Gigabyte H55N-USB3 : Mini-ITX done the Gigabyte way...
by Rajinder Gill on June 15, 2010 7:49 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Gigabyte
- Mini ITX
|
Testbed Setup Overclocking / Benchmark Testbed |
|
| Processor |
1 x Intel i7-875K ES CPU 2.93GHz, 8 Threads, 8MB L3 Intel i5 661 ES CPU 3.33GHz, 2 Cores 4 Threads 4MB L3 |
| CPU Voltage | Various |
| Cooling | Intel air cooler, Heatkiller 3.0 waterblock, PA120.2 radiator and DDC ultra pump (with Petra top), 1/2 ID tubing for watercooling. |
| Power Supply | Corsair HX950 |
| Memory |
Corsair Dominator GT 8-8-8-24 2200MHz 4GB kit G.Skill Perfect Storm 8-8-8-24 2200MHz 4GB kit. |
| Memory Settings | Various |
| Video Cards | MSI 275 Lightning (stock clocks) |
| Video Drivers | nVidia 195.62 WHQL |
| Hard Drive |
Western Digital 7200RPM 1TB SATA 3/Gbps 32MB Buffer OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD |
| Optical Drives | Plextor PX-B900A, Toshiba SD-H802A |
| Case |
Open Test Bed - Dimastech Benching Station Lian-Li V2110 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64 bit |
| . | |
We utilized memory kits from Corsair and G.Skill to verify memory compatibility on our test boards. Our OS and primary applications are loaded on the OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD drive and our games operate off the WD Caviar Black 1TB drive. We did a clean install of the OS and applications for each motherboard. We used Intel's stock cooler for the stock comparison testing, while water-cooling via the superlative Heat Killer 3.0 water block was utilized for overclocking. For graphics duty, MSI’s GTX 275 Lighting GPU was used to provide performance comparisons between boards during gaming benchmarks.
For our test results we set up each board as closely as possible in regards to memory timings. Otherwise all other settings are left on auto. The P55 utilized 8GB of memory where possible, while the X58 platform contained 6GB. The P55 and X58 DDR3 timings were set to 7-7-7-20 1T at DDR3-1600 for the i7-920 and i7-870 processors at both stock and overclocked CPU settings.
We used DDR3-1333 6-6-6-18 1T timings for the i5-750 stock setup for all system benchmarks (non-gaming tests) as DDR3-1600 is not natively supported at a stock BCLK setting of 133. For our Clarkdale i5 661 and i3 540 CPU’s, we used 7-7-7-20 1N timings at DDR3-1333MHz with 8GB of memory (4GB on the Mini-ITX boards).
Power Consumption
Our power consumption testing utilizes the same batch of components under similar circumstances in a bid to monitor variances between idle and CPU load conditions. We install the vendor supplied power saving utilities on each board and enable power saving modes that don't involve any kind of underclocking or CPU core frequency modulation in order to run an apples to apples comparison.
ATX PSU switching losses are absent from our figures because we monitor power consumption directly at the DC rails of the PSU. These figures measure only the CPU, motherboard and memory DC power draw and exclude any other peripherals, such as cooling fans and hard drives etc. Actual AC power consumption for the motherboard will be anywhere from 15~40% higher than these figures depending upon the efficiency of your power supply.
The H55N-USB3's idle power consumption is excellent, although you lose out on efficiency under load compared to boards from Intel and ECS. We suspect this is due to Gigabyte's choice of a more robust VRM to aid in overclocking. The Intel DH57JG does not support Lynnfield processors, while ECS's model is confined to a 87W TDP cap.
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Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link
Hi,Have you tried doing things without XMP? The trouble with XMP profiles is that they assume a certain voltage will work with all processors, unfortunately, this is not the case. I would set the timings and voltage up manually if you can, which should help.
Failing that, pop me a mail at (remove the brackets) rajinder.gill(@)anandtech.com with your BIOS settings and I'll help out where I can.
Regards
Raja
staryoshi - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link
Yeah, I've tried it without as well. Turns out it won't let me alter voltage or timings for the memory. I've sent an email to Gigabyte to see if that'll get me anywhere... I'll keep playing with it today and I'll send you an e-mail if I have any questions. I'll e-mail you a picture of the back of the board to show you what I did, too. It's not pretty, but no one can see it :)Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link
No worries, I've got a good idea of what you did to mount it. It's fine if you only ever intend to use it with socket 1156. Pop me a mail on the memory stuff if need be.Regards
Raja
fr500 - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link
Just as a heads up, the Corsair H50 works fine with a pair of washers on each hole.The Thermalright AXP-140 works too but I dunno if it will be enough for a 1156 lynnfield. It would be great if there could be an 1156 ITX roundup here testing:
- ECS H55I
- H55N-USB3
- Zotac H55-A-E
- DH57JG
- DFI MI P55-T36
More than performance which should be pretty close on any of these boards, a test of compatibility with some heatsinks (using discrete GPUs and not) and overclocking limits :p
pectin232 - Monday, September 20, 2010 - link
Can you help with BIOS settings for this board. I truly appreciate. I have the same board with the i7 860 instead of the 865. I got 8GB DDR3 1333 memory from G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL. Any help is truly appreciate. For memory I probably might just put all as auto instead of messing with those TRas settings.Phillip
pectin232 - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - link
and ATI 5770. Memory is 1666ghz ddr3. Anyone knows of what can be done to bump higher... I have water cooled/ I only spend 10 mins to raise the SPD only nothing else... and got 3.2ghz or 3.18 or so... to be more accurate.It is good enough but I though if I can raise higher why not...rrplay - Saturday, January 1, 2011 - link
Thanks for the nice review i should be getting this soon for an upcoming build.Don't ya can go wrong with this one for a mini-atx build.