Budget Computing: Nine H55 And H57 Motherboards Compared

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Why is there all this hate for the 1156? It's not perfect and there are compromises, but AMD has no answer yet for anything better than the i5 750. And Intel won't be more aggressive with processor and chip set features than it has too.

I'm disappointed in the H55 offering since they aren't any much less expensive than the P55 boards.

That being said the low-end desktop computer is dying, being overrun by mobile platforms. So Intel can't care much about its "value" desktops with its dominance in mobile computing which has high margins.
 
interested in a mobo that can do 3 screens for normal use and 1+ screens for gaming... I'm thinking 3d vision for gaming so 1 nvidia card and for normal using the onboard....

recomendations?

 
[citation][nom]memeroot[/nom]interested in a mobo that can do 3 screens for normal use and 1+ screens for gaming... I'm thinking 3d vision for gaming so 1 nvidia card and for normal using the onboard....recomendations?[/citation] NVidia chipset...
 
well I have an 8800 now but will upgrade... I dont want to go sli at the moment but do want to run 3 screens. It would be nice to have 3 screens for gaming (which would be ati) but I care more about having 3d in my old games.

I want 3 monitors for work and 1 monitor for gaming... the Asus P7H55D-M EVO seems to offer this (?)

I suppose I could go the lucid route and have a cheap ati 5xxxx card and a fermi (if when) it is released - but then I'd have to have a switcher on the monitors and software switch and no chance sli in the future etc..

I want a fast overclockable board and I'm not sure that thats the Asus P7H55D-M EVO

any other suggestions?
 
[citation][nom]memeroot[/nom]well I have an 8800 now but will upgrade... I dont want to go sli at the moment but do want to run 3 screens. It would be nice to have 3 screens for gaming (which would be ati) but I care more about having 3d in my old games.I want 3 monitors for work and 1 monitor for gaming... the Asus P7H55D-M EVO seems to offer this (?)I suppose I could go the lucid route and have a cheap ati 5xxxx card and a fermi (if when) it is released - but then I'd have to have a switcher on the monitors and software switch and no chance sli in the future etc..I want a fast overclockable board and I'm not sure that thats the Asus P7H55D-M EVOany other suggestions?[/citation]

You're speaking of using the second x16-length slot for a graphics card, rather than the first slot, so you can retain onboard graphics? Forget it if you're gaming, there's not enough bandwidth on the second slot. Its x4 and runs at PCIe 1.1 speed.
 
funny

" Best for Multi-Monitor Office PC: The H55M-Pro can support two monitors from a processor’s integrated controller in additional to an x16 card in its four-lane slot."

sounded promising for what I needed - but without SLI... are there anyboards which could meet my requirements/desires
 
[citation][nom]memeroot[/nom]funny" Best for Multi-Monitor Office PC: The H55M-Pro can support two monitors from a processor’s integrated controller in additional to an x16 card in its four-lane slot." sounded promising for what I needed - but without SLI... are there anyboards which could meet my requirements/desires[/citation]

AMD and NVidia chipsets support real x16 slots plus integrated graphics. Intel doesn't. The best you can hope to get with integrated Intel graphics enabled is an x4 slot from the chipset, at PCIe 1.1 speed.
 
[citation][nom]jalyst[/nom]which means no graphics but perhaps something like a RAID controller?[/citation]

If you can get the drivers to work, a secondary slot will work with a graphics card at lower performance. No games, but you get more displays for things like spreadsheets, which is handy in high-end office systems.
 
ITX info useful. I think this form factor (and SFF systems in general) is very interesting. Especially when talking about 'budget'. I would however have to agree that, as previously stated, this is a little expensive to be considered budget.

Shame only 1 of these boards support RAID. I find this an almost essential feature these days.
 
ITX info useful. I think this form factor (and SFF systems in general) is very interesting. Especially when talking about 'budget'. I would however have to agree that, as previously stated, this is a little expensive to be considered budget.

Shame only 1 of these boards support RAID. I find this an almost essential feature these days.
 
[citation][nom]Crashman[/nom]If you can get the drivers to work, a secondary slot will work with a graphics card at lower performance. No games, but you get more displays for things like spreadsheets, which is handy in high-end office systems.[/citation]

Crash man did you see this? Thanks.

What about top-notch SATA RAID controllers, plenty of bandwidth for them still right?

I mean for the ga-h57m-usb3 which is actually 4x, the ga-55m-usb3 isn't, contrary to your review (think Thomas has fixed it now)
 
[citation][nom]jalyst[/nom]What about top-notch SATA RAID controllers, plenty of bandwidth for them still right?[/citation]

Yes, a single lane is good for around 250 MB/s bandwidth, so four of them should serve four to six drives well.
 
Thanks 57m-usb3 it is for me then, seems to be just as good as 55m power-draw & OC-wise, but with added advantage of x4 PCIe & Intel softRAID (prolly won't ever use it)

Cheers
 
[citation][nom]jalyst[/nom]Thanks 57m-usb3 it is for me then, seems to be just as good as 55m power-draw & OC-wise, but with added advantage of x4 PCIe & Intel softRAID (prolly won't ever use it)Cheers[/citation]

Would you like to tell these fine people how Gigabyte managed to disable three pathways on the H55 version of the board?
 
If I understood you correctly,
There's three pathways that aren't completely soldered across.

So with a bit of prowess one could enable x4 PCIe on the 55m-uUSB3!

Don't suppose you could address my last set of qns from our emails?
Thank-you.
 


One probably could, unless there are other missing links that nobody has spotted yet. What's the rest of the question?
 
Haha The ECS motherboard is a little monster (mITX) I am surprised, defeat at the EVGA motherboard. Excellent review, my money goes to the ECS.

I dont think in extreme overclocking.
I want efficiency, good price and good performance.

Thanks for the info.

 
Over the past two months I’ve been pursuing a problem w/ASUS… regarding this board.
BEWARE: if you get a case that has an eSATA front port and you connect it to an internal motherboard [Intel H55 and maybe others] SATA port, it cannot be configured to have an eSATA hard drive ‘safely removed’. You will have to turn off caching (slow) or risk data corruption when removing it.

ASUS customer service is terrible and it will further adversely affect their bottom line because they are ruining their reputation. …So much for their “goal of 100% customer satisfaction”.

They ½-answer submitted technical inquiries to show they care, even though it is obvious they do not want to get to the root of or appropriately solve a problem system builders may be encountering and finding annoying. They do not seem to know Windows very well nor comprehend the underlying problem, nor do they spend any measurable time even reading the history of the problem, trying to determine where the problem really lies. They defer simple system builders to Microsoft $upport when it is clearly not a Microsoft problem. Concurrently they defer to Intel support (the maker of the chip/driver likely causing this problem and a company not selling chips to/supporting end-users) – when ASUS should be contacting Intel themselves, as an integration partner, to resolve issues such as this.
 
[citation][nom]brucemellen[/nom]Over the past two months I’ve been pursuing a problem w/ASUS… regarding this board.BEWARE: if you get a case that has an eSATA front port and you connect it to an internal motherboard [Intel H55 and maybe others] SATA port, it cannot be configured to have an eSATA hard drive ‘safely removed’. You will have to turn off caching (slow) or risk data corruption when removing it.ASUS customer service is terrible and it will further adversely affect their bottom line because they are ruining their reputation. …So much for their “goal of 100% customer satisfaction”.They ½-answer submitted technical inquiries to show they care, even though it is obvious they do not want to get to the root of or appropriately solve a problem system builders may be encountering and finding annoying. They do not seem to know Windows very well nor comprehend the underlying problem, nor do they spend any measurable time even reading the history of the problem, trying to determine where the problem really lies. They defer simple system builders to Microsoft $upport when it is clearly not a Microsoft problem. Concurrently they defer to Intel support (the maker of the chip/driver likely causing this problem and a company not selling chips to/supporting end-users) – when ASUS should be contacting Intel themselves, as an integration partner, to resolve issues such as this.[/citation]
Or set the controller to AHCI mode?
 
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