Choosing the Best H55/H57 Motherboard, Part 2
by Rajinder Gill on February 22, 2010 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gigabyte H57M-USB3
The H57M-USB3 hits the nail on the head for pricing at $120; let's take a look at the feature set.
| Gigabyte H57M-USB3 | |
| Market Segment | H55 General Use/HTPC |
| CPU Interface | LGA-1156 |
| CPU Support | LGA-1156 i3/i5/i7 Series of Processors |
| Chipset | Intel H55 Express Chipset |
| BCLK Speeds | 100-600MHz in 1MHz increments |
| DDR3 Memory Speed | 800, 1067, 1333 Frequency Ratios |
| QPI Frequency | All supported multipier ratios available |
| Core Voltage | 0.5V ~ 1.90V in 0.00625V increments |
| CPU Vdroop Compensation | AUTO, Disabled and Enabled |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | Dependant on Processor, all available multipliers supported |
| DRAM Voltage DDR3 | Auto, 1.30V ~ 2.60V in 0.02V increments (1.50V base) |
| DRAM Timing Control | tCL, tRCD, tRP, tRAS, + 10 Additional Timings |
| DRAM Command Rate | Auto, 1T, 2T and 3T |
| PCH Voltage | Auto, 0.95V ~ 1.50V in .1V ~ 0.02V increments, 1.05V Base |
| CPU VTT (Uncore) Voltage | 1.05V ~ 1.49V in 0.05V ~ 0.02V increments |
| CPU PLL Voltage | 1.6V ~ 2.54V in 0.1V ~ 0.02V increments, 1.80V Base |
| IGD VID | 0.2V~1.68V in 0.05V ~ 0.012V increments |
| Memory Slots | Four 240-pin DDR3 DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered DDR3 Memory to 16GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 Slot 1 x PCIe x16 Slot (running at x4) 2 x PCI slots |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | 5 x SATA 3.0GB/s (Support RAID 0,1,5,10, NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug) 1 x eSATA on Rear I/O Gigabyte SATA 2 chip: 1 x IDE, 2 x SATA 3Gb/s (RAID 0, 1 and JBOD) |
| Onboard USB 2.0/3.0 | 14 USB 2.0 ports (6) I/O Panel (one SATA combo), 8 via brackets 2 x USB 3.0 Ports (NEC D720200F1) |
| Onboard LAN | 1 x Realtek 8111D Gigabit LAN (PCI-E x1) |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek ALC889 - 7.1 Channel HD Audio (Dolby Home Theatre support). |
| Other Onboard Connectors | 1 x COM, 1 x S/PDIF In, 1 x S/PDIF Out, 1 x FP Audio, 1 x FP connector, 1 x 1394, 1 x FDD |
| Power Connectors | ATX 24-pin, 8-pin EPS 12V |
| I/O Panel | 1 x PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse 1 x RJ45 6 x USB 2.0/1.1 2 x USB 3.0 Ports (NEC D720200F1) 1 x 1394 1 x eSATA (Intel PCH) 1 x Optical Toslink 1 x DVI-D 1 x HDMI 1 x VGA/D-sub 6 Audio I/O jacks |
| Fan Headers | 1 CPU + 1 Additional Header (Both 4 Pin) |
| Fan Control | Full temp/speed fan control for CPU header via OS software No independant control for system fan header (auto controlled according to system temp) |
| Package Contents | 2 x SATA cables, 3 x User Guides, 1 x Driver/software DVD, 1 x I/O Shield |
| Board/BIOS Revisions Used | Board Rev: 1.0 BIOS Files Used: F2, F3a |
| Form Factor | uATX (9.6 in. x 9.6 in.) |
| Warranty | 3 year standard |
Before we continue, it's worth a mention that the current F4 release BIOS has an issue with our PIONEER DVD drive. The board will not boot from a CD/DVD if we select AHCI mode for the SATA ports in the BIOS. This issue was also found on the H55M-USB3 motherboard but was fixed in the F4/F5 release BIOS files at our behest. It's probably a 5 minute fix for the H57 board on Gigabyte's part, but it should have been patched without request when the red flag was raised on the H55 model. In its current state, this makes installing an OS with AHCI mode active a pain. We managed to work around the problem by selecting IDE mode for our Windows 7 install and then modifying the registry after installation to enable AHCI drivers—something most users won't want to do. Gigabyte need to fix this fast.
Package contents, bundled software and board layout are identical to Gigabyte's H55M-USB3; the only real change here is the H57 chipset adding RAID support and bolstering the lowest PEG slot to x4 link width. We'll cover the differences on this page but refer you back to the H55M-USB3 section for software, board layout and BIOS overview.
Overclocking
4GB overclocking results are identical to Gigabyte's H55M-USB3 model:
8GB configurations don't fare as well however and seem to fall around 148BCLK for stability when using the 2:10 memory ratio with a QPI link frequency in the region of 3.3GHz. We're not sure on the root cause of this, but suffice it to say that the BIOS needs some work for 8GB memory configurations using the 2:10 divider. Gigabyte's H55M-USB board takes the same modules to 155BClk (DDR3-1550MHz), while ASUS' H55/H57 EVO models manage DDR3-1600 speeds using a higher QPI ratio.
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ReaM - Thursday, March 25, 2010 - link
Hey, you promised to test Quadcores 860 and 750 on the H55. I am wondering how those run and overclock on that chipset.You promised in Part1!
It all leads to: P55 for quads or H55?
ReaM - Friday, March 26, 2010 - link
Never mind, I bought the p55m ud2 from Gigabyte, also thanks to you review for that board :)Thanks for posting this free tests
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
wysiwygbill - Monday, March 22, 2010 - link
Contrary to the original announcements the H55-itx does NOT support dual link DVI and the maximum DVI resolution is actually 1920x1200.RodEvan - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Thanks Raja for the excellent review - I've held back on purchasing a motherboard awaiting 'Part 2'. I'm looking for a relatively low power consumption board for a windows home server setup.I was actually pretty amazed by the Gigabyte idle power results - as equal to the the MSIboard (44 watt).
For much of the time the CPU will be used minimaly - only rising for the occasional media decoding task - so for me the Gigabyte boatrd seemed ideal - partcularly since for some HD media sata3 speeds might come in useful.
But the section on power consumption concludes
"Best overall power consumption figures belong to MSI, while boards laden with USB 3.0 features and SATA 6G trail in both idle and load situations."
The Gigabyte board (H55-USB3), quite remarkably doesn't appear to trail at all on idle.... am I missing something here?.
jed22281 - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
what did you mean by:"particularly since for some HD media sata3 speeds might come in useful."
The board doesn't have SATA3 does it? Only USB3.
And what HD media would benefit from SATA3 speeds?
There isn't any HD media I'm aware of that'd come close to saturating sata2.
Or am I misunderstanding what your were trying to say?
Cheers
RodEvan - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
No misunderstanding - I probably need to say a little more.I currently one one Sagetv media extender off the server. But am about to install two more. The system should ideally allow for 3 HD videos to be streamed off the same HD at the same time.
I haven't done the calaculation - but having the option for SATA3 seemed like a good idea.
I've also re-read the review a note that this board has "Gigabyte SATA 2 chip: 1 x IDE, 2 x SATA 3Gb/s (RAID 0, 1 and JBOD)"
and NOT 2 *SATA3 g/bs ... my misreading,sorry for the confusion.
Rod
michal1980 - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 - link
what are you streaming in hd? Blu-ray specs call for ~54Mbps Peak.3 times that is 162. Which is just barely over Sata1 spec, well under sata2. Sata3 @ 600Mps would allow for ~11 streams (not counting for overhead).
At that point I'd be more worried about drive/raid performace then saturating the bus.
Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
Hi,Thanks for the feedback. The comment was made considering all three scenarios (Idle/full load/video playback), the MSI board came out on top in all three, hence the comment 'best overall power consumption'.
Hope that clears it up..
regards
Raja
NickCardwell - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
I would love to see an Anand review of the Intel DH57JG and Zotac H55ITX-A-E motherboards. I am looking to put one of them (probably the Intel) along with an i5-650 into a Lian Li PC-Q07 case. I love to build powerful systems for others but stick to small and simple for myself.Ogopogo - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
How do the Intel boards compare to these other boards? My main main criteria is stability.I don't know if a third installment of this upcoming but it would be interesting to see a test with a displayport H55