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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ReaM - Thursday, March 25, 2010 - link
Hey, you promised to test Quadcores 860 and 750 on the H55. I am wondering how those run and overclock on that chipset.You promised in Part1!
It all leads to: P55 for quads or H55?
ReaM - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
Never mind, I bought the p55m ud2 from Gigabyte, also thanks to you review for that board :)Thanks for posting this free tests
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
wysiwygbill - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
Contrary to the original announcements the H55-itx does NOT support dual link DVI and the maximum DVI resolution is actually 1920x1200.RodEvan - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Thanks Raja for the excellent review - I've held back on purchasing a motherboard awaiting 'Part 2'. I'm looking for a relatively low power consumption board for a windows home server setup.I was actually pretty amazed by the Gigabyte idle power results - as equal to the the MSIboard (44 watt).
For much of the time the CPU will be used minimaly - only rising for the occasional media decoding task - so for me the Gigabyte boatrd seemed ideal - partcularly since for some HD media sata3 speeds might come in useful.
But the section on power consumption concludes
"Best overall power consumption figures belong to MSI, while boards laden with USB 3.0 features and SATA 6G trail in both idle and load situations."
The Gigabyte board (H55-USB3), quite remarkably doesn't appear to trail at all on idle.... am I missing something here?.
jed22281 - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
what did you mean by:"particularly since for some HD media sata3 speeds might come in useful."
The board doesn't have SATA3 does it? Only USB3.
And what HD media would benefit from SATA3 speeds?
There isn't any HD media I'm aware of that'd come close to saturating sata2.
Or am I misunderstanding what your were trying to say?
Cheers
RodEvan - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
No misunderstanding - I probably need to say a little more.I currently one one Sagetv media extender off the server. But am about to install two more. The system should ideally allow for 3 HD videos to be streamed off the same HD at the same time.
I haven't done the calaculation - but having the option for SATA3 seemed like a good idea.
I've also re-read the review a note that this board has "Gigabyte SATA 2 chip: 1 x IDE, 2 x SATA 3Gb/s (RAID 0, 1 and JBOD)"
and NOT 2 *SATA3 g/bs ... my misreading,sorry for the confusion.
Rod
michal1980 - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
what are you streaming in hd? Blu-ray specs call for ~54Mbps Peak.3 times that is 162. Which is just barely over Sata1 spec, well under sata2. Sata3 @ 600Mps would allow for ~11 streams (not counting for overhead).
At that point I'd be more worried about drive/raid performace then saturating the bus.
Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Hi,Thanks for the feedback. The comment was made considering all three scenarios (Idle/full load/video playback), the MSI board came out on top in all three, hence the comment 'best overall power consumption'.
Hope that clears it up..
regards
Raja
NickCardwell - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
I would love to see an Anand review of the Intel DH57JG and Zotac H55ITX-A-E motherboards. I am looking to put one of them (probably the Intel) along with an i5-650 into a Lian Li PC-Q07 case. I love to build powerful systems for others but stick to small and simple for myself.Ogopogo - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
How do the Intel boards compare to these other boards? My main main criteria is stability.I don't know if a third installment of this upcoming but it would be interesting to see a test with a displayport H55