H67 – A Triumvirate of Tantalizing Technology
by Ian Cutress on March 27, 2011 6:25 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Sandy Bridge
- H67
Board Features
| Market Segment | Performance H67 |
| CPU Interface | LGA 1155 |
| CPU Support | I3/i5/i7 Sandy Bridge |
| Chipset | H67 |
| Base Clock Frequency | 100 MHz |
| DDR3 Memory Speed | 1333 MHz, CL8 8-8-24 |
| Core Voltage | Default, +20 mV to +320 mV offset in 20 mV increments |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | Dependant on CPU |
| DRAM Voltage | Default, -800mV to 630mV offset |
| DRAM Command Rate | Auto, 1T, 2T |
| Memory Slots |
Four 240-pin DDR3 DIMM slots in dual-channel Regular unbuffered DD3 memory Up to 32GB total supported |
| Expansion Slots |
1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots 1 x PCI slot |
| Onboard SATA/RAID |
2 x SATA 6 Gb/s ports (grey) 3 x SATA 3 Gb/s ports (white) 1 x eSATA 3 Gb/s port |
| Onboard |
2 x SATA 6 Gb/s ports 3 x SATA 3 Gb/s ports 1 x TPM Header 1 x Onboard buzzer 1 x Power button 1 x Reset button Debug LED 1 x S/PDIF Out header 4 x USB 2 connectors support additional 8 USB ports Front panel audio connector 1 x Clear CMOS header |
| Onboard LAN | Dual Realtek RTL8111E Gigabit Fast Ethernet Controllers with Teaming |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek® ALC892 8-Channel HD Audio |
| Power Connectors |
24-pin EATX Power connector 8-pin EATX 12V Power connector |
| Fan Headers |
1 x CPU Fan connector (4-pin) 1 x System Fan connector (4-pin) 1 x Chassis Fan connector (3-pin) |
| I/O Panel |
2 x USB 3.0 ports 4 x USB 2.0 Ports 1 x D-Sub 1 x HDMI Port 1 x DVI Port 1 x Display port 2 x RJ45 LAN connectors 1 x Audio port (Line-in,4x Line-out, SPDIF out) 1 x Clear_CMOS button 1 x eSATA 3Gb/s port |
| BIOS | 03/02/2011 |
An interesting feature on the board is the dual gigabit Ethernet, which supports Teaming, whereby with two cables, the motherboard can utilize both ports for a combined input and output. Unfortunately, the only way that this is relevant to most end users is if the ECS is the bottleneck and you have a 10 Gbit network with a 10 Gbit send/receive source. In that context, the ECS board will hit a peak of 2 Gb/s. The other alternative is to connect the board to two separate networks.
In The Box
- I/O Shield
- 4 Locking SATA cables
- 1 eSATA bracket
The addition of 4 locking SATA cables is definitely welcome. They are not angled, but that entirely depends on the individual case and hard-drive setup. This isn’t as much as what is included with the ASRock board, but similar to the Gigabyte.
Software
The installation CD supplied with the motherboard is fairly easy to navigate – one click on the setup section applies all the drivers related to the motherboard. Though in Windows, I was getting a screen saying ‘Windows can’t verify the publisher of this driver software’, meaning I had to click ‘Install this driver software anyway’ around 10 times.
The main software packaged on the CD is eJiffy, a quick bootable Linux package, eBLU (easy BIOS Live Update), eDLU (easy Driver Live Update), and eSF, the smart fan utility. While these utilities do not go as far as other vendors offerings in terms of complexity, they are simple, quick, and easy to use.
eJiffy
eJiffy is a neat little tool that provides an alternative boot option at startup. Rather than loading the main windows OS, it provides a menu with an 8 second timer giving the option to load into Windows, to load into eJiffy, or easy access into the BIOS.
When selecting the eJiffy option, you are greeted by a very fast booting front end with two main options – an internet browser called eWeb, and simple messaging software called ePal. The internet browser, presumably based on Mozilla, had no problems with flash heavy websites, and seemed as fast as how I find Chrome 10 in Windows.
I quite like this software – easy to use and provides a quick interface to look things up on the web.
eBLU
The BIOS Live Update utility connects to an ECS server to search if a newer BIOS version is available, and then happily installs it in the OS. It also checks itself for newer versions of eBLU online, which is good.
eDLU
The Driver Live Update option does not directly compare the drivers currently installed on the system to their up-to-date counterparts on the ECS website, but take you straight to the download section for the motherboard on the ECS website. A direct driver to server version comparison tool would be a big boost to this board, but unfortunately, this is not it.
eSF
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The Smart Fan utility for the board seems fairly good, until you realize that it only controls one fan header on the board.
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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.