BIOSTAR TPOWER i55 LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: I use it for a mid-level workstation, and some gaming. I've had one running over 2 years now. I got a little over zealous blowing it out one time and shorted the mb, couldn't wait for a rma (office work machine), ordered a new board installed and Win 7 fired right up like it didn't even know the difference.

Cons: 16 gigs of ram, only an issue if I have PS, Maya, Blender, Mudbox and 3DS Max open at once and that so rarely happens

Pros: shiny gold box

Cons: does not work

Pros: Amazing overclocker, one of the most stable boards I've worked with. TONS of BIOS options. Has all solid cap's and is basically build for reliability and longevity, even under extreme conditions.

Cons: Not much support. Manual is loose English translation. Has POST codes appear that aren't even in the manual or have any documentation anywhere.

Other Thoughts: LOVE THIS BOARD. I have run it 24/7 for the past two years with an i7 850 continuously overclocked to a hair below 4GHz and memory to match. Can't believe this board is still for sale! Doesn't have sata 6 or USB 3 as some have said, but man, if you can run without needing those and want some serious speed AND reliability for years to come then there's no reason you shouldn't get this.

Sidenote, this board has eSATA ports in the back and they won't work unless you have your drives in AHCI, obvious I know but still I overlooked this. Just make sure that if you install win 7 or 8 you have it in this mode BEFORE install or you will have to do a little registry hack for it to boot back up. I believe that Vista and earlier you have to specify an AHCI driver at install anyway so there's no way around it. This board has the Jmicron JMB36X controller so just make sure you have that driver before install.

Pros: Has a nice LED read out on the board to tell you error codes.

Cons: Error code was d0 and after some searching found it to be a DOA part

Other Thoughts: Sending it back in the morning, hopefully newegg replaces the part =D

Pros: Haven't had long enough yet

Cons: Haven't had long enough yet

Other Thoughts: Ordered 2 other MB on other websites. Both came defective out of box. The packaging for them was horrible and sellers did not seem to care at all about the product or there names. I bought this MB this past weekend and installed yesterday and has ran great thus far and I had 0 issues with boot or install. Packaging was wonderful and arrived in very timely manner. LOVE YOU NEWEGG XOXO.

Pros: POST and BOOT first try. No issues. MoBo shipped with latest bios. Overclocks well.

Cons: Overclocking can be alittle frustrating on this board. But once you figure it out its a champ.

Pros: One of the few options for high end 1156 sockets and well worth the money.

Cons: None

Pros: TONS of plugs on the back.
Simple installation. I didn't require the mythical BIOS update.
This seems to be the premier 1156 motherboard from what I can tell. The heatsinks on the board dissipate heat wonderfully, the mounting bracket is intuitive, features like debug LCD are awesome, and dual ethernet ports should just be standard imo.
There are 3 internal USB plugs and a Firewire plug on here. It's awesome. Make use of all those external and internal bays.

Cons: Docked an egg for 2 reasons. Only 2 fan plugs aside from the CPU fan. And like everyone else says, using a 2-slot video card will negate your ability to utilize a PCI-e slot.
I had fan converter plugs and plenty of molexes from my PSU, and don't require the use of a PCI-e slot, but I can see these being real issues for some folks.

Other Thoughts: I tooch pricey, considering this is dated hardware. But obviously I paid for it, and I think it's worth it.

Pros: installed 16 GB memory, 880 processor, all worked perfect so far

Cons: Cons video card takes up 2 slots you have to use top slot for its master, so it will cover it covers pci slot so if you need it you will have to use single slot video card, if you use second slot it will cause video passing thru pc to be out of time you see picture 5 second later you hear the words...You need single slot video cards if you need the pci slot

Other Thoughts: beside the video card everything else ran smoothing.. had order sli i video cards that takes only 1 slot each since i bought this one

Pros: Has nice specs, lots of connectors.

Cons: No matter what I try, this board refuses to support anything more than 4GB of memory. WINDOWS (7) sees it, but the BIOS can't let it use it; confusing. Tried three different high-performance memory sticks, but no matter what I do, it just will not see it. (And what's odd is on boot the BIOS shows only 4GB when I've installed 8GB, but Windows can't use it.) Also, the board will hang on boot, multiple resets/power up/downs are needed to get it working again. And I can't use ReadyBoost; it hangs at POST. In short, for me at least, this is a terrible motherboard.

Other Thoughts: And I noticed the BIOS hasn't been updated in over two years. Seems Gigabyte gave up on this board.

Manufacturer Response:

Sorry to hear of your issues, recommend that you contact our support for assistance, 626-581-1055 menu 2 or email support@biostar-usa.com.