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P55 On Boost: Five LGA 1156 Boards Between $200 And $250

P55 On Boost: Five LGA 1156 Boards Between $200 And $250
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We’ve heard that Intel’s LGA 1156 platform was intended to bring its Nehalem architecture to the mainstream market. But the first processors to support that platform are hardly what most of us would consider inexpensive. Starting with a $200 Core i5-750, the range currently tops out with a surprisingly-expensive $550 Core i7-870. At those prices, the cheapest processor barely fits into the top of what most folks consider mainstream.

On the other hand, a simplified platform architecture based on Intel's single-component platform controller hub, which looks amazingly similar to the previous-generation’s southbridge, has allowed comparable motherboards to cost around $100 less than their LGA 1366 predecessors. The tradeoff for this cost savings is the loss of 20 PCI Express (PCIe) lanes and a scale back from triple- to dual-channel memory support.

The combination of fairly expensive processors and a scaled-back chipset puts us in a difficult position when considering the market for full-feature motherboards. Can any LGA 1156 system truly be considered high-end? After all, there’s no practical way to supply two graphics cards with a full 16 lanes of bandwidth. However, only the most expensive graphics cards need more than eight PCIe 2.0 lanes, and not every high-end buyer wants a gaming system.

Current LGA 1156 hardware thus cuts a broad swath across both sides of the line that normally separates high-end from mainstream systems, appealing to mid-budget gamers, non-gaming power users, and technophiles who think of themselves as both gamers and power users. They are among the users who are the most likely to want more performance than they are willing to pay for, to be tempted by the easy gains of overclocking, and to find themselves surrounded by Tom’s Hardware forum members. Some of these users are on our staff.

Now that we’ve figured out why someone might want to build a moderately expensive system using parts that are mainstream in name only, let’s take a closer look at how well some of those parts, specifically the motherboards, fit in this market.

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  • -1 Hide
    LePhuronn , 15 December 2009 15:53
    And if you're going to spend this much money on an extreme-capable system, why even bother with P55? If you have the cash to burn surely you'd go X58...
  • 0 Hide
    kilowattMalaya , 15 December 2009 23:04
    X58 will be more pricey compared to P55 system...for me P55 more reasonable...
  • 1 Hide
    LePhuronn , 16 December 2009 01:14
    @kilowattMalaya:

    that's entirely my point - these P55 boards are as expensive, if not more, then X58 boards. So if you're going to splash this much cash around, my sell yourself short with "only" P55?
  • -1 Hide
    Silverlight , 16 December 2009 01:33
    P7P55D and an i7 860 is much cheaper than i7 920 and ASUS P6T, or atleast in my country it is

    I chose those boards because they're both ASUS' bottom of the range (compare apples to apples)
  • 0 Hide
    LePhuronn , 16 December 2009 02:32
    @Silverlight:

    But we're not talking bottom of the range in this article, are we so your comparison's a little irrelevant. Yes, bottom-end P55 boards are a lot cheaper, but this article is about high-end P55 boards.

    P7P55D Deluxe: £169.99
    i7 860: £226.99

    Rampage II Gene: £174.99
    i7 920: £217.99

    P55: £396.98
    X58: £392.98

    So, with the X58 combo actually a hair cheaper than the P55, the deal breaker here is the cost of dual-channel vs triple-channel RAM.
  • 0 Hide
    damian86 , 21 December 2009 08:15
    a P55 motherboard+ a i7 860-870 can give almost the same performance as the x58+i7 920.there's not much difference,for me it's a good deal.