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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crochat - Wednesday, February 3, 2010 - link
In my opinion testing H5X boards should focus on IGP. Isn't that the aim of the chipset to use CPUs with IGP? Instead of the gaming benchmarks I'd be much more interested in multimedia and peripheral (firewire, esata, usb, networking) performance.Regards
thorgal73 - Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - link
Just to let you know, Massman found the solution to the IGP overclocking problem :http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&ar...">http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&ar...
Cheers!
Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - link
Thanks for the link.That actually makes a lot of sense and explains the extra IGP voltage you have to pump - even though BIOS shows a fixed IGP freqeuncy.
Probably a good idea just to make it into an Excel calc so people can use it easily.
http://www.mediafire.com/file/2go0yotyz5z/quick">http://www.mediafire.com/file/2go0yotyz5z/quick igp calc.xlsx
later
Raja
Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, February 2, 2010 - link
This one's a bit better, easy to work out the required BCLK for and equivalent IGP frequency at various IGP multiplier ratios.http://www.mediafire.com/file/nhfnnedgzwb/quick">http://www.mediafire.com/file/nhfnnedgzwb/quick igp calc.xlsx
yuhong - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link
"If you're going to use the IGP, you don't really need the extra PCI-E lanes, which essentially means that you're paying for the option to run RAID on the H57 PCH. "Well, USB 3.0 and SATA 6GBps takes 4 PCIe lanes.
Rajinder Gill - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link
You're looking at $200 boards that offer both SATA 6G and USB 3.0 in tandem unfortunately. USB 3.0 can be had under $130, with enough PCI/e left over for upgrading IMO.Nataku - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link
Just wondering (may be I'm just being dumb)Do you know if any or all of the h55 boards support dual screen?
I've been wanting to build a HTPC and dual screen it with my TV and a touch screen, but wasn't sure if the video out can actually work in dual screen mode.(ran into one that only ran in clone long ago =.=)
Also, this is off topic but, will you guys be making some reviews on touch screen monitors? HP and Dell are selling 20"+ touchscreens at around 300CAD but Firebox and Elo are selling 15" at 4~500CAD. Just curious how that part of the industry are coming along (20" too big imo to be beside a TV...)
Rajinder Gill - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link
Hi,Yes, dual display options are offered as part of Intel's drivers for the IGP. So you should be able to setup both options. I've tried with DVI and HDMI outputs simultaneously and it recognises both fine and allows you to set them up.
Jarred's the guy for monitors and such, so I'll pass the info over to him.
Hope this helps..
Raja
Nataku - Thursday, February 4, 2010 - link
Thanks :)Rick83 - Monday, February 1, 2010 - link
I am currently looking to upgrade my server and the savings from replacing the old nv 6200 with on-chip graphics are attractive.Now, normally this would be a done decision, but I am planning on running quite a few drives in that box, 14 to be precise. Currently I have one RAID 5, one RAID 1, one root disk and one optical drive, I will add another RAID 5 and another RAID 1 as part of the upgrade. All except 5 drives are attached via SATA. I already have an IDE-controller installed via PCI, but I'd like to avoid installing an extra SATA controller, as it seems much cheaper to just go for a board with 10x SATA on board.
But due to my use of full-disk encryption, I'd really like to be able to access AES-NI, so it will have to be a clarksdale i5. There are P55 boards with 10 SATA ports, and X58 boards too, but I'd really like to go with the on-chip graphics, both to save what little pci-e I have on these boards, as well as to save the space and energy.
Does anyone reasonably expect Asus or Gigabyte or MSI (as those are the usual suspects for 10x SATA) to release such a board based on H5x? If not, I'd best grab an old Gigabyte P55 UD5 soon...