Intel DH57JG “Jet Geyser” - Intel's First Mini-ITX H57
by Rajinder Gill on March 1, 2010 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Test setup and power
| Testbed Setup | |
| Processor |
Intel Core i5 661 ES CPU - 3.33GHz - 2 Cores 4 Threads, 4MB L3 Cache
Intel Core i3 540 CPU - 3.06GHz - 2 Cores, 4 Threads, 4MB L3 Cache |
| 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 CMD8GX3M4A1600C8 1600MHz Rev 3.1
|
| Corsair Dominator CMD8GX3M4A1600C8 1600MHz Rev 7.1 | |
| Corsair XMS3 CMX8GX3M4A1333C9 1333MHz Rev 2.3 | |
| G.Skill Perfect Storm 8-8-8-24 2200MHz 4GB kit | |
| Corsair Dominator GT 8-8-8-24 2200MHz 4GB kit Rev 2.1 | |
| Video Cards |
MSI GeForce GTX 275 Lightning (Stock Clocks)
|
| Video Drivers |
NVIDIA 195.62 WHQL
|
| Hard Drive |
Western Digital 7200RPM 1TB SATA 3Gbps 32MB Buffer
OCZ Vertex 120GB SSD |
| Optical Drives |
Pioneer DVR-215DBK
|
| 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. We would have preferred to use CAS 6 timings to match our Lynnfield setup, but it seems 8GB of memory at CAS 6 on Clarkdale is not possible right now. The 4GHz gaming results used 8GB of memory at DDR3-1280MHz with CAS 6-6-6-18 1N timings to allow a BCLK of 200MHz.
The obvious compare would be to Zotac's H55-ITX, however, we've recently added new members to our reviews team and are still working towards getting everybody working with a common set of components for comparison purposes. Please bear with us while we sort things out.
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 using an AC wall meter for power consumption measurements. 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. Assuming a maximum 105w load in the worst case scenario, actual motherboard power consumption is around 20% lower than the shown figures if you factor out switching losses at the PSU.
We threw Intel’s DH57JG in against the highly efficient MSI H55M-ED55; the mini-ITX comes out on top during light/medium loads, faltering to MSI only when the CPU is fully loaded. Either way, the DH57JG's power draw figures are highly impressive. Please excuse our use of the Corsair TX950 for these tests; this PSU was used in order to provide a straight compare to other boards in our database.
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34 Comments
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BansheeX - Monday, March 1, 2010 - link
This board is pretty much the successor to the DG45FC, so it would have been better to run performance and power consumption comparisons with that.It would also be worthwhile to explain the market for these boards and what they're capable of. These boards are for people who want silence and a small form factor, but don't want to sacrifice performance. True, an Atom box costs less and consumes significantly less power, but you might be surprised to know that an E8400 on a DG45FC with a few drives can still run on 80W DC adapter + 120W picoPSU. I'm doing this myself and have never had a hiccup. I'd imagine that 80W would not be enough if you added a video card, but I don't do that.
SKE4826 - Tuesday, November 22, 2011 - link
This board is nice overall. I have two of them with SSD's for HTPC and BRPC. Both overclock overclock my i5's nicely. 3.2Ghz 650 pushed to 3.6Ghz and 3.33Ghz 661 pushed to 4.Ghz.The BIOS update on these board is a nightmare - I cannopt stress this enough - I may never buy an Intel MB again. Not once has it worked right, via either of the mothods. It doesn't get much worse than this for a BIOS update. I have built several hundred systems over the past 25 years and never have I seen a BIOS update process worse than this. I would love to watch anyone try and say otherwise.
Other than that, I love this ITX setup with my tiny Antec 150 cases.
Teknoman117 - Monday, February 29, 2016 - link
I realize this is a necropost 6 years after the fact, but I've got an i7-870 on hand that i was trying to put in a mini-itx system. Does this board in fact lock out the i7? You guys said that an 860 was working but comments below report no-post with an 860? I forgot intel used to do these stupid locking things in 2010 and ended up buying one of these off ebay. Does it work or am i screwed?eagle63 - Monday, February 29, 2016 - link
Talk about timing - I just stumbled across this review today (feb 29 1016) because I have this motherboard and was hoping to be able to drop an i7-870 in it. But like you, the comments have me concerned that it won't work. I've been doing some googling but can't find any confirmation on whether or not that CPU will work with this board.Maybe this is a crazy idea, but you could mail me your CPU and I could drop it in my board and try it out? (then return it obviously) :) Only half kidding here..