading progress bar will appear:

    Madshrimps (c)


    When the load is complete, we will be presented with the eJiffy desktop, where we can choose to run the disk explorer, chat program, browser and other applications; this eJiffy feature is useful if we want to get an information fast or chat with someone, without the need to boot the main operating system:

    Madshrimps (c)

    Test Setup and Additional Info

    The Test Setup and Additional Info:

    CPU : Intel I5 750 Retail
    CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12P SE2
    Motherboard : ECS P55H-AK
    RAM : G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL8D-4GBRM
    Video : ATI RADEON 4890 1GB with custom cooling
    Power Supply : Cooler Master 850W
    HDD : Seagate Barracuda 320GB 7200.10

    Madshrimps (c)


    Reaching 4GHz speed on this board was not very hard, and the system was very stable after executing Linx (20 runs):

    Madshrimps (c)


    Here is also the 4GHz validation:

    Madshrimps (c)


    With the latest version of Everest Ultimate, we can obtain more information regarding the motherboard, IMC and the P55 chipset:

    Madshrimps (c)

    Madshrimps (c)

    Madshrimps (c)


    The board does also come with the eBLU application, which searches automatically for the latest BIOS and prompts us to install it if available:

    Madshrimps (c)


    The eDLU utility searches automatically on the web for the latest software updates:

    Madshrimps (c)


    The eOC overclocking application permits us to change settings on the fly, regarding the clocks or voltages; we can also save them on file and load them when we need more or less performance:

    Madshrimps (c)


    In the same application we do have a monitor module, in which we can see the fan speeds, CPU and system temperatures, but also the voltages; from what I have seen from other monitoring applications and the CPU internal temperature sensors, the temperature reported by this software for the CPU is inaccurate:

    Madshrimps (c)


    Finally, in the options menu, we can set to start the application right after Windows boots, to auto-load a setting with it or to apply the setting when resuming from sleep mode:

    Madshrimps (c)

    Synthetic Benchmarks

    3DMark 2001SE


    Madshrimps (c)


    3DMark 2003


    Madshrimps (c)


    3DMark 2005


    Madshrimps (c)


    3DMark 2006


    Madshrimps (c)


    3DMark Vantage


    Madshrimps (c)


    *The Vantage scores were calculated by summing up the GPU and CPU subscores

    Here are the Vantage subscores separately:

    Madshrimps (c)


    PCMark 2005 & PCMark Vantage x64


    Madshrimps (c)


    Furmark


    Madshrimps (c)


    Cinebench R10


    Madshrimps (c)


    CrystalMark


    Madshrimps (c)


    SuperPI 32MB


    Madshrimps (c)


    Games Benchmarks

    Street Fighter 4


    Madshrimps (c)


    Left 4 Dead 1


    Madshrimps (c)


    Crysis


    Madshrimps (c)


    World in Conflict


    Madshrimps (c)


    Unreal Tournament 3


    Madshrimps (c)


    Counterstrike: Source


    Madshrimps (c)


    FarCry 2


    Madshrimps (c)


    Devil May Cry 4


    Madshrimps (c)


    Conclusive Thoughts

    Conclusive Thoughts

    The P55H-AK motherboard is a huge step-up from their previously launched motherboards; the cooling on the VRMs, NVIDIA NF2100 and P55 chipset is improved and has an interesting artwork on top of the heatsinks.

    A very interesting and useful addition is the USB 3.0 front panel, which we can use with almost any case; as we know, there is a very little number of computer cases that support USB 3.0 at the moment and it is not very nice to go in the back our case every time we need to use the new interface. (The currently released PCI-Express add-on cards do have only connectors on the back of the case, but no headers to connect with the front panel).

    The BIOS is also improved a lot since the previous generation and we can reach the desired/supported maximum speed much easier than before; the settings can be saved in the provided slots, without the need to modify each and every option when we decide to change the system running speed.

    Regarding the board performance, it is about equal with the P55 boards tested in the past; the product is, however, at its launch BIOS revision, so no new versions have been launched so far; because of this, we can expect in the future the manufacturer to increase the board performance even more.

    Madshrimps (c)


    I would like to thank again to ECS for making this review possible!
      翻译: