Choosing the Best H55/H57 Motherboard - Part 1

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• Rajinder Gill - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link

  Hi,
  
  For i3 530 results, you can compare the i3~i5 deltas in Anand's coverage here;
  
  http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...
  
  That gives as a basic idea of what to expect. The actaul IGP consumption variance from board to board will be aroud 10~15w I'd expect. I can run some fo this stuff in the follow up.
  
  regards
  Raja
  

• hyvonen - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link

  Hi Raja,
  
  The MSI H55M-ED55 looks awesome for low-power HTPC, but the lack of undervolting is an incomprehensible miss on MSI's part. If they are as gung-ho about low-power as they claim, they should most definitely offer undervolting too.
  
  Could you guys suggest to MSI that they should add undervolting options to their future BIOS releases? I know Anand's team has a lot of influence on manufacturers, and this could really help out MSI and their customers alike.

• Rajinder Gill - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link

  Sure thing, I'll pop it in a message to them.
  
  regards
  Raja
  

• hyvonen - Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - link

  Thanks - this is much appreciated.

• YellowWing - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link

  Thanks for the link to Anand article, but all of his power figures are for a machine using a graphics adapter. The i5-661 and i3-530 clock the graphics at different rates. So... imho it would be ideal to see idle and load figures for the i3-530.

• hyvonen - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link

  SilenPCReview has a pretty good review on i5-661, where the system is configured for HTPC purposes (i.e., IGP & superlow power). They even touch on PSU efficiency at low power levels (the efficiency is pretty awful, even for a 450W 80plus PUS).
  
  http://www.silentpcreview.com/intel-clarkdale">http://www.silentpcreview.com/intel-clarkdale
  
  I've already decided to go with a PicoPSU that should give me about 80% efficiency at 20-30W idle.

• hyvonen - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link

  Oh, and I wanted to point out that i5-661 was idling at extremely low power levels in that review. Moreover, I've seen another review somewhere comparing i5-661s and actual i3-530s - in that review, the i3-530 idle power was higher! My guess is that the idle power levels are so low in both that it's all within measurement noise.

• nuudles - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link

  Hi Anand,
  
  Any news on when we will start seeing mini-ITX H55/57 boards? With more and more mATX boards mini-ITX is becoming the mATX of a couple of years ago.
  
  I know that there is one DFI mini-ITX p55 board at Newegg, but it is $147 with shipping, plus something like a i3 530 would be an ideal match for a mini-ITX H55 for a very small + low power system (HTPC, etc).
  
  Or if you add a small-ish video card like a 5750 then you have a nice and small (non-hardcore) gaming system.
  
  Thanks!

• Rajinder Gill - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link

  Hi,
  
  We expect some of these vendors to have M-ITX boards somewhere over the next few months (hopefully).
  
  Zotac have a H55 model that should be on sale soon:
  
  http://pden.zotac.com/index.php?page=shop.product_...">http://pden.zotac.com/index.php?page=sh...mp;optio...
  
  
  Nothing concrete yet from the big players in terms of release dates/models etc unfortunately.
  
  regards
  Raja
  

• AstroGuardian - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link

  Hello Raja and everyone:
  
  Would you be so kind and point me to a site or anything that has Intel and AMD chips compared? Live Lynnfield vs Clarkdale vs everything?
  
  I have been into hardware for a loooong time but i was doing some science work lately and i am out of grip with latest chips.
  
  Thanks everybody. This review was great