Zotac H55-ITX Review - The World's First mini-ITX H55 Motherboard
by Joshua Youngberg on February 28, 2010 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Contrary to DFI’s P55 MI-T36, the H55-ITX focuses less on overclockability and more on packing as many features as possible onto its miniaturized surface. This isn’t to say that ZOTACs board can’t be overclocked at all though. In fact, I was able to maintain a 150 BCLK while reducing Vcore and without the ability to manually set the CPU VTT voltage using our retail i3 530 CPU.
Where you’ll want to play it safe though is on the Lynnfield series of processors; looking at Zotac’s power regulation for processor VCore, there’s not enough overhead to handle Lynnfield CPU’s much past stock operating frequency. This is an area where DFI got things wrong with the MI-T36, initial BIOS releases offered free range of BCLK and voltage and users ended up burning out MOSFETs. DFI back-peddled and released a BIOS in late December that removed CPU VCore as an option, limiting overclocking to stock processor VID only. Zotac keeps things simple by removing the option to change VTT (termination and supply voltage for the intergrated memory controller and signal stages of the CPU), which limits the potential to increase bus frequencies – time will tell if this method is sufficient to prevent failures. The truth is that M-ITX motherboards aren’t designed to offer buckets of overclocking headroom; if that’s what you’re after, we think you’re better off looking towards some of the more robust micro-ATX boards like the P7H55D-M EVO from ASUS.
Also, care needs to be taken when choosing a processor heatsink for the H55-ITX. Zotac has placed the CPU socket next to the PCIe slot so any heatsink larger than Intel’s may cause interference when installing a video card. This peculiarity prevented us from installing a Coolermaster GeminII S when running with dedicated graphics. However, if you choose to use an i3 and its integrated graphics then this point is moot.
Features such as six onboard SATA ports, wireless-N networking and the ability to support i3, i5 and i7 processors are what ZOTAC really set their focus on. This feature set separates the H55-ITX from every other mini-ITX board on the market. Performance from the bundled wireless adapter was great as well. We measured file transfer speeds to be several times faster than the 802.11g cards bundled in Zotac’s earlier motherboards.
Out of the box, the H55-ITX was quick to POST and the BIOS was easy to navigate. The on-board sound, Ethernet and USB ports worked correctly. Overall, system stability was rock solid even while overclocking. The only time the board failed to POST was when the RAM was configured to work at 1600MHz, a frequency not supported by the i3 530. The H55-ITX wasn’t bundled with any additional software outside of the drivers CD. Price wise the H55-ITX is competitive with other fully featured mini-ITX motherboards, going for around $150 shipped. Mini-ITX motherboards come with a price premium and are generally more expensive than their similarly equipped micro-ATX counterparts.
Due to an innovative design, a potential for miniscule power consumption and the fact that the H55-ITX is currently the only mini-ITX motherboard on the market that supports the Core i3’s integrated graphics, the ZOTAC H55-ITX WiFi has no competition for the time being. If you've been waiting for a feature-filled mini-ITX Clarkdale motherboard, Zotac appears to have delivered.
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YellowWing - Monday, March 1, 2010 - link
It happened to me too this morning, going from page to page. Looked to me like nasty malware.ggathagan - Sunday, February 28, 2010 - link
Since you are now putting the performance summary at the beginning of the article, you need to make sure you also make note of relevant system details at that point.For instance, the performance graph doesn't make note of what add-in graphics card was used. You have to get 5 pages into the review before that information is supplied.
Other than that, good article.
ScavengerLX - Sunday, February 28, 2010 - link
Thanks for the discussion on power consumption guys. Ideally, this system would work best with a low wattage (~200W) power supply that had better efficiency under 75W.Joshua
yyrkoon - Monday, March 1, 2010 - link
Jashua, Sparkle makes just such a PSU. Well actually, its 220W but an 80Plus PSU.---> http://www.silentpcreview.com/article773-page1.htm...">http://www.silentpcreview.com/article773-page1.htm...
However, 220W, or even 200W is still over kill. Unless you go with discrete graphics. In which case an nVidia 9600GT, or larger in this system would draw too much power for it to handle.
My Core 2 system with 4GB 1.8v memory, and a 9600GT peaks around 226W in some games. Generally, those games that make most use of the GPU and CPU. Such as world in conflict. These number do include a 19" WS LCD monitor too, but it only uses 23W consistently.
Anyways, as another has already mentioned, any PSU is best loaded at 50% capacity for the best efficiency. Especially 80Plus PSUs. SO with IGP, and the i3, that would be ~150W. Good luck finding such a beast. And before any car enthusiast start mentioning these pico supplies . . . they are junk, and often not powerful enough to begin with( for this application ).
strikeback03 - Tuesday, March 2, 2010 - link
The pico PSUs would probably be fine if you weren't using a discrete GPU.ScavengerLX - Monday, March 1, 2010 - link
Thanks for the link.Actually the PSU that comes with a Silverstone SG06 is nice, too. 300W, 80+ and SFX form factor. That case would be nice for the ZOTAC H55 + Discrete system.
Joshua
juampavalverde - Sunday, February 28, 2010 - link
After seeing the pictures of the board, almost instantly i tought.. with that small space such powerful htpc... it wont be hard to fit an i3+h55 inside an ultraportable or netbook like, and the thing would be freakin fast in comparison with the atoms!mschira - Sunday, February 28, 2010 - link
Hm, interesting board.I wonder if it would make sense to slot a fast RAID card into the PCI slot and a small Core i3 integrated VGA CPU and build a decent Linux mostly file centric server.
Comments?
Cheers
M.
nikclev - Monday, March 1, 2010 - link
I suppose it would depend on the particulars, but for a linux file centric server I'd skip the raid card unless you need more than 6 sata drives or need to leave the cpu free for other tasks. Just use software raid.In a way, this -IS- hardware raid, just not in the traditional sense. In effect, a decent hardware raid card is nothing more than a processor, some cache ram, a pci/pcie to sata interface, and perhaps a battery. All of these things can be duplicated without the card.
The i3 becomes your raid processor, it happens to be much more powerful than you need for this application. (so you have room to do other tasks as well.)
The system ram becomes your cache ram, (again, more than you need, so there is room for other tasks)
and so on. Cap it off with an appropriate sized ups, and you have a nice home raid server (with no raid card!) with all the features that you would get in a midrange hardware raid card, and the ability to do a great deal more.
All in all, a fun project. One thing to note: if you just want a decent speed home NAS, it's cheaper to either use microATX or purchase a Qnap/synology/etc pre-made. Not nearly as much fun though. :)
Nick
michal1980 - Sunday, February 28, 2010 - link
your power supply is over kill, waste too much energy no matter the efficency.