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.
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MrSpadge - Wednesday, March 30, 2011 - link
Well done, Gigabyte! And it's a shame how poorly the others are doing in comparison. I fI wanted high power consumption I could just stick with an old machine or get an AMD..Not wanting to start a bashing / flame war. It's just that in my eyes the exceptional power consumption (especially idle) of the Sandy Bridge + IGP (plus excellent performance) is what makes it really attractive for really many roles.
MrS
trogthefirst - Thursday, March 31, 2011 - link
Actually i was torn between H67/61 and one of those 785G/880G platforms for my aunt recently - non gaming build In the end she needed multi display scalable to possibly 3-4 displays so i went with a cheapo 880G and an $70ish AthlonII X3 With the Surround View feature you could run, with a Radeon GPU up to 4 displays (2 from integrated graphics) and 2 off something like a passively cooled HD 4350/5450 Sounds like a lot of expansion, features, etc for such a cheap platform if u ask me!loimlo - Thursday, March 31, 2011 - link
Dear IanWould you like to share us with Power cumsumption measurement detail?
1. Is it DC or AC draws?
2. How do you measure the watts? From the wall plug by using Kill-a-watt?
3. Did you give not so useful MB's energy-efficiency software like ASRock IES, Gigabyte Energy Saver?
That said, I never had good experience with these softwares, especially Gigabyte one.
ShadowVlican - Thursday, April 7, 2011 - link
did you guys measure total system power consumption, or is that just motherboard? looking to build a HTPC, would love something modern and doesn't eat powertpk911 - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 - link
Intel to release Z68 chipsets in first half of MayMonica Chen, Taipei; Steve Shen, DIGITIMES [Wednesday 20 April 2011]
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20110419PD212.html
Intel will release its Z68 chipsets in the first half of May, with Gigabyte Technology likely to be the first major motherboard maker to launch Z68-based products as soon as its embargo expires. Gigabyte's offerings will include its top-end GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 model.
Motherboard makers have also reportedly been informed that Intel will focus more on its Z- and H-series chipsets.
The share of P67-series motherboards will begin dropping once the Z68 is launched and the segment will gradually be phased out, with the P-series not being included in Intel's next generation chipsets.
...just a quick update, if I may :)
gsuburban - Sunday, February 12, 2012 - link
I wanted to upgrade from an Asus P5 series board and found most of the P8 boards had no floppy or ide (pata) interface on them. Since I still have 2 great BenQ 1655 DVD recorders, they wouldn't be usable without buying a PCI PATA card. After looking matters over I didn't see much benefit in using up 2 of 6 SATA ports since I have at least 4 hard drives and would be limited on SATA ports etc.I thought it over and discovered the P8H67-V and P8H67-M Pro by Asus still had the ide interface on board. No floppy but at least the IDE was there which would yield 6 SATA ports available without using them for the DVD-Optical.
I use XP Pro still since it does have it's advantages in some areas and not having the floppy drive is the pits as you can't load AHCI drivers via the F6 prompt in setup. I tried all sorts of ideas such as a custom image that included the AHCI drivers etc without success.
The P67 boards are totally fine and they run fast with the right CPU and memory but they are best used with Windows 7. The H67 boards save you about $250 since you don't need a video card, the boards are less than the P67's and with the select models, you get an IDE port which also frees up 2 SATA ports for those who still have IDE devices.
H67 would be my choice for high performance every day computing since the graphics are much improved from the days of G series and price is low, around $105.
I think it's too soon to eliminate the floppy and IDE interface at any rate.