Choosing the Best H55/H57 Motherboard, Part 2
by Rajinder Gill on February 22, 2010 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
Out of the eight boards we've tested over the past six weeks, there are three we could live with comfortably now that things have matured sufficiently. We're not going to bestow any awards at this point though, because we feel that there have been issues on all test-samples during the review period that should have been addressed prior to public release. Simple things like memory compatibility, bundled software issues, BIOS lockups and basic peripheral problems all reared their head at some point. We're bemused by how these things make it out of vendor test labs in the first place; it has to be down to a lack of in-house testing while precedence is given to being first on retailer shelves—and that's unacceptable.
Nevertheless, we promised to help make a decision on which board to choose so here are the ones we're short-listing as "ready for retail" at this point. Unsurprisingly, the ASRock H55M-Pro, Gigabyte H55M-USB3 and the ASUS P7H55D-M Evo are the three boards we feel most comfortable recommending. Get one of these three, flash it to the latest BIOS, and you should be in for a trouble/frustration-free ride.
There's no absolute winner, although we feel ASRock set the pace by bringing the H55M-Pro in at a price that's hard to ignore. The only thing missing is USB 3.0, but you can always add a PCI-E card to supply a couple of ports at a later date. We have a slight reservation over ASRock's warranty period of 12 months; ASUS and Gigabyte offer 36 months on their boards which is something that's worth bearing in mind.
We'd only consider purchase of the ASUS and Gigabyte models if you have specific overclocking needs and like to have all the tweaking functions at your disposal, or if you have a pressing need for USB 3.0 right now. In the overclocking department, Gigabyte's board surpasses ASUS by a slim margin for raw memory frequency, while the ASUS board appears to be a little more robust for heavier CPU loads and higher CPU freqeuncies (ASUS is using a 188 amp capable VRM vs a guessed 110~120amp VRM on the Gigabyte H55/H57 boards, so we'd pick the ASUS boards for Lynnfield CPU overclocking). Anything else between these two boards is merely a matter of subjective preference. After a few hundred hours of testing, that's all we have to say about it.
Don't let any of what we've said here today deter you from a Clarkdale system entirely though; the i3 series of CPUs makes a tremendous amount of sense for a low cost, low noise HTPC—just be sure to choose the partnering motherboard wisely. Now that most of the teething problems are behind us, there's plenty to like, but next time a new chipset launches we hope to see fewer false starts.
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jackylman - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
First, thank you for the detailed information on fan control. I've made a few comments about that in the past and it's nice to see that category now seems to be part of a standard Atech mobo review.I'm not in the market for a Clarkdale platform, but if I was, this article would be very useful.
Shadowmaster625 - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
A lot of people are talking about new motherboards being released before they are ready. And for good reason. Why bother? Why not go and buy a well known and well established motherboard like the GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L for $45 and drop in a E5200 and a quiet GT 220 or 5450? Overclock it to a modest 3 GHz and it will surely smoke this H55/H57 garbage in all the gaming benchmarks, for a LOT cheaper.I do not understand the value in this entire product line. Why do you not compare these with the option I just mentioned? I dont care about how intel wastes their monopoly advantage. If hardware from a year ago is cheaper and better than this crap they are shoveling out now, then it is your responsibility to tell us that.
TrackSmart - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Point taken, but as readers, isn't it great that we don't have to buy all the newest, most expensive hardware to find out how it runs? And the problems with it? We can just read articles like this one.The Anandtech folks *do* write articles showing budget parts that offer exceptional value (via overclocking or unlocking cores). This just isn't one of those articles.
Rajinder Gill - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
Hi,I think the E5300 was benchmarked against Clarkdale here in our chipset/CPU launch articles.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...
regards
Raja
Taft12 - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
Interestingly, a tasty OC on an E5300 will push the benches up towards the E8600 in those charts, that is to say, faster than Clarkdale.OK, so an E5300 won't get quite THAT far, but it shows you that Clarkdale is marginally better than Wolfdale at best and not at all worth the price.
lukeevanssi - Saturday, June 26, 2010 - link
if anybody want to know more about it so plz visit this link:-http://www.healthproductreviewers.com/force-factor...
there is a lot off knowledge about this product
TrackSmart - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
Thank you for pushing Gigabyte on the AHCI issue! Can you ask them about their 790-series boards, too? I'm frustrated with the lack of AHCI support on my new GA-790-XTA-UD4 motherboard. There's a 30-45 second delay in initializing SATA hard disks when returning from sleep mode. This causes Windows 7 to blue screen. The only fix is to revert to IDE mode for all drives. I wasted 2 days trouble-shooting this only to find out its an unaddressed problem with AHCI support on this motherboard (and many others).Lukas - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
This may not be the solution you're looking for, but it fixes the bluescreen at least:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977178/#top">http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977178/#top
TrackSmart - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
Thank you for the tip. I tried the hotfix.It's funny because the hotfix definitely prevents total operating system failure (i.e. BSOD). However, Windows takes up to a full minute to become responsive when resuming from sleep mode. Presumably the OS is waiting as long as it needs to for the SATA boot drive to become responsive again.
I will continue running in Native IDE mode for now, since losing 1% system performance is less irritating than waiting forever for my system to become responsive.
*** It would be nice if AMD or Gigabyte addressed the true problem, but I won't hold my breath. I still haven't heard back from their customer support about this problem and it's been a few days. Not even a "we'll get back to you soon" message. Nada.
Taft12 - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
Great article Raja, I also appreciate the detail of the good and bad!I have a question for you or anyone else who might know - you mentioned ASUS dropping the MSRP of their H55 board at the start of the article... Where can I look up what the different vendors MSRP's are? Intel and AMD have made it quite easy to find out the 1K unit price of their CPUs on their own sites, but I haven't seen anything similar for motherboard vendors. Is there an authoritative, frequently-updated source?