It seems like everything is going twin this, dual that, and double of some of the other as well lately. We have Dual Rail PSU’s that carry two 12v Rails. We have of course Dual Channel RAM and Double Data Rate memory. And now the buzzword is Dual Core CPU’s. As we reported back in May, Intel’s Dual Core CPU, unlike the AMD equivalent would require a new motherboard chipset to run. This has manifested itself as the 945P/G and the 955X chipset.

One thing that is good about these new chipsets is that you don’t have to have a Dual Core CPU to run them; your standard single core will do just fine, and with support for 1066MHz FSB Extreme Edition CPU’s as well, you do get quite a line up of CPU’s to choose from. Naturally, you also get support for the 64bit CPU’s too. It also means that like the 925XE chipset, you should get the headroom from the motherboard if you use an 800MHz FSB CPU when overclocking. We are going to get a good look at an Intel 955X or ‘Black Creek’ motherboard with the new ICH7R Southbridge paired to the 82955X MCH Northbridge.

Specifications

800 MHz or 1066 MHz FSB.
Supports dual-core processors with Hyper-Threading Technology
Support for LGA775 processor package
PCI Express* x16 Interface
PCI Express* x1 Interface
Intel® Matrix Storage Technology
Intel® High Definition (HD) Audio
Intel® Memory Pipeline Technology
Dual-channel DDR2 Memory Support
Intel® Flex Memory Technology
Platform Software
Intel® Active Management Technology
Serial ATA* (SATA) 3 Gb/s

You can read up on the 955 Express Chipset in more detail here.

Now I know that the first thing folks will say when they look at the overview picture of this motherboard will be “is that two PCIe 16x Graphic Ports? Can it do SLI/Crossfire?”. Well the short answer is no to both questions. What you can see on this motherboard is a second 16x PCIe slot which is electrically routed for a 4x interface, a PCIe Utility slot allowing for a second graphics card to be used to increase the number of possible displays you can have. The overall impact of using a 4x interface over a 16x should be minimal currently and some of you may recognize the technology as it is similar to that used on the PT880 Pro from VIA that we reported on before. I also want to mention the black lead free PCB used because I think it looks dead sexy. With the other components being as ‘colourless’ as the PCB (blacks, whites and silver mainly) you don’t get that funky Nike look like you would from a red or blue based board, but I think this understated appearance is really quite nice. Let’s see more black PCB motherboards!

The CPU area for the 955X is dominated with the now familiar LGA775 pin filled socket and you can just about see left of it (behind the I/O ports) the ‘P8’ connector. An adapter was supplied with the motherboard although you should be able to find an enthusiast PSU with a true P8 connector on the market by now should you so wish; just make sure it supports the EPS12V format. This 955X probably has the largest passive Northbridge heatsink I’ve ever seen; almost double the size of your average Northbridge. Hitching a left at the Northbridge we find the second of four power connectors (yes I said four), a standard female 4 pin Molex.

As expected, the four dual channel DDR2 ram slots are colour coded (black and blue) to indicate the pairs. The 955X supports (officially) 667MHz ram or PC2-5300; up from the 533MHz supported by the 925X/XE, and can also address a total of 8GB of ram. The other improvement here over the 925XE chipset is that the 955X includes Intel Memory Pipeline Technology which is basically an optimization of the memory channel between the memory and the CPU. We also have Intel Flex Memory Technology which allows you to populate the memory slots with different size modules while remaining in dual channel mode. Next to the ram slots and on the far edge of the board we find a floppy port and a single IDE port, along with the 24pin ATX power port.

Below the ram slots are our storage interface options. A total of 8 SATA ports are included, 4 from the ICH7R providing SATA300 support and a further 4 from a Silicon RAID controller. You can also see another 4 pin Molex connector. You’ll note a lack of extra IDE ports, so if you have two optical drives, that’s your lot; you will require SATA drives here, and for the record, I couldn’t get any drives to function on this board using Highpoint RocketHead IDE to SATA adapters either.

The PCI area has a singular PCIe 1x interface, 3 PCI slots and of course the aforementioned twin PCIe 16x (1 16x, 1 4x) graphics slots. It’s quite interesting that we have a second graphic port as while this motherboard won’t give you dual GPU operation, utilizing two graphics cards that run from the same kind of interface does mean you could conceivably update your current card and use the old one as your secondary card; something you couldn’t do with a single AGP/PCIe16x slot motherboard.. The ICH7R actually supports 6 PCI slots and 6 PCIe x1 slots, but it will of course be down to individual manufacturers to support what they feel is needed, and to even add in the second PCIe Utility slot; Intel’s board has 3 PCI slots and 2 PCIe x1 slots.

The I/O Panel is pretty standard fare these days, but from left to right; PS2 ports for the mouse and keyboard, 1x serial and 1x parallel, a Digital Line Out, 4 USB 2 ports, a Firewire port, an Intel PRO 1000 Gigabit LAN port and lastly the six jacks to be used with the Intel HD Audio out including an Optical out (TOSLink).

The changes from the 925XE chipset are not large ones, but what is seen here is support for another processor type, and a general optimization of the chipset in general. Of course, the Dual PCIe graphic slots can be useful but only in limited situations since the majority of graphics cards on the market will support dual displays out of the box, and the likelihood for a third display being needed will be a minority situation. Still, it is nice.

BIOS

All in all, the BIOS is actual a lot more feature filled and controllable than I expected and while it isn't a patch on some of the big name vendors such as ABIT or ASUS, it does provide you with more than enough to tinker with.

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