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  • jakefalcons - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    I would choose a gigabyte motherboard over a dfi one right now seeing as how dfi is pulling out of the retail motherboard. just my 2 cents
  • jakefalcons - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    edit *retail market excuse me ><
  • Soulkeeper - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    That's a nice looking board.
    Gigabyte is my favorite right now :)
    Would be good to see an AMD mini-itx too
  • jaydee - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    ECS did us all a favour by introducing their H55H-I at an incredible $79, forcing Intel and Zotac to lower the price of competing models down to $110.


    Where can you get the Zotac board for ~$110? It's ~$138 at newegg right now.
  • Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    Sorry my bad. I heard Zotac were going to shift the price down to $110. Corrected!

    Regards
    Raja
  • bumble12 - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    Newegg did have the Zotac for $110 a couple weeks ago when I was seriously considering getting one. They're always adjusting prices based on stock / demand...
  • P4spooky - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    Great review. Would be nice if you can start including some HTPC specific tests in your review especially for boards targeted for the HTPC market like this one. I would like to see Audio bitstreaming capability, any issues related to it for example.
  • Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    Hi,

    Thanks for the suggestion. I'll discuss this with the rest of the team and see what we can come up with.

    -Raja
  • Saltbread - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    I second the need fore HTPC specific tests. I was really expecting that they would be some in his since I believe the Zotac review leaned in that direction as well. I'd REALLY like to see a shootout HTPC wise with the Zotac vs ECS vs Gigabyte!!

    BTW, could anyone suggest a mini ITX case with an external 5.25 external slot I could put a bluray drive in? Are there any slot loading bluray drives anywhere on the market?
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  • don^don - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    i hav ta agree there mate. i came in here this morning, click on the link, and was expecting some 1080p benchmark for this board using Intel's HD graphic with some i3, but cant find any. hope anand will include em in the next ITX board review. it'l come in handy.
  • Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    And why would you want to spend $110+ for a motherboard and $125+ for a case? To look cool or something? Sheesh... It's a box with wires coming out of it. It is no different than one that costs $19.
  • dia - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    A mini-ITX oriented case that can hold a decent size PSU and a full length graphics cards with space for a number of internal drives for $19? Link me to it please, I want one!
  • DaveSimmons - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    Size, noise, heat. Some of us are willing to pay extra to fit a PC into 1/4 the space of a cheap minitower while still running cool and quiet.

    The Silverstone will fit a large full-height video card and 3.5" HD while using a large (= less noisy) fan for cooling.
  • Taft12 - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    The Lian Li Q07 is half the price of the Q08 and looks almost the same to me... That's the way I would go:

    http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82...
  • Servando Silva - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    I´d wouldn't choose the DFI mobo because it's P55 based. For a Mini-ITX in HTPC, you won't be able to use Intel HD graphics with Clarkdale.
    Otherwise, this is a a good choise and GB might be able to fix the BIOS problems within their next updates, while DFI has a lack of BIOS Support (sadly).
  • ajp_anton - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    When talking about USB3 for other vendor's MBs, you say that you could use a PCIe card for them. Are you sure it will work? Intel's built-into-CPU PCIe controller is only guaranteed to work with graphics cards.
  • Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    Provided the BIOS is geared for it there should not be a problem.
  • ajp_anton - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    I had about 10 mails about this with Gigabyte concerning another motherboard + a PCIe TV tuner until they finally contacted Intel, only to find out that no BIOS update could fix it as the problem is in Intel's PCIe controller.
  • Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    First point of call for me was ASUS (as they are available at this time of day) and I was told that it can work if the BIOS supports it. Unfortunately, I don't have any PCIe USB cards on hand right now to test it. If I hear anything different, I'll report back.

    Regards
    Raja
  • Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    I've just searched the web and found reports of TV tuner cards working with the Intel DH57JG with a Clarkdale CPU. Hope this helps shed a bit of light. I'll get some PCIe cards in to help out with testing this end too.

    I will contact Gigabyte for you first thing. Which motherboard is it?

    Regards
    Raja
  • ajp_anton - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    Motherboard: ga-h55m-ud2h
    Tuner: pxdtv 2300h

    Doesn't really matter to me now, I sold it and went for AMD instead.
  • Khenke - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    Was planing to build an ultra compact gaming rig (and build a case my self) with this moderboard an i5 750 and HD5850. My aim was to OC the 750 to 3.8GHz and use the H50 to cool it, but thanks to you guys I now know I have to wait until Asus releases a mini-itx card and do it right.

    But what would be nice is if you could test any other cooling on it that fit (so we know if any coolers at all fit), preferably low profile coolers as I want my case no thicker than 12cm :)

    Thanks for en excellent review.
  • Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    If you're willing to do a bit of DIY, you can trim the mount of the H50 down a bit to fit the hole. Not ideal I know. I'll see if Gigabyte have a list of low-profile coolers that will work (or if they'll put a list together) - any updates and I'll post back here.

    -Raja
  • forumator - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    Nice, would be great to have that info, thanks Rajinder.
  • Khenke - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    Ah. Thanks Raja.
    Since I'm planing to make an all aluminum 19x27x12cm (inner size so add max 1cm for the material) case a little work on the H50 wont be much of a problem :)

    But I am very interested in a list with low-profile coolers too, since I could slim it down 1cm then.. :)
    The H50 was the solution for a very bad placed cpu socket.
    Been hunting some info on compatible coolers but with no luck so far.
    I so want to get my gaming rig in a backpack..
  • Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    Off the bat, anything push-pin will work. Not sure how many push pin type coolers there are that make any sense over the Intel cooler though.

    Anything with a screw clamp fitting will need to be assessed on a case by case basis, as there are also some SMT resistors and a couple of what look to be feedback compensation capacitors to the left of the hole (near the circled transistor). You really don't want to knock those off or damage them.

    I'll ping GB in the morning and see if they want to put together a list for their homepage - I suspect a lot of people will appreciate the info. I only have a couple of old tower sinks and the H50 at hand, so I've either gotta scour around the web hoping I call it right, or enlist some help :)

    -Raja
  • jaydee - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    I am glad you posted results from "AutoCAD 2010 x64—Cadalyst 2008" with both the IGP and the discrete video card. Is there any chance we can see this benchmark on video card reviews (Ryan)? I'd be really interested in seeing a comparison of 3D benchmarks as well as games across the video card spectrum.
  • forumator - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    Would have liked more info on what aftermarket coolers will fit with a graphics card in the pcix slot...especially ones that would fit in a small case, this is a MITX board after all
  • jaydee - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    I would think that'd be way more dependant on the case, than it would be the motherboard.
  • Ipatinga - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    Great little board... hope Gigabyte does a GA-H55N-UD4 with the following additions:

    - Mini PCI-E 1x slot for a WiFi module (like Intel 6000 series of WiFi Link) with two pigtails for two SMA connectors on the ATX IO.

    - Audio Codec with Dolby (and BD capable), like ALC889.

    Who knows, maybe a GA-H57N-UD4, with the above plus a H57 chipset for some RAID love.
  • tlmaclennan - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    This looks to be just the motherboard I want! I have the Intel DH57JG and it serves it's purpose but the BIOS is quite limited. I've been wanting to have a gaming/HTPC rig that could bitstream for a while now and the only solution was to add an ATI 5xxx series card into the mix. I've tried a few and being a Nvidia fan I just didn't like it.

    I also don't like the Intel IGP, but having it on the CPU with bitstream capabilities is a huge plus. Someone on the AVS forums has gotten a Nvidia 9600GT to work in the PCI-e slot of the Gigabyte H55M-USB3, the mATX version of this board. I'm hoping to get a single-slot Nvidia 240GT working with this board so I can game a bit on my HTPC and use the Intel IGP to bitstream.
  • fidderman - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link


    Great review on a very interesting little board.

    Does the eSATA port on this board support Port Multiplier?

    I don't think it does, but I'm not sure. I don't understand why a manufacturer would bother
    to put an eSATA port on a board, and then not support port multiplier. Sheesh--if we need
    an eSATA port, aren't we likely to want to plug in more than one thing?

    Also, I very much appreciate the way you display the allowable ranges of the major
    overclocking/underclocking variables in a table. Some websites don't know how to do this
    right like you did here. Thanks for a great job.
  • staryoshi - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    This board will be at my door on thursday. I'll be reviewing it with a few coolers and a core i3 530 / core i7 860. I'm going to try to use the h50 as well despite the IC. I'll just make sure there is a cushion between it and the mount. Thermal tape or something.
  • forumator - Tuesday, June 15, 2010 - link

    I got my board today but my H50 hasn't come yet, so I'll be interested to see how you make it fit :)
  • Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    The universal plate of the H50 will sit on the transistor and also on a few very small and fragile SMT caps. Make sure you do not generate enough down-force to break anything in that area. Long term, rather than using thermal tape, I'd probably cut/file the mount away to clear these components.

    Later
    Raja
  • staryoshi - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    That's a sensible idea. When I get the board in my hands tomorrow I'll figure it out. I Have extensive experience with the ITX form factor and the Corsair h50. I'll make it work :)
  • NStriker - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Call me picky, but using jpegs where it should be png or gif just irks me, and this is a prime example. http://images.anandtech.com/doci/3769/test.jpg

    That would be 40K at most as a png and be completely lossless if done from the original image.
  • IsLNdbOi - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Can anyone post an image showing where the H50's plate will need to be cut? I just returned my Zotac H55 so I could get this Gigabyte, but the cooler I have already is the H50.
  • IsLNdbOi - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Instead of cutting the H50 brackets, can we use some thick washers (that are thicker than the components that get in the mounting plate's way)?
  • Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Hi,

    Yes, you can do that if you can get the right screws and washers to fit the H50 from somewhere. Or use a washer/nut combo as the poster below said. Just be sure not to overtighten.

    Later
    Raja
  • tlmaclennan - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Why not just figure out the thread and length of the mounting screws and get slightly longer ones from a hardware store or McMaster-Carr. Then grab four spacers for that screw size so that you can raise the bookplate over any components that you need to clear. Or just do away with the back-plate and use small nuts.
  • shamans33 - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Just to verify...You can't run IGP and discrete graphics at the same time on the H55 chipset (and therefore on this board).....Correct?
  • shamans33 - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    The motherboard manual has a reference to running both at the same time, they describe it as "dual view" but I just want to double check...
  • Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Hi,

    Yes, I have tried this with a GTX 275 and a Clarkdale i5-655K. There is an option in BIOS to force the IGP on. Windows 7 will see both devices and you can extend displays.

    Hope this helps.
    -Raja
  • shamans33 - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Thank you for checking. :)

    Anandtech should have a checklist table of non-standard features on every motherboard review.
  • Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Thanks for the suggestion. I do try and keep on top of these things but sometimes things do slip by when you're trying to cover everything you can.

    -Raja
  • shamans33 - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Do you know of any upcoming AMD ITX motherboards?
  • HTPCJim - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    When I think Mini-ITX, I think HTPC. Sadly, I still havent seen a mini ITX MB with built in wireless and a PCIe slot for an OTA tv tuner which are the missing ingredients for an HTPC.
  • shamans33 - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    There's motherboards made by zotac that do that....

    For maximum compatibility, you should go with Zotac 9300 motherboards though. It's a very mature motherboard
  • mongoosesRawesome - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    use the integrated graphics (freeing up the PCIe) and a USB for the wireless. Or use a USB TV tuner with USB wireless, and then use whatever graphics you want. If you need extra expansion, mini-itx isn't for you.
  • Barnaby W. Füi - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Newegg shows this board as using the Realtek 8111E LAN chipset. Doesn't the H55 already include gigabit LAN? Why wouldn't they use that?
  • Taft12 - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Nearly all H55 motherboards use that crummy Realtek chip and it must be even cheaper than wiring up the integrated Intel network
  • Rajinder Gill - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - link

    I hear the Intel NIC costs as much on it's own to implement, as it does to buy the Realtek audio and LAN ICs as a pair (price break and volume purchase incentives). There's your reason.

    -Raja
  • pectin232 - Monday, September 20, 2010 - link

    Raja can you help with BIOS settings for this board. I truly appreciate. I have the same board with the i7 860 instead of the 865. I got 8GB DDR3 1333 memory from G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL. Any help is truly appreciate.

    Phillip
  • Folterknecht - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    This cooler will likely fit in any HTPC-Case and there should be no problems with backplates and parts of the motherboars "connecting". the review is german but numbers and pictures should do the job. Note that you can also mount a slim (12mm) 120mm fan on top of it.

    http://extreme.pcgameshardware.de/luftkuehlung/105...

    I'm not sure if this cooler is available in the U.S.
  • Khenke - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    If the end of the CPU to the graphics card is more than 27mm then it will most likely fit perfectly and with a 120 mm fan it will even cool the RAMs.
    As specs tell here: http://www.prolimatech.com/products/cpu_cooler/sam...
  • fr500 - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Do you think this board is a "safer" overclocker than DFI MI P55-T36? I have had 4 of those boards (2 for customers one for a friend and one for me)

    I did extended testing on my customer's PCs and everything went fine. My friend let the board overclock by itself via ABS II and it's board died after just one day. Had to RMA. Many people reported the same issue and I guess they addressed it with BIOS updates.

    Does it need active cooling for the power circuitry? Inside my SG05 the DFI board needs a bit more airflow than the 120mm fan on front can provide. My build has an i5 750@150BCLK with 1.1v and the phases would get to 90c without active cooling. I had to add an 80mm slim fan from an old sff PSU to get temps on the safe side.

    To sum up. Is it better auto protecting itself if you push too far? (DFI board pushes too far by itself via ABS) and, does it need active cooling for the power circuitry?
  • Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Hi,

    In my testing so far, the H55N-USB3 has better over-current protection. I've killed one DFI board just by booting it at 180 BCLK with an 870 oon the initial launch BIOS. Whether or not what I've found with teh H55N-USB3 will apply to all cases though I cannot say, as these things can be random. I did make a suggestion to Gigabyte to lock things down for the quad cores, and they told me they would look into what they feel is safe.

    A bit of airflow across the VRM won't hurt things if you want to keep temps low (although this has nothing to do with OCP per se). If I were running any one of these boards long term, I would probably keep myself to a 3.6GHz cap on the quads.

    -Raja
  • fr500 - Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - link

    Yes that is the same thing i saw with the DFI on the shipping BIOS, after that i lost my confidence.

    Thanks a lot it's reassuring.

    I think you could mount the H50 safely with 2 washers (included with the H50) on each hole by the way.
  • ReaM - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - link

    For Gods SAke do not overclock a mainboard that doesnt have MOSFET cooling. It will die after 20 minutes prime or lynx.

    Put a fat, bold DO NOT OVERCLOCK into overclock section.
  • Rajinder Gill - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - link

    Heat is NOT the absolute killer of mosfet's on motherboards- it's current. Most mosfets will handle junction temperatures of 150~170 Celsius before they suffer a breakdown. What boards need are properly implemented OCP which on the face of it this board has.

    Later
    Raja
  • play2learn - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - link

    Did anyone find any information about Sound through HDMI ?
  • Rajinder Gill - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - link

    Sound through HDMI works fine into my Sony TV. As part of the power consumption test I run 1080P video and I did not get any glitches.
  • just4U - Thursday, June 17, 2010 - link

    It's a pricey board.. I was thinking it would be under $70 not over a $100.
  • Faxfane - Friday, June 18, 2010 - link

    Under 'Gaming and 3D Performance', section: AutoCAD, there is this part: 'ECS holds and advantage'. 'And' should be 'an', something easily auto-corrected by the brain, but is still unbecoming of such a professional site. Otherwise, this was a very informative and pleasurable article.
  • shady28 - Saturday, June 19, 2010 - link


    Lets get real. The main problem with ITX is the confined cases with poor cooling and small power supplies. This review is done without a case on a test bench, a high power high hea GTX 275, and with a 950W full size power supply.

    What we really need to do know is what you can practically do with this ITX board. Some poor slob is going to run out and build an ITX box and high end GPU only to find his P/S keeps tripping or worse, something gets damaged and he's out a few hundred bucks.
  • Rajinder Gill - Sunday, June 20, 2010 - link

    The Lian Li case listed in this review (PCQ08B) can hold a full sized ATX PSU and a full length graphics card. The PSU is only going to trip if you decide to buy an under-powered one.

    Regards
    Raja
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  • staryoshi - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link

    I am currently using this board with an i7 860 and a Corsair H50. I simply clipped off the bulk of the retention bracket such that only the studs and their surrounding plastic remain. It does not contact any of the vulnerable ICs and I get my precious H50 performance. It fits beautifully in the Sugo 05.

    I am superbly satisfied overall, but I have run into a problem:

    I can't get any changes to memory timings (G.Skill ECO DDR3-1333 7-7-7-21) to stick. It tells me that their has been an overclocking failure and it defaults back to 9-9-9-24. It acknowledges the XMP profile but will not use the timings. Is there some setting I'm overlooking?
  • Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link

    Hi,

    Have you tried doing things without XMP? The trouble with XMP profiles is that they assume a certain voltage will work with all processors, unfortunately, this is not the case. I would set the timings and voltage up manually if you can, which should help.

    Failing that, pop me a mail at (remove the brackets) rajinder.gill(@)anandtech.com with your BIOS settings and I'll help out where I can.

    Regards
    Raja
  • staryoshi - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link

    Yeah, I've tried it without as well. Turns out it won't let me alter voltage or timings for the memory. I've sent an email to Gigabyte to see if that'll get me anywhere... I'll keep playing with it today and I'll send you an e-mail if I have any questions. I'll e-mail you a picture of the back of the board to show you what I did, too. It's not pretty, but no one can see it :)
  • Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link

    No worries, I've got a good idea of what you did to mount it. It's fine if you only ever intend to use it with socket 1156. Pop me a mail on the memory stuff if need be.

    Regards
    Raja
  • fr500 - Tuesday, June 29, 2010 - link

    Just as a heads up, the Corsair H50 works fine with a pair of washers on each hole.

    The Thermalright AXP-140 works too but I dunno if it will be enough for a 1156 lynnfield. It would be great if there could be an 1156 ITX roundup here testing:

    - ECS H55I
    - H55N-USB3
    - Zotac H55-A-E
    - DH57JG
    - DFI MI P55-T36

    More than performance which should be pretty close on any of these boards, a test of compatibility with some heatsinks (using discrete GPUs and not) and overclocking limits :p
  • pectin232 - Monday, September 20, 2010 - link

    Can you help with BIOS settings for this board. I truly appreciate. I have the same board with the i7 860 instead of the 865. I got 8GB DDR3 1333 memory from G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL. Any help is truly appreciate. For memory I probably might just put all as auto instead of messing with those TRas settings.

    Phillip
  • pectin232 - Thursday, November 18, 2010 - link

    and ATI 5770. Memory is 1666ghz ddr3. Anyone knows of what can be done to bump higher... I have water cooled/ I only spend 10 mins to raise the SPD only nothing else... and got 3.2ghz or 3.18 or so... to be more accurate.It is good enough but I though if I can raise higher why not...
  • rrplay - Saturday, January 1, 2011 - link

    Thanks for the nice review i should be getting this soon for an upcoming build.Don't ya can go wrong with this one for a mini-atx build.

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