Intel P55 Chipset Preview On Linux
There will be an onslaught of motherboard launches today from many Intel partners launching their own P55-based products, many of which have already been exposed early on the Internet and elsewhere. Intel will be launching four new motherboards today and they include the DP55KG "Kingsberg", DP55SB "Sharpsburg", DP55WG "Warrensburg", and DP55WB "Whitesburg". The features on these Intel P55 motherboards range from supporting NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFire to the number of SATA and eSATA ports to integrated Bluetooth and the overclocking features.
The motherboard we had our hands on for testing was the Intel DP55KG with its support for both NVIDIA SLI and ATI CrossFire, one PCI Express x4 slot, two PCI Express x1 slots, two PCI slots, Intel HD Audio with 7.1 Dolby Home Theater, eight SATA ports, two eSATA ports, and support for 13 USB 2.0 ports.
The BIOS for the DP55KG allows either the CPU voltage to be overridden as a static value (up to 2.3V in 0.125V steps) or dynamically, maximum non-turbo ratio, CPU idle state, and performance memory profiles. Besides the CPU voltage and core frequency, the PCH core voltage, QPI data rate, and PCI Express bus frequency can also be manipulated. The monitoring features exposed through the BIOS include the processor fan speed, front fan speed, rear fan speed, auxiliary fan speed, processor thermal margin, internal temperature, remote temperature, V12.0, V5.0, V3.3, V_SM, and Vccp.
On the next page is the lspci and dmesg output for the Intel Kingsberg P55 motherboard.