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.

Intel DP55KG provides all the six SATA-300 ports suporting RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10, plus two extra SATA-300 ports controlled by a Marvell 88E6145 chip. This chip also controls two eSATA-300 ports present on the rear panel from the motherboard.

The SATA connectors are placed facing the motherboard edge, as you can see in Figure 5. 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 5: SATA ports.

Since Intel P55 chipset does not provide parallel ATA port and Intel DP55KG doesn’t have any additional PATA controller chip, this motherboard doesn’t have any parallel ATA port. It also lacks a floppy disk drive controller.

From the 14 USB 2.0 ports supported by the chipset, 13 are present on this motherboard, eight soldered on the rear panel, one soldered on a different position near the rear panel (see Figure 6) and four available through two motherboard headers. Additionally Intel DP55KG motherboard comes with a FireWire (IEEE 1394) controller, providing two FireWire ports, one soldered on the rear panel and one available a header.

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Figure 6: USB port on an unusual place.

Audio is generated by the chipset using a Realtek ALC889 codec, which is a professional-grade component, providing 7.1 audio with 24-bit resolution, 108 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the outputs, 104 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs and 192 kHz sampling rate for both the outputs and inputs. This motherboard comes with an on-board optical SPDIF output and input, which is terrific – most motherboards with on-board SPDIF connectors come only with outputs, not inputs. The board also has an SPDIF out header, so you can install a bracket containing a coaxial SPDIF output if you need one (this device doesn’t come with the board). As you can see in Figure 8, this motherboard has independent analog outputs for all eight channels. With these specs you work professionally with audio editing and mixing without the need of a high-end (and expensive) add-on sound card.

Intel DP55KG has a Gigabit Ethernet port controlled by the chipset and using an Intel 82578DC chip to make the interface with the physical layer.

As briefly mentioned on the introduction, Intel DP55KG comes with a Bluetooth controller. To use it you need to install the antenna that comes with the motherboard.

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Figure 7: Bluetooth controller with antenna installed.

This motherboard comes with an on-board infrared controller, so if you want to use this feature you will need to buy the receiver and transmitter LEDs, which don’t come with the product.

In Figure 8, you can see the motherboard rear panel with two eSATA-300 ports, button for the Back2BIOS function, optical SPDIF input and output, eight USB 2.0 ports, FireWire port, Gigabit Ethernet port and independent analog 7.1 audio outputs.

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Figure 8: Motherboard rear panel.

The Back2BIOS is a pretty ingenious function added by Intel. When this button is pressed, it glows red and the motherboard will automatically enter the BIOS setup during the next boot. This is a very useful function for overclockers.

As you can see, this motherboard does not come with PS/2 connectors for mouse or keyboard, so you must use a USB mouse and a USB keyboard with this motherboard.