Intel’s P55 and X58 Express chipsets are aimed at two different sections of the computing market – the X58 aimed at the gaming enthusiast willing to pay more for extra power while the P55 is aimed at mainstream users. It is therefore interesting to see how they differ in their performance and how one should decide which chipset is best for them.
The main points of comparison between these two chipsets are as follows -
· The most noticeable difference between the X58 chipset and the P55 chipset is the kind of CPU socket being supported. While the higher end X58 motherboards support the LGA 1366 socket, the P55 chipset supports the LGA 1156 socket. It is expected that the LGA 1366 that was used by the Core i7 processors will also be used by the more advanced Core i7 processors. On the other hand, the LGA 1156 can be used by some Core i7 800 Series processors as well as Core i5 processors and are compatible with Core i3 processors. It is therefore expected that average users would tend to prefer the cheaper LGA 1156 that offers more or less the same level of performance as the LGA 1366 in day-to-day tasks.
· The X58 chipset was the first one to introduce the innovative triple-channel memory, designed so that the RAM modules could be used in pairs of three. All other chipsets previously developed from both Intel and AMD only had dual-channel memory that allowed the RAM modules to be used in pairs of twos. However, again, for average users, this difference in the dual or triple channel memory configuration does not have an impact on their daily computing tasks.
· The final and most important difference between the Intel X58 and P55 chipsets are the way the PCI Express functionality is being handled.
Let us first look at the X58 chipset – here the PCI Express controller forms part of the chipset, as always been the case with Intel chipsets ever since they introduced the PCI Express feature in their chipset. In the X58, the chipset offers an impressive 40 PCI Express lanes that could be split up in any number of ways. This allowed the chipset to support two high-end graphic cards operating at full x16 speed.
In the P55 chipset, the PCI Express controller is part of the processor thereby freeing up room on the motherboard. However, this controller is far less robust than the one on the X58 and cannot support two high-end graphic cards at x16 speed. This becomes noticeable in the graphics performance. If one is planning on using multiple graphic cards, there will be a noticeable drop in performance with the P55 chipset as compared to the X58.
It is therefore very clear, that Intel has designed the P55 as a mainstream chipset that gives adequate performance for the price. On the other hand, if a user is interested in high-end gaming, multi GPU setup or specialized computing, the X58 will fit their requirements the best.
Whatever your computing or gaming needs, at Evetech we will help you identify the best chipset for your needs. In fact, we will custom design a PC that gives you performance that more than matches what you pay for it. if you are looking for X58 based chipset machine you can checkout our Intel Core i7 Gaming PC's Section or look at our Intel Core i5 Gaming PC's based on Intel P55 Chipset.
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