H67 – A Triumvirate of Tantalizing Technology
by Ian Cutress on March 27, 2011 6:25 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Sandy Bridge
- H67
Test Setup
| Processor |
Intel i5-2500K ES – 3.3 GHz (3.7 GHz Turbo) 4 Cores, 4 Threads, 6MB L3 |
| Motherboards |
ASRock H67M-GE/HT Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H ECS H67H2-M |
| Cooling | Corsair H50-1 Water Cooler |
| Power Supply | Enermax Modu87+ 600W 80PLUS |
| Memory |
Patriot Viper Extreme DDR3-2000 9-10-9-27 2x4GB Kit, 1.65V Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600 9-9-9-24 2x4GB Kit, 1.50V G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3-2133 9-11-9-28 4x4GB Kit, 1.65V |
| Memory Settings | DDR3-1333 9-9-9-24 1T 2x4GB |
| Video Cards | XFX HD 5850 1GB |
| Video Drivers | Catalyst 10.12 |
| Hard Drive | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| Optical Drives | LG GH22NS50 |
| Case | Open Test Bed – CoolerMaster Lab V1.0 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 64-bit |
| SATA Testing | Micron RealSSD C300 256GB |
| USB 2/3 Testing | Patriot 64GB SuperSonic USB 3.0 |
Many thanks to G.Skill for providing a set of their new RipjawsX for our test beds. This kit is their F3-17000CL9Q-16GBXLD, or in normal terms, a 16 GB (4x4 GB) kit, running at DDR3-2133 MHz with 9-11-9-28 timings at 1.65V. These are currently retailing at $370, and come with a Turbulence II RAM Cooler and a lifetime limited warranty.
Also many thanks to Crucial / Micron Technology for the 256GB C300 RealSSD for our motherboard test bed for SATA 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s testing. At AnandTech we’ve mentioned the C300 on many many numerous occasions, and our performance results can be seen in Bench. This particular model can be found online for $470.
Power Consumption
The H67 boards not running a discrete GPU draw more power under intense CPU load rather than GPU load, which is contrasting to any discrete GPU setup. The Gigabyte H67 board is easily uses the least power in this test.
CPU Temperatures
The H67 motherboards also run cooler than the P67. The ECS H67 runs a couple of degrees warmer than the other two - don't forget, the ECS has very large VRM coolers in comparison.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
56 Comments
View All Comments
bupkus - Monday, March 28, 2011 - link
Agreed. The i3-2100 is a true budget cpu, imho. It should be matched with a true budget mobo-- namely the H61. I hope to see some more info on boards made with that chipset.Taft12 - Monday, March 28, 2011 - link
It's not accurate to call the i3-2100 a "true budget CPU" while we've got stuff like the Athlon II X2 and Pentium E5xxx on the market.cjs150 - Monday, March 28, 2011 - link
I am pleased you said this, because this is something I do not understand either, H67 looks to be a waste of timeASrock seems the best of this silly catagory. I have one of their boards in a file server, nice board, just works without fuss. Perfect for a server. May look at them for next build, instead of my usual ASUS fetish.
One thing though that really bugs me. Why on all the Micro-ATX boards out there do they insist on having the top PCI-E so close to the bottom end of the memory sockets. Have the MB manufacturers not noticed that high end memory is shipping with cooling fans? Several times I have found it impossible to fit a graphics card and the memory fan, virtually every time at the very least I have to ensure that there are no possible shorts by putting electricians tape around the bottom of the memory fan clup on. MB manufacturers it is not difficult, move the PCI-E slot down by 5mm or the memory sokets up by 5mm
bigboxes - Monday, March 28, 2011 - link
Not a bash, but fans on DDR3 ram is mostly frivolous waste. Heck, most ram today doesn't even need fancy heatspreaders because they run so cool. This is about the H67 chipset so I don't think many would waste time/money on buying high end memory that offers little in the terms of performance. Don't worry, Z68 is coming soon and you'll be able to buy your full ATX board that you can load up with the latest and greatest in parts to get that XTREME o/c. This chipset is not marketed for you.ArtShapiro - Monday, March 28, 2011 - link
I'd like to think that I (a decided non-gamer) am the target audience.I currently have a physically large (huge?) desktop system in a Chenboro 105 case. No way this monster can fit in the alcove in my computer desk, so it sits on the floor with the usual scads of cables coming from the desk. What a royal pain to move, clean, etc.
I suspect this summer I'll have an H67 system in a tiny (maybe Antec 300-150) case, little bigger than my tiny Asus TS mini Windows Home Server machine. With no graphic card, this thing should be efficient and dwarf the performance of the existing monster.
The H67 setup fits my needs to an alarming degree!
Art
Concillian - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link
What about this system cannot be handled by a significantly cheaper H61 motherboard? I missed that part of why H67 was perfect.
Taft12 - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 - link
He's not a gamer, but maybe he wants the SATA 6Gbit ports? 4 memory slots? USB 3.0?H61 boards are lacking, well, a lot if you're want anything beyond ultra-entry-level.
ArtShapiro - Wednesday, March 30, 2011 - link
Pure power. The cost is irrelevant (within reason); the increased processor of, say, the 2500/2500K will be a nice thing in processor-heavy applications and will probably ensure a longer relevant lifetime for the machine.I figure it's worth it to shell out a little more upfront for the H67.
Art
bobbyto34 - Monday, March 28, 2011 - link
Thanks a lot for testing DPC Latency. This can be a major issue for DAW's users.Spoelie - Monday, March 28, 2011 - link
I would concede that an integrated GPU is a very valuable tool for any computer user. It can be used to eliminate variables when troubleshooting a system, and to prevent downtime when the discrete GPU passes away. For this reason and this reason alone I personally don't buy a system without an integrated GPU anymore, even though I always have discrete GPUs. At least in 2 cases this has helped me tremendously.My personal preference is a cheap but good overclocking mATX board with (support for) iGPU & at least 1 eSATA port. Couldn't care less about SLI/XFire & RAID5, so the 785+SB710 board I now use was perfect, but without USB3 and SATA6 it's starting to show its age. One of the reasons I haven't switched to SNB is that Intel can't provide me that platform yet.
Here's to hoping for cheap mATX Z68 and cheap(er) K series CPUs.