Choosing the Best H55/H57 Motherboard - Part 1
by Rajinder Gill on January 31, 2010 11:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
This concludes part one of our coverage today. We've still got plenty of testing to do over the next few weeks, as there are a few areas we'd like to explore on some of these boards - namely Lynnfield overclocking, which we have not had enough time to perform on the H55/H57 chipsets just yet. The boards all POST when a Lynnfield processor CPU is inserted; we need to find out how well the cheaper boards handle a quad-core HT enabled CPU for overclocking, and if it's worth saving some money over entry to midrange P55 boards by using H55/H57 for the same task.
We're also looking at adding in some USB 3.0 testing in the near future; it's a matter of getting the right equipment in the lab to test these features in a meaningful way and to make sure that the boards work as they should.
Testing of the next four boards is already underway, and we're aiming to have something up in a couple of weeks. By then, we should be able to draw a firm conclusion of which board delivers the best functionality, performance, and overall feature set. The four boards we'll be looking at in the labs over the next two weeks are the Gigabyte H57M-USB3 and H55M-USB3, the BIOSTAR TH55HD, and finally the ECS H55H-M. Stay tuned….
Assuming you can get past Intel's kicker of locked single card GPU support on these boards and you really must buy now, then based upon our experience with the four boards we've looked at today you've got two reasonable choices. If your budget will stretch far enough, go for the ASUS P7H55D-M EVO. It's the smooth-operator of the bunch and should give you a trouble free time if you plan on any overclocking.
If you're after cheap and cheerful, the ASRock H55M-Pro will get the job done. The remaining quirks are a matter of overclocking preferences and overclocking functionality more than anything else. The current release BIOS has not given us any issues in normal usage scenarios at all so far and seems to make for a very stable PC build.
In closing, one thing we have noticed in our Clarkdale testing is that the CPUs overclock memory better when placed in some of the mid-high end P55 motherboards. It's not a huge gap but it becomes readily apparent at higher memory frequencies (over DDR3-1800MHz). We're not sure if this is due to vendors not having a full grip on the H55/H57 chipsets yet, or if it's down to design compromises on the H55/H57 motherboards we've tested - it's probably safe to say it's a bit of both. It'll be interesting to see how things develop in this regard over the coming weeks. This is another reason why it might be wise to wait a while and see how things pan out, depending on what you're looking for from the Clarkdale platform.
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just4U - Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - link
Ever since I read about there being problems on the 1156 boards with certain sockets... I've been leary about buying any 1156 boards. I'd heard reports that it was happening even to those not overclocking and for me that's cause for concern. I look at all the offerings and wonder..Is it fixed? Which boards would be effected? I'd like more info on that before I even consider purchasing the i5/i3 etc. Perhaps Anand can include information on all this in part2 or 3?
Thanks.
Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - link
Hi,There have been no official updates from socket vendors/intel/board vendors as to the exact cause of socket burnouts we experienced on some fo the early 1156 boards. To date, it appears the majority of issues reported have been on boards that were manufactured pre September 2009.
FWIW, all of the sample boards I've had for H55/H57 have arrived with Lotes sockets so far, although I'm not sure if that means vendors are not using Foxconn altogether. We have not seen any issues in testing thus far.
regards
Raja
just4U - Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - link
Yeah that's another thing that keeps me put off. Is I don't know which boards are using the Foxconn. Anyway thanks for the reply back.thaze - Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - link
I just received a Gigabyte GA-H57M-USB3 and an Intel Core i3-530.An interesting feature seemed to be the Dolby Home Theater (i.e. Dolby Digital live encoding). However its software is hard to find, there's no reference in the Gigabyte CD's main menu. I eventually found it at \utility\dolby\. Install went fine but the program is crashing when executed. Maybe someone could confirm the same problem running Win 7 x64.
thaze - Friday, February 5, 2010 - link
"I've forwarded your problem to our HQ, and your problem is duplicated.A solution will be provided by HQ very soon.
Please just wait for my further information later."
Rajinder Gill - Friday, February 5, 2010 - link
Hi Thaze,Gigabyte messed up on this one, their engineers forgot to add the BIOS string to unlock the Dolby features on the H55/H57M-USB3 models. BIOS F3a beta (Jan 8 dated I think) was pulled a couple of days ago from their support page and is due to be replaced with an F4 BIOS fixing the problem.
regards
Raja
thaze - Saturday, February 6, 2010 - link
Thanks again for the details. F4 is out now and I can finally use Dolby Home Theater. :)Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - link
Hi,Just testing the GB boards now, so will get back to you with an answer on this asap. I'm on Win 7 64 bit.
regards
Raja
Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - link
Hi,It appears you are correct. I just installed the Dolby X64 package and when I try to run the software, it crashes.
regards
Raja
thaze - Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - link
Thank you for your reply.I also sent a message to GB support yesterday, will inform about their statement here.