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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james.jwb - Sunday, March 27, 2011 - link
"However, I remember the time when I was a scrimping student. I wanted high gaming performance at the lowest cost – if Sandy Bridge was out then, and I was specifically after the Sandy Bridge platform over anything AMD, then a H67 with an i3-2100 and the biggest graphics card I could afford would be a viable option."When I was in this position, i'd go for the cheapest CPU and overclock it so it was faster than anything on the market. I'd be surprised if this wasn't the norm for people on a tight budget.
IanCutress - Sunday, March 27, 2011 - link
My argument mainly for my comment is that the CPU is becoming less of a factor for gaming, thus shifting the focus away from a CPU OC to a large GPU. It used to be the case that the CPU made a large difference as well, but it my mind it's not that much of an issue with a strong default CPU speed and cores available. Nevertheless, the AMD + cheap tri/quad core is on the other side of the coin.Ian
slickr - Monday, March 28, 2011 - link
Intel mobos are crap. Only for overclocking and only for graphics, where is the middle?And they are too expensive, hopefully AMD wipes the floor with them with their new Buldozer platform.
Jeffs0418 - Sunday, May 22, 2016 - link
Here we are 5 years later and...Y'know I was ready to move on from my Athlon 64 x2 5000+/AM2 platform(which I liked but was marginal for modern gaming). I was stoked for a nice capable FX4100/Bulldozer platform. But after reading disappointing reviews I ended up with a Core i3 2120/Sandy Bridge and a H61 mobo. Currently running a Core i5 2500(non-k) massaged a bit to 3.9GHz on all cores with aftermarket cooling on P67 mobo. Never have used Intel integrated graphics so I couldn't care less about that. But I am glad I didn't go with Bulldozer and am comfortable enough with my current setup even now that I'm in no hurry to upgrade.omelet - Sunday, March 27, 2011 - link
Wouldn't someone wanting SB gaming on a budget be more likely to want an H61? You can get such a board from ASRock for like 60 bucks. That's $60 more you'd be able to spend on the GPU, and you'd still have every feature you need. The only real performance difference is that there's no SATA 6Gbps, but budget gamers don't have drives that need that anyway.yzkbug - Sunday, March 27, 2011 - link
Totally agree. I’m looking for a good, reliable, budget-priced motherboard for my new HTPC. Would love to see a comparison review of H61 motherboards, especially the power comparison numbers.Taft12 - Sunday, March 27, 2011 - link
I'd need to know at what point the 6 PCIE lanes on H61 begins to get in the way of the GPUs performance. Someone will surely do the testing to show us in the near future. Noticeable on, say, a 6850? Or do we need a much higher-end GPU for a bottlenect?DanNeely - Sunday, March 27, 2011 - link
The GPU would still be running on the 16 lanes from the CPU. You just have 2 less lanes for 2ndary slots and onboard devices. I don't think it's likely to be an issue except in that you're much less likely to get a second x4 slot (1/11 vs 6/16 on newegg), and the 1 H61 board that does it has legacy PCI slots for the other 2 spaces, while 5/6 H67 boards have at least 1 1x slot as well.omelet - Sunday, March 27, 2011 - link
This is very confusing. All the boards claim to have x16 slots, but they can't possibly run at x16 if none of the boards on the table even have 16 lanes. A P67 running two cards would have to run each at 4x, or even lower if there are any x1 slots on the board (as there are on most boards).It might be explained as being an x16 slot running at a lower speed, except for the fact that P67 and P55 both specify that they can run two cards at x8/x8, which can only mean that they run the x16 slots at 8 lanes each when you have two cards plugged in. That should also be impossible according to the table.
Other sources I've found on the internet seem to imply that the x16 slot on the H61 runs at full x16 speed. I think perhaps we just need some clarification on what the values on the table here mean.
ajp_anton - Sunday, March 27, 2011 - link
There are two sources for PCIe lanes. The CPUs all have x16 (only for graphics), the rest (what is shown in the table) come from the motherboard chip (H67 etc).