14 DAY TRIAL // With the 2009 edition of Computex just days away from its debut, news reports are starting to surface about some of the products and devices that will be showcased during the show. Such is the case with a recently leaked motherboard from Taiwanese manufacturer ASUS, which could showcase one of its first designs for the upcoming P55 chipset. A picture of a yet unannounced P7P55 PRO motherboard from ASUS has recently surfaced on the Internet, showing some of the features and details that could be enabled for Intel's upcoming Nehalem-based Core i5 processors.
The aforementioned board, which has just surfaced on Xfastest, boasts the upcoming LGA 1156, Intel's future socket for Core i5 processors. As some of you might already be in the know, this new series of Nehalem-based CPUs has been designed to provide users with a more affordable alternative to the now-available Core i7 processors. The upcoming chips are expected to be smaller than Intel's fastest processors to date and provide users with support for dual-channel DDR3 memory, as opposed to triple-channel memory on Intel's current X58 platform. The P55 chipset is part of Chipzilla's 5-Series Express Chipset family, which will also include the P57, H55, H57 and Q55, in addition to the X58 and the upcoming P55.
The picture of ASUS' future P55 motherboard reveals one of the possible designs for the company's first P55 mobo. However, there's a high chance that the layout you see here is going to change before the official release of the new platform, especially since the debut of P55 and Intel's first Core i5 processor, codenamed Lynnfield, is expected somewhere at the beginning of September. Still, the P7P55 PRO pictured on Xfastest can provide you with a clue as to what to expect from Intel's 'affordable' Nehalem platform.
ASUS will likely unveil several designs using the same chipset, but this P7P55 PRO model has the highest probability to be showcased at the company's booth at Computex, which starts early next month.