EVGA H55 123-CD-E635-KR Motherboard

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EVGA launched the H55, Based on Intel H55 chipset this mobo supports Intel Socket 1156 Processors Core i3/i5 and Pentium D G6950, there's also a (stripped) version of this board named H55V, where the v probably stands for 'value'.


EVGA H55 comes with two x16 PCI Express 2.0 slots for CrossFireX, the configuration is not x8, x8 but the second PCIe slot will work at x4.

For overclockers that try to squeeze the last bit out of their mobo reset and power buttons are available on the board, of course in extreme situations you'll still need

the clear CMOS button. This mobo has a “6+1+1” voltage regulator circuit and vdroop control for a more stable power supply. The OC software E-Leet is included in the software package. With Dummy OC you'll be able to overclock at the touch of a button.


Since the CPU has an itegrated Memory Controller, the onboard MC Hub (former northbridge) has disappeared, the same can be said about the IGP that has also be integrated in

the processor. The video connectors are on the backpanel of this board and the processer's IGP signals are routed there, the latest connnector called DisplayPort is on the

board's backpanel but it lacks a HDMI connector.


The manufacturer's suggested retail price is $169.99, but we spotted it at newegg for $159.99 with a $20,- cashback cuopon.

On a board priced this high you would expect USB3 but the only 'extra connector' is FireWire.


More H55 reviews:

ECS H55H-M @ guru3d The Performance of the ECS H55H-M is as expected, and for the money the features are OK but do not expect an overclocking monster though.

You'll find the new ASRock H55 mobos previewed @ ocworkbench

Gigabyte X58A-UD3R preview

The Gigabyte X58A-UD3R, as the 'A' in X58A allready indicates, is a new X58 mainboard with USB3 and SATA3 support. Again we see the '333' logo on the box, it tells us that next to the USB 3.0 and SATA 6GB/second support we have extra power for USB3 devices. Up till now these devices without a power adapter have not been spotted yet, there is the buffalo USB3 drive, but that still needs en AC adapter.



The UD3R can be considered a relatively cheap X58 socket 1366 mainbord since retail prices are around $200.- , but CrossfrireX and SLi bridges are still included in the bundle. It has an 8 phase (probably 4 + 2 + 2) power supply, which is less than most other X58 mobos, the UD5 from the '333' series has a 12 +2 +2 and the UD7 is even equipped with a 24 +2 +2 phase power supply.

With four PCIe sockets this mobo can be considered a real gaming monster, the X58 chipset takes care of enough lanes four all graphics cards.


There is a dedicated page for the the disassembled heatsink(s), which look a bit 'traditional'. Thermal management seems to form a substantial part of the total production costs so this has probably been done to keep the retail price low(er).

You can find the full preview here with more detailed images and specs.

SATA3 test: Gigabyte P55a-UD6 and Barracuda XT 2TB

With an Intel Core i7 870 and a Gigabyte P55a-UD6 mainboard hardcoreware.net tested the Barracuda XT 2 TeraByte (SATA3) internal harddisk.


In the benchmarks the 2TB Barracuda XT was compared to the 1TB Seagate 7200.12 (SATA2).

The windows 7 FileCopy benchmarks were performed by the Intel P55 chipset as well as the onboard Marvell SE9128 SATA3 controller chip for both drives. In most cases the 7200.12 also had a faster performance when the operations were carried out by the Marvell chip, allthough the 7200.12 is a 3GB/s disk.

To give you an Idea we give you the results of the windows 7 x64 File copy test were 2.08GB misc. files (many small files and some large ones).

1. With the P55 the results for the 7200.12 were 34.84MB/second and the Barracuda XT 39.68MB/second.

2. With the Marvell SATA3 controller the results for the 7200.12 were 42.24MB/second and the Barracuda XT 50.66MB/second.

In the 'real world' Windows FileCopy Benchmarks the XT outperforms the rest, and the 7200.12 is (a somewhat) faster when connected to the Marvell. The HDTach benches for average read/write show a different result, it doesn't matter if the P55 or the Marvell is uesed the results are roughly the same.


The overall conclusion for this drive is that there is a hardly a performance gain compared to a SATA2.0 drive. The 2TB Barracuda XT ranges from “pretty much identical” to “a little bit faster” than the SATA2 drive it was compared with in the tests.

Jetway NC63-330-LF review

Jetway NC63-330-LF unboxed and reviewed

Unlike the NC63P-LF the NC63-LF doesn't have an onboard power supply.



The review that covers the NC63-LF mobo with an atom N330 based on the NVidia MCP7A-ION chipset, this test has lots of images from the package and detailed photographs of the onboard chips.

The benchmarks tested are focused on the 3d and pc benchmark suites by futuremark, and even a few games like Devil May Cry 4 are tested. NVIDIA ION Graphics are not suited for (modern) games the FPS rate is usually below 10.

When compared to a desktop PC the power usage is less than half with full load.

A peculiar thing is that when having several tabs opened in a browser the overall speed of the system is slowing down, be adviced not to have to many tabs open.

The unboxing page is originally in German but with this link we used the Google translation. Lots of photographs here, and there will be a test in the near future on this site.

New Phenom II X2 555 and Athlon Athlon II X4 635 were tested with an Asus M4A79T Deluxe.

AMD has launched a new line of processors for Q1 2010, the AMD Phenom II X2 555(3.2GHz Dual-Core) and an AMD Athlon II X4 635(2.9GHz Quad-Core), were tested with an Asus M4A79T Deluxe.

Compared to the core i5 661 with 8089 PCmarks in the synthethic bechmark suite PCmark Vantage the Phenom II X2 555 and the Athlon II X4 635 are way behind with 5535 and 6154 PCmarks, on the other hand the XII 555 is priced just below the $100.- barrier while the core i5 661 is above $ 200.- retail price.

In real world benchmarks like Cinebench the Athlon II X4 635 takes the lead with 10777 Cinebench points, while the core i5 661 has the second place with 10731 cinebench points.

The Athlon II X4 635 and Phenom II X2 555 are good performers, but Intel's Core i5 661 is better in all the benchmarks, the Intel however is (almost) double the price.



In single-threaded tasks, the Phenom II X2 555 is faster than the Athlon II X4 635. In single thread operations, in multi-threaded benchmarks however it beats the XII 555.

Biostar launches the TH55B HD

Biostar TH55B HD was launched on januari 18 2010.




The TH55B HD has a 5 phase power supply, presumably 3 for the CPU, one for the integrated graphics and one for the memory, each phase supplies 3 MOSFETS for a steady power supply, this pure electric current will probably be great for overclocking.

Internal Graphics Processer overclocked to 1200MHz:

Intel's Clarkdale Core i3/i5 and Pentium G6950 (32nm) have a built-in (45nm) IGP, that will run @ 733MHz, except for the Core i5 661 that is clocked @ 900MHz.

Biostar's BIOS settings have a Game Boost technology for overclocking the integrated GPU. With this tool it's easy to overclock the IGP of the Intel Clarkdale to 1200MHz (stock speed 733MHz), the 3DMark 06 results were about sixty percent higher.

Zotac IONITX-F-E Review

Atom 330 and Zotac IONITX-F-E Review

Equipped with an 1.6GHz Atom 330 CPU new Mini-ITX motherboard with nVidia ION Chipset can handle up to 4 GB of DDR2 RAM and has integrated graphics with HDMI output.

In the Performance Options of the BIOS it's even possible to overclock the Atom CPU you can set the cpu BCLK, vCore voltage, memory timings and memory voltage.


Below are the benchmark results for Cinebench.

Singlcore results
656

Multicore results
1849

The multicore results for a desktop processor like the Phenom II X3 710 would be around 6500, this will give you an indication how ´fast´ the Atom 330 is.

The Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD7 to be launched in februari 2010

The GA-P55A-UD7 is a P55 motherboard that can compete with X58 boards.

The GA-P55A-UD7 will of course have USB3 and SATA3 connecters and together with an NVIDIA nForce 200 chip there will be sufficient PCI-express lanes for gaming and USB3.

Very interesting is the 24+3 phase circuit, which will be great for overclocking.

The PCI-Express x16 slots can be arranged into x16 - x16 or x16 - x8 - x8 lanes. There are six SATA 3Gb/s ports and two white ports for the Marvell SATA 6Gb/s controller.

Unique is perhaps the waterblock that cools the two PCI-Express bridge chips.

The X58 chipset has plenty of PCIe lanes, this board might have an advantage if it'll be cheaper than an X58 mobo, but that remains to be seen. This board will probably in the shops in februari 2010.

ASUS expects to sell 6 miljon motherboards in Q2 2010

in Q1 2009 ASUS expects a 25% increase in motherboard sales compared to Q1 2008. The Eastern European countries as well as China and Brazil will boost the demand.

In Q2 Asustek expects 6.000.000 boards to be sold worlwide, and expects that its global market share will rise to 38% during this year.

As far as USB3 is concerned ASUStek only has a share of round and about 25%, but after Q3 it hopes to increase its share in this segment.

EVGA 270-GT-W555 motherboard

EVGA launches dual-socket LGA 1366 270-GT-W555 motherboard


This mobo features 2 LGA 1366 sockets for Intel 45nm Xeon 5500-series and 32nm processors yet to be produced, twelve DDR3 slots for a maximum of 48GB and the Intel 5520 server chipset.

Furthermore it is equipped with two USB3 ports and two sata3 connectors. There's also the possibility of overclocking several GPUs, to keep the power going to the PCI-E slots there's a 6-pin power port above the slots.


There's little known about the form factor of this board, some reviews talk about Super WTX but we'll probably have to wait for an official EVGA announcement. Litte is known about the overclocing capabilities of this mobo, but it will probably bring overclocking to the next level.

Gigabyte's new H57 motherboard

Gigabyte launches the GA-H57M-USB3 based on the new Intel H57 chipset, with support of USB 3.0 and displayport.

Unlike the P55 motherboards with the 333 onboard acceleration this board lacks the SATA3 controller.

Since Intel has not yet implemented the support for USB3 in its P55/H55/H57 chipsets the work is done by the NEC uPD720200 chip. The USB power boost delivers extra power up to 3x the strengh used by USB 2.0, in future USB3 devices like a 3.5 inch hard drive can probably do without an extra power adapter.

Display Port Support is the new standard for graphics display with an incredible speed of 10.8 Gbps. This new connector will probably replace VGA, DVI and HDMI in the (near) future.

ATI CrossFireX is supported by this mobo, but instead of having the full bandwidth like the X58 chipset(x16 - x16) or P55 (x8 - x8) the H57 limits itself to x16 - x4 lanes.