I decided to build a computer after a 10 year hiatus.
SPECS:
I chose this motherboard, 4gb (2x2g)Corsair XMS 3 1600mhz ram,the new unlocked Intel i-875K processor cooled by a Corsair Hydro H50. Also went with Ultra X4 750 watt modular Power Supply, Hitachi 1gb 7200rpm Sata HD, Lite-On 24x DVD+RW, the LEXA S Case, and the EVGA GTX480 video card, and Asus XONAR Essence ST Soundcard. I have a 30 inch Dell 3008WFP Monitor, Apple Blue-tooth Wireless Keyboard and Logitech Performance Mouse MX to complete out my build. I am running Windows 7 Professional 64bit 1 user OEM.
INSTALL:
It took me most of a Friday night to get this built. Mostly because the back plate of the Cooler doesn't fit correctly, I had to live with some bow in the back plate to get the 4th screw in. But all and all not too bad. It booted fine the first time. I didn't realize you can't use a Blue-tooth Keyboard at first so I had to grab an older cordless usb Microsoft one to actually set up Windows. The motherboard lined us great with my case and the SATA Cables and many of the other cables were able to route behind the motherboard through rubberized holes in the case. I had no issues installing the motherboard at all, just fine, and well laid out to plug in 4 fans, a water cooler, sata plugs, case front panel wires, power wires, etc. A+++
PERFORMANCE:
I didn't know how to overclock anymore after 10 years. So I read some stuff googling and wasn't sure and instead just used the Intel Desktop Control Panel to experiment. I ended up setting the Ram to 1600mhz and only changing the multiplier to 29x in quad config, 30 in three, and 31 in 2 and single core. I get a score of about 9,000 on CPU Mark. That was all I needed to do, no changing voltages or any of the rest of it. That is what worked best and has run cool and solid ever since.
FEATURES:
The blue-tooth doesn't work for my Apple keyboard, it recognizes it, lets you type in the code but loses connection, so I use a small usb dongle instead. The Video Card sits fine. There is some bling you can turn on in the bios for lights and a blue skull with glowing red eyes. I turned it on high since I have a case window. The real feature is the Intel Control Panel. It shows temps, overclock settings and fan speeds and lets you save profiles. That is a great feature and now that I am done overclocking, I don't use the bios anymore. I also downloaded the latest drivers and firmware from Intel. Paired with the Asus Soundcard (got because of the powerful headphone amp built in) I just use Grado SR-80 and Sennheiser RS140 wireless headphones and a set of Altec Lansing FX6021 speakers.
FINAL IMPRESSION: For me this was a good jump back in to building my own computer. I wasn't satisfied with anything pre-built that I could afford. Building my own let me spend in the areas I valued. The Intel Board was a great choice because it runs well and is very expandable with a second or even third video card and lots of SATA and USB Ports. Get one! Intel DP55KG Extreme Series Desktop Motherboard (P55 ATX Core i7 Core i5 LGA1156)
I bought this motherboard for a high performance system I was building. The instructions were straight forward, clear, big, and colorful. The installation was fairly easy and in about ten minutes, the board was mounted to my NXZT Phantom "white" case.
Here are the specs of the computer:
Intel Core i7 860 Processor
Intel DP55KG Motherboard
Intel SSD X25-V 40GB (operating system drive)
Western Digital 1TB Black Edition Hard Drive (applications drive)
Nvidia GTS 250 GDDR3 1024GB Graphic Card
Lite-On Blu-Ray Optical Drive
LG DVD+-RW Optical Drive
Corsair 4GB (2x2GB) DDR4 10666
OCZ 700 Watt. Power Supply
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
With a system build, there are sometimes minor issues to work through. On the whole, I'm very happy with this board. My Intel i5 750 CPU and 8GB Corsair memory installed and fired up without any problem. The LAN driver does need to be installed separately, but that really isn't a big deal...it's on the provided driver disk. I updated the BIOS after loading the operating system (Windows 7 Professional), which fixed the buggy hibernate function. I've added a few extras, such as a card reader, that were accepted without any problems. The system is very stable and has not had any hiccups in two weeks of operation.
I have only had this board running for a few weeks so I can't comment on it's reliability. The board was easy to install in an Antec Sonata case. The construction seems solid. I installed a i5-750 processor , 4 GB of Kingston ram and an ATI Radeon Video Card. The system fired up without a glitch. I loaded a Debian Linux operating system on with two problems. The sound didn't seem to work and the OS couldn't find the network interface. The first problem was solved by turning up the PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) level on the sound mixer. This is just something to remember since it took a while to find. I solved the second problem by putting in an inexpensive above board PCI bussed NIC. The root problem is still unsolved. The operating system just won't find the chip set. Users of Windoz probably won't be bothered by this glitch. The system is really really fast. It's about 15 times faster than my old one. A real pleasure to use. The board will take up to 16 GB of ram has ports to burn, has an advance surround sound audio system, a GB network interface (if you can get it to work). Check the specs for memory and compatible processors with the Intel site before purchase. From some peoples complaints, it's obvious they didn't. Don't forget this is a PCIe buss board not PCI although there are two older PCI connectors on the board.
I'd expect nothing less from Intel. I bought this board for a gaming computer that I was building. So far, my gaming and computing experience has been unbelievable! I play Assassin's Creed, Crysis, Prototype, Spore, Devil May Cry 4, World of Goo, Portal (Steam), Bioshock, and a bunch of others on max settings without any glitches. The board also has temperature monitoring technologies and fail safe features, which is nice to have.
I highly recommend this product to anyone! Keep up the good work Intel! - Motherboard - Intel - I7 - Cpu Processors'
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