EVGA P55 FTW Motherboard Review

When it comes to enthusiast motherboards many companies have a template they follow to give the product line a unified look and feel.  This template can also dictate things like board colors, features, and even included goodies.  The only thing that will vary is what features will be available at a certain product level.

The EVGA P55 FTW is a high-end mainstream motherboard designed for the enthusiast looking to get the very most from their system without a ton of extras.  This is evident in many of the features found on this motherboard starting with the expansion slot layout.  The P55 FTW comes with 3 16x PCI Express slots but only supports dual card SLI, the 3rd PCIe slot can be used for just about anything including a dedicated PhysX processor.  The 1x PCI Express slot is also located above the first video card slot making it accessible when often times its conveniently hidden below a video card rendering it useless.

The onboard overclocking controls start with the 12-phase PMW and optional secondary 8 pin 12v power connector, continue thru a solid set of BIOS controls and even extend to the included ECP V2 module giving the user a complete and well rounded overclocking experience.  In our tests we easily reached 4.2 Ghz with very minimal tweaking.  While your mileage can and will likely vary under a similar situation 4+Ghz is attainable without too much difficulty.

For all of the good things we do have to mention the chipset limitation related to video card support.  By default a single video card can get 16 lanes of PCIe bandwidth.  This then is divided in half when 2 cards are present.  This sort of situation is not uncommon and in most cases will have no effect on your gaming experience.  The ECP V2 module is a handy overclocking tool however does not come with a way to mount it in your chassis or come with a way to hide the barren PCB.

Now for the ever popular list of good things and bad things

Excellent overclocking abilities to add value to any processor
Super way to present a product with the pulsing "E" on the Northbridge area
Great value with bundled hardware and cables
SLI and Crossfire ready with the ability to add a physics card
The build quality and overall warranty service is great

ECP V2 does not come with some kind of mounting equipment
Limited to 2-way SLI