Let's start off by taking a quick look around the ASUS P7P55D Deluxe motherboard.

In the lower left corner we find the P55 Express PCH behind a small passive heatsink. The P55 Express PCH has six 3Gb/s SATA II ports which can run in RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 modes. ASUS adds another two 3Gb/s SATA controllers to the mix which can be run in RAID 0, 1 and JBOD modes.

ASUS's P7P55D Deluxe supports up to 16GB of DDR3 800/1066/1333MHz (and 2200MHz when overclocked) memory in four DIMMs. Along the bottom edge of the board is the ATX 24-pin power connector and IDE connector.

The P7P55D Deluxe is one of the first motherboards to use Intel's 1156-pin socket. This socket requires an 1156-pin Core i5 700-series or Core i7 800-series CPU, as well as a compatible cooler.

On the left are on-board physical power and reset buttons, useful for overclocking or when troubleshooting the mainboard outside of a system chassis. Three USB headers and three SATA 3GB/S ports are also available.

CMOS reset button on the rear IO.

Dual-sided VGA release locks make removing big videocards much easier when the heatsink blocks the tab!

ASUS Stack Cool - extra heatsinks on the rear of the board to cool and disperse heat from board mounted VRM components around the CPU.

Let's see how far we can push the ASUS P7P55D Deluxe motherboard when paired up with an Intel Core i5 processor. Overclocking is up next!