The Board

The P7H57D-V EVO is a full sized ATX motherboard. As such, ASUS has more "real estate" to play with.

The first thing to note is the way that ASUS has laid out the upper half of the board. The first thing that jumps out at you is the continued use of the one arm style RAM slots. These things are a great addition and despite not having the second clip, they hold the RAM in very securely while allowing easy removal when a graphics card is installed.

The CPU socket also received some thought as ASUS placed the components in a stepped configuration to allow the most efficient use of space. There is one small problem, though. The 8-pin 12v Aux connector is again in an area that makes it difficult to reach when the board is installed in a case like a mid-tower.

Moving to the lower half, you may first think that ASUS has lost their mind with the number of slots and how close they are together. But, after a closer look you will see that this jumble of PCIe and PCI slots makes sense. It allows an incredible flexibility in how you can use the P7H57D-V EVO.

The heatsink that covers the Southbridge components is an interesting design that also allows for some excellent cooling. The "arms" cover the components that need the extra cooling while the open areas prevent heat build-up where it is not.

ASUS has used their now familiar 90-degree angled SATA ports along the right edge of the board with a 90-degree PATA port just above. But while these are common, there are two items along the bottom of the P7H57D-V EVO that are not. These are the two SATA 3.0 ports in the middle of the line of USB 2.0 headers. These connect back to the H57 chipset via a PLX bridge chip. This helps to maintain the needed throughput that is required for the faster transfer.

For the rear I/O ports we also see a couple of new items; USB 3.0. As with the SATA 3.0 ports, these are bridged by the PLX chip to keep them moving properly. The rest of the array is pretty common stuff now, though.