Intel P55 chipset is a single-chip solution. The basic features provided by this chipset include six SATA-300 ports (RAID support is optional), no support for parallel ATA (PATA) ports, 14 USB 2.0 ports supporting port disable, embedded Gigabit Ethernet MAC (Medium Access Control) and eight x1 PCI Express lanes.

ECS P55H-A provides all the six SATA-300 ports and they are placed facing the motherboard edge, as you can see in Figure 4. This is a terrific solution, because on motherboards where the ports are facing up the video cards usually block the access to them or even completely prevent you from installing SATA cables on them.

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Figure 4: SATA ports.

Intel P55 does not provide parallel ATA port, but ECS P55H-A has one ATA-133 port, provided by a JMicron JMB361. This chip also controls the eSATA port present on the rear panel from the motherboard. This eSATA port supports port multiplier up to three devices, allowing you to install up to three hard drives on this port, as long as you have an external enclosure supporting eSATA with port multiplier. This port – and only this port – supports RAID 0, 1 0+1 and JBOD. ECS P55H-A, however, doesn't have a floppy disk drive controller.

All the 14 USB 2.0 ports supported by the chipset are present, eight soldered on the rear panel and six available on three motherboard headers.

Audio is generated by the chipset using a Realtek ALC888S codec, which is a good component for a mainstream motherboard, providing 7.1 audio with 24-bit resolution, 97 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the outputs, 90 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, 192 kHz sampling rate for the outputs and 96 kHz sampling rate for the inputs. This motherboard comes with an on-board optical SPDIF output, which is great. As you can see in Figure 5, this motherboard has analog outputs only for 5.1 audio, so 7.1 audio is only supported through the optical SPDIF output.

ECS P55H-A has a Gigabit Ethernet port controlled by a Realtek RTL8111DL chip.

In Figure 5, you can see the motherboard rear panel with PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors, clear CMOS button, eight USB 2.0 ports, eSATA port, Gigabit Ethernet port, optical SPDIF output and independent analog 5.1 audio outputs.

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Figure 5: Motherboard rear panel.