H55 chipset support processors. Intel H55 and H57 Express chipsets. Total number of SATA ports
The date the product was first introduced.
Lithography
Lithography refers to the semiconductor technology used to manufacture an integrated circuit, and is reported in nanometer (nm), indicative of the size of features built on the semiconductor.
TDP
Thermal Design Power (TDP) represents the average power, in watts, the processor dissipates when operating at Base Frequency with all cores active under an Intel-defined, high-complexity workload. Refer to datasheet for thermal solution requirements.
Embedded Options Available
Embedded Options Available indicates products that offer extended purchase availability for intelligent systems and embedded solutions. Product certification and use condition applications can be found in the Production Release Qualification (PRQ) report. See your Intel representative for details.
Integrated Graphics‡
Integrated graphics allow for incredible visual quality, faster graphic performance and flexible display options without the need for a separate graphics card.
graphics output
Graphics Output defines the interfaces available to communicate with display devices.
Intel® Clear Video Technology
Intel® Clear Video Technology is a suite of image decode and processing technologies built into the integrated processor graphics that improve video playback, delivering cleaner, sharper images, more natural, accurate, and vivid colors, and a clear and stable video picture.
PCI Support
PCI support indicates the type of support for the Peripheral Component Interconnect standard
PCI Express Revision
PCI Express Revision is the version supported by the processor. Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (or PCIe) is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard for attaching hardware devices to a computer. The different PCI Express versions support different data rates.
PCI Express Configurations‡
PCI Express (PCIe) Configurations describe the available PCIe lane configurations that can be used to link the PCH PCIe lanes to PCIe devices.
Max # of PCI Express Lanes
A PCI Express (PCIe) lane consists of two differential signaling pairs, one for receiving data, one for transmitting data, and is the basic unit of the PCIe bus. # of PCI Express Lanes is the total number supported by the processor.
USB revision
USB (Universal Serial Bus) is an industry standard connection technology for attaching peripheral devices to a computer.
Total # of SATA Ports
SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) is a high speed standard for connecting storage devices such as hard disk drives and optical drives to a motherboard.
Integrated LAN
Integrated LAN indicates the presence of an integrated Intel Ethernet MAC or the presence of the LAN ports built into the system board.
Integrated IDE
IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) is an interface standard for connecting storage devices, and indicates the drive controller is integrated into the drive, rather than a separate component on the motherboard.
T CASE
Case Temperature is the maximum temperature allowed at the processor Integrated Heat Spreader (IHS).
Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) ‡
Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) continues from the existing support for IA-32 (VT-x) and Itanium® processor (VT-i) virtualization adding new support for I/O-device virtualization. Intel VT-d can help end users improve security and reliability of the systems and also improve performance of I/O devices in virtualized environments.
Intel® vPro™ Platform Eligibility‡
The Intel vPro® platform is a set of hardware and technologies used to build business computing endpoints with premium performance, built-in security, modern manageability and platform stability.
Learn more about Intel vPro®
Intel® ME Firmware Version
Intel® management engine Firmware (Intel® ME FW) uses built-in platform capabilities and management and security applications to remotely manage networked computing assets out-of-band.
Intel® Remote PC Assist Technology
Intel® Remote PC Assist Technology enables you to request remote technical assistance from a service provider if you encounter a problem with your PC, even when the OS, network software, or applications are not functioning. This service was discontinued in October 2010.
Intel® Quick Resume Technology
Intel® Quick Resume Technology Driver (QRTD) allows the Intel® Viv™ technology-based PC to behave like a consumer electronic device with instant on/off (after initial boot, when activated) capability.
Intel® Quiet System Technology
Intel® Quiet System Technology can help reduce system noise and heat through more intelligent fan speed control algorithms.
Intel® HD Audio Technology
Intel® High Definition Audio (Intel® HD Audio) is capable of playing back more channels at higher quality than previous integrated audio formats. In addition, Intel® HD Audio has the technology needed to support the latest and greatest audio content.
Intel® AC97 Technology
Intel® AC97 Technology is an audio codec standard which defines a high-quality audio architecture with surround sound support for the PC. It is the predecessor to Intel® High Definition Audio.
Intel® Matrix Storage Technology
Intel® Matrix Storage Technology provides protection, performance, and expandability for desktop and mobile platforms. Whether using one or multiple hard drives, users can take advantage of enhanced performance and lower power consumption. When using more than one drive the user can have additional protection against data loss in the event of hard drive failure. Predecessor to Intel® Rapid Storage Technology
Intel® Trusted Execution Technology‡
Intel® Trusted Execution Technology for safer computing is a versatile set of hardware extensions to Intel® processors and chipsets that enhance the digital office platform with security capabilities such as measured launch and protected execution. It enables an environment where applications can run within their own space, protected from all other software on the system.
Anti-Theft Technology
Intel® Anti-Theft Technology (Intel® AT) helps keep your laptop safe and secure in the event that it's ever lost or stolen. Intel® AT requires a service subscription from an Intel® AT–enabled service provider.
Introduction.
At the beginning of this year, the socket platform that has taken root among many users LGA 775 it became possible to send to history. The transfer of its products to the 32 nanometer process allowed Intel to replace Core processors with more advanced products. Almost all processors for the 775th socket were decommissioned. To date, the production of only cut-down Celeron models for the outdated socket 775 continues.
Today's novelties are socket processors LGA1156, which are produced on a 32 nm process and are based on the Clarkdale core. Clarkdale processors are in the middle price range and are designed to compete directly with products from AMD. To work with these processors, only motherboards built on chipsets from Intel can be used. Due to licensing issues, NVIDIA and VIA did not offer their alternative chipsets. In this connection, today all motherboards for the LGA1156 platform are based on one of four chipsets: Intel P55, Intel H55, Intel H57/Q57.
First chipset Intel P55 was released the earliest and does not support work with processors with an integrated graphics core, while the last three chipsets support these processors. In this review, we will present to your attention a motherboard based on the Intel H55 chipset, the Gigabyte H55M-USB3.
Choice for this motherboard did not fall by accident. In our opinion, it is a good option for assembling a modern multimedia rack for a small room.
Complete set of motherboard Gigabyte H55M-USB3.
To date, Gigabyte has introduced seventeen motherboards for the new LGA1156 platform based on the Intel H55 chipset. In our review, we will present to your attention the Gigabyte H55M-USB3 motherboard, which has some unique features that other motherboard options from this manufacturer do not have.
It should be noted that there are motherboard without the "M" prefix, - Gigabyte H55-USB3, which is a complete ATX solution. While the Gigabyte H55M-USB3 motherboard in question is a mATX option for downsized cases.
The motherboard comes in a small box, in a box design familiar to Gigabyte products. It should be noted that almost the entire line of motherboards based on the Intel H55 and Intel H57 chipsets from this manufacturer comes in a box of the same design.
The front of the box lists key features motherboard. It is also noted that there is a 3-year warranty for residents of the USA and Canada. What this inscription is connected with is not entirely clear to us, since in Russia almost all suppliers give a three-year warranty for products from this manufacturer.
On the back of the motherboard box, its key features are noted, among which we would like to highlight the following:
- GIGABYTE DualBIOS - dual protection for motherboard BIOS recovery.
- CPU support Intel Core i5/Core i3 with integrated Intel HD Graphics
- Ability to overclock the graphics core of the processor directly from the BIOS of the motherboard
- Availability of external DVI and HDMI ports for video output
- Video codec with Dolby Home Theater® support
- Ability to connect an external video card via a PCI-E x16 slot
- NEC SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Controller
- GIGABYTE 3x Technology USB power Boost guaranteeing support for higher power consumption via USB ports
- Technologies AutoGreen, Smart 6, Dynamic Energy Saver 2, Ultra Durable™ 3 classic with 2.
- Technology On/Off Charge for devices from Apple.
The motherboard from Gigabyte is packaged in the usual way. In the box were found:
- two SATA cables
- one IDE cable
- plug for input/output ports
- a set of instruction books
- CD with drivers and software
- a sticker on the system unit. motherboard specifications.
1. Chipsets:
- Intel® H55 Express Chipset
- iTE IT8720
- Realtek ALC889 codec
2. RAM:
- Support for XMP (Extreme Memory Profile) DDR3, non-ECC memory modules
- Dual channel memory architecture
- 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMMs
- DDR3 2200+/1800/1600/1333/1066/800MHz
- Maximum capacity 16 GB
3. Network: 1 x RTL8111D chip (10/100/1000Mbit)
DDR3 2200 MHz memory is only supported in conjunction with processors without integrated graphics. Intel H55 chipset and LGA1156 platform.
New processors from Intel Core i5 And Core i3 based on Clarkdale cores are called upon to finally trample on all the achievements of AMD in processor engineering, which, with its Phenom II and Athlon II products and a competent pricing policy, began to win back customers from Intel. Replacing mid-range processors on the LGA 775 platform with more modern processors on the LGA1156 platform easily allowed Intel to regain its market share. The transition to a new platform was forced, due to the transfer of the north bridge of the motherboard directly to the processor. This allowed Intel to integrate a memory controller into the processor, a controller PCI bus Express and completely abandon the FSB bus. In the new socket version, it is not the north bridge that communicates with the south bridge, but the processor communicates with it via the forgotten DMI bus.
On the one hand, the company AMD Long ago transferred memory controllers to their processors, but Intel went much further - it transferred the entire northbridge to processors. Given this, there can be no question of any licensing claims from AMD.
Company Intel simplified its LGA1156 platform as much as possible by leaving two main nodes in it: the processor and the south bridge. While the LGA775 platform familiar to us contained three nodes: a processor, a north bridge, and a south bridge.
Processors Clarkdale containing the north bridge, they were obliged to offer their customers an integrated graphics core. If earlier Intel integrated the graphics core into its chipsets and called them with the letter "G", for example, Intel G945, Intel G965, Intel G35, Intel G45, today chipsets for motherboards from Intel for the LGA1156 socket do not contain northbridge, so the graphics core was integrated directly into the processor.
Integrating the graphics core in the processor, Intel was far ahead of AMD Fusion processors, which also had to have a graphics core in their composition, for which ATI was actually acquired in difficult times for AMD.
Feature of the graphics core Clarkdale processors is their practical autonomy, which manifests itself in the fact that they can be used, or you can ensure the operation of the graphics subsystem of the system solely on the basis of an external video card. To communicate with external graphics cards, all Clarkdale processors include a PCI Express bus controller.
Unfortunately, not all users will be able to use the capabilities of the graphics core of the processor. motherboards, based on the Intel P55 chipset, will not be able to offer the end user video signal output from the processor's graphics core to external ports routed on the motherboard, which is due to the lack of an additional Intel Flexible Display Interface controller. The Intel FDI controller appeared only in the Intel H55, Intel H57/Q57 chipsets, so all motherboards based on these chipsets have separated external video ports for transmitting a video signal from the processor's graphics subsystem to the monitor.
It should be noted that between chipsets Intel P55 And Intel H55 there are other cardinal differences, which are not limited only by the lack of an FDI interface. The new Intel H55 chipset is completely devoid of support for Raid arrays, has a reduced number of USB ports to 12, and it also lacks the ability to use two video cards according to the 8x + 8x scheme, which motherboards on Intel-based P55. The most complete functionality for home gaming systems has the Intel H57 logic set, which supports Raid arrays and allows you to expand up to 14 USB 2.0 protocol ports. Unfortunately, the Intel H57 chipset does not allow installing two video cards in one system. Thus, the user, giving preference to the built-in graphics core of the processor, is deprived of the possibility of installing a second video card in the system.
As a rule, such a situation leads to the fact that manufacturers based on the chipset Intel H55 unsolder mATX motherboards. Some, trying to provide the user with such promising technologies as USB 3.0 and RAID with SATA III ports, unsolder additional controllers from third-party manufacturers.
Regarding heat dissipation of new motherboards based on chipsets Intel H55/H57, it is 5.2 watts, while the Intel P55 chipset was limited to 4.7 watts. But these 5.2 watts are not critical and will not force manufacturers to install large and expensive cooling systems on their motherboards. External examination of the motherboard Gigabyte H55M-USB3.
The motherboard has mATX format, soldered on a two-layer board with copper conductors. There are no complaints about the designers of this motherboard. You immediately feel the many years of experience of Gigabyte employees in building motherboards. different design. The board has four memory slots for DDR3 memory. Not enough board space this format leads to the fact that after installing the video card, pulling out the memory strips from the first slots without removing it becomes a rather problematic task. Although it should be noted that if Gigabyte has this only on mATX boards, then manufacturers such as ASRock sin with this on full-fledged ATX versions as well.
An 8-pin connector is used to power the processor, which meets the current power requirements from Intel. The motherboard starts quietly with a 4-pin connector, but this is not recommended, since contacts may melt during overclocking. Although with inadequate power supply through the 8-pin connector, one cannot dream of good overclocking.
The motherboard has the following expansion slots:
- 1 x PCI Express x16, running in x16 mode
- 1 x PCI Express x16, works in x4 mode
- 2 x PCI
The second slot cut down to 4x will turn any high-speed video card into a "disability".
The reverse side of the motherboard does not have any claims from our side. There are no "protruding" contacts that could short-circuit to body ground after the assembly is completed. Opposite the processor socket, there is a backpalate, which strengthens it if it is necessary to install massive coolers.
The motherboard has an LGA1156 socket with the only possible option for mounting a cooler, which must be taken into account when choosing a processor cooling system.
Therefore, I would like to immediately answer the questions of users who are trying to transfer their coolers from the LGA775 socket to this platform. This is only possible in two cases:
- the manufacturer on the motherboard has provided two options for holes
- method of finalizing the cooler mounting
Given the fact that this motherboard has holes only for mounting LGA1156 coolers, the user has only the option of refinement. I'll give you some ideas right away:
- LGA 775: 72 mm.
- LGA 1156: 75 mm.
This motherboard deserves special thanks for the presence of two four-pin connectors for the processor and case fans. Their peculiarity lies in the fact that products from Gigabyte can control not only PWM fans, but also ordinary 3-pin coolers, which many products cannot boast of. Via the EasyTuner software product or motherboard BIOS board, it is possible to set temperature thresholds at which the cooler will spin at the minimum and maximum rotational speeds.
The board has four slots for DDR3 memory. The maximum operating frequency supported by the board, or rather by the processor memory controller, depends on the installed processor, which must be taken into account when choosing random access memory. Today, the transfer of the memory controller to the processor forces us to select RAM according to the processor, and not according to the north bridge of the motherboard.
Among the I / O ports soldered on the motherboard, we see a fairly good set for a mATX board: 4 x USB 2.0, 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x VGA, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x DVI-D, 1 x eSATA 3Gb / s, 1 x HDMI port, 1 x IEEE 1394a, 1 x PS/2 (keyboard or mouse), 1 x RJ45 LAN, SPDIF out (optical), 6 audio jacks (Line In / Line Out / MIC In/Surround Speaker Out (Rear Speaker) Out) / Center / Subwoofer Speaker Out / Side Speaker Out)
Among the advantages of the motherboard, I would like to note the abundance of available image output ports soldered on the board - not every external video card can boast of such an abundance. Such a set is quite enough to create a home multimedia station.
However, instead of one of the available video ports, we would like to see a second network LAN port. Six USB 2.0 ports, two of which support USB 3.0, are more than enough. The board itself has three more ports for distributing six USB 2.0 ports - for those who actively use them.
Among the additional features available on the board, I would like to highlight the presence of an internal one FireWire port, COM port and six USB 2.0 ports.
The motherboard has seven SATA II ports. Five of the available ports are powered by the Intel H55 chipset, while the last two are implemented by the chipset under the name GIGABYTE SATA2 and support RAID arrays 0/1 and JBOD. The latest ports are highlighted in white. BIOS motherboard Gigabyte H55M-USB3.
Our review could not claim the title complete overview, if we had not touched on the BIOS capabilities of the motherboard. Traditionally, we expect great features from a Gigabyte board, even though this is a stripped-down mATX version.
Externally BIOS motherboard is not much different from the BIOS of motherboards of previous series from this manufacturer. For our part, we only recall that every self-respecting owner of a Gigabyte motherboard immediately presses the Cntrl + F1 combination when entering it to unlock its full potential for themselves.
Journey through BIOS motherboard, let's start with the most interesting section for an overclocker: MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.).
One click only anticipates us with the capabilities of this device. In the first window, we see only summary information on the system.
By clicking on a section M.I.T. current status we get more detailed information about the existing system.
Chapter Advanced Frequency Settings created to change the frequencies and multiplier of the processor. This section also presents the possibility of changing the operating frequency of the graphics core of the processor.
Many parameters in the BIOS sections are set to Auto mode, which is not very good and does not allow reaching maximum frequencies when overclocking the processor. I hope it is our overclocking users who understand and will indicate the explicit values that they are interested in.
Tab Advanced Memory Settings allows the user to more carefully configure the processor memory subsystem, which is especially important when overclocking it.
The motherboard allows you to fix the RAM timings, which I always recommend you use when overclocking the system.
most interesting for overclocker is a section on changing voltages on various components of the system, - Advanced Voltage Settings.
It should be noted that this section looks quite familiar to users with experience in overclocking. The range of possible voltages depends on the installed processor, and for the Core i5 processor installed in our case, it turned out to be quite worthy. There is also the usual voltage calibration on the processor when it drops due to increased loads.
Otherwise motherboard bios standard and of no particular interest to us.
The results of overclocking the Core i5 661 processor on the Gigabyte H55M-USB3 motherboard.
Processor overclocking went smoothly as usual. The most stable frequency was 218 MHz, with a reduced processor multiplier. For a good overclocking of the Core i5 661 processor, you don’t need ordinary frequencies above 200 MHz at all. A high multiplier of 25 allows you to limit yourself to smaller numbers.
In our case, we limited ourselves to a clock generator frequency of 173 MHz, which allowed us to reach a frequency of 4.16 GHz on the processor. This overclocking cannot be called a record, but the data shows that it was limited solely by the capabilities of the processor itself.
Conclusion.
Tested motherboard She left us with only a positive impression of herself. High-quality assembly, great design, stable operation, necessary overclocking potential - these are its strengths.
As for the chipset Intel H55, then it is more than a budget solution, which Gigabyte added additional controllers presented to the user in the form of a tested product.
For more serious solutions, we would recommend products based on the outdated Intel P55, which supports SLI/CrossFire on motherboards. Of course, it will require the abandonment of the integrated processor graphics, but it is not needed for users who plan to install two video cards in their system.
The tested motherboard will be an excellent option for creating office machines and multimedia stations, given the support for all modern data ports and the presence of all the necessary video outputs. At the same time, the cost of the product fluctuates around $ 150.
Our MegaObzor portal gives the product a well-deserved gold medal.
Introduction
In this term paper, I will consider the "Integrated" Intel H55 and H57 chipsets. At the very beginning of January 2010, Intel almost ended the glorious era of processors based on the Core microarchitecture. Now, ironically, only ultra-budget models under the Celeron trademark for Socket 775 will be released on Core (for some time yet). in number options applications. However, it cannot be said that the use of new chipsets is an indispensable condition or one that allows you to fully unlock the potential of new processors: somewhere the potential will be revealed more fully, and somewhere it will be completely hidden. Well, let's get acquainted with the first "integrated" chipsets for Nehalem (or rather, Clarkdale).
1. The history of the creation of the company INTEL
It all started with the fact that in 1955, the inventor of the transistor, William Shockley, opened his own company ShockleySemiconductorLabs in Palo Alto (which, among other things, was the beginning of the creation of Silicon Valley), where he recruited quite a lot of young researchers. In 1959, for a number of reasons, a group of eight engineers left him, who were not satisfied with the work "for their uncle" and they wanted to try to implement their own ideas. The Traitor Eight, as Shockley called them, including Moore and Noyce, founded FairchildSemiconductor.
Bob Noyce took over as director of research and development at the new company. Later, he claimed that he came up with the microcircuit out of laziness - it looked rather pointless when, in the process of manufacturing micromodules, silicon wafers were first cut into individual transistors, and then again connected to each other into a common circuit. The process was extremely time-consuming - all connections were soldered by hand under a microscope! - and expensive. By that time, a Fairchild employee, also one of the co-founders, Jean Hoerni, had already developed the so-called. planar technology for the production of transistors, in which all working areas are in the same plane. Noyce suggested isolating individual transistors in a crystal from each other with reverse-biased p-n junctions, and covering the surface with an insulating oxide, and making interconnections by spraying aluminum strips. Contact with individual elements was carried out through windows in this oxide, which were etched according to a special pattern with hydrofluoric acid.
Moreover, as he found out, aluminum perfectly stuck to both silicon and its oxide (it was the problem of the adsorption of the conductor material to silicon that until recently did not allow the use of copper instead of aluminum, despite its higher electrical conductivity). This planar technology in a somewhat modernized form has survived to this day. To test the first microcircuits, a single device was used - an oscilloscope.
Meanwhile, it turned out that Noyce was ahead of him in the noble cause of creating the first microcircuit. Back in the summer of 1958, Jack Kilby, an employee of Texas Instruments, demonstrated the possibility of manufacturing all discrete elements, including resistors and even capacitors, on silicon.
Planar technology was not at his disposal, so he used the so-called mesa transistors. In August, he assembled a working layout of the trigger, in which individual elements made by him were connected with gold wires, and on September 12, 1958, he presented a working microcircuit - a multivibrator with an operating frequency of 1.3 MHz. In 1960, these achievements were demonstrated to the public - at the exhibition of the American Institute of Radio Engineers. The press received the discovery very coldly. Among other negative features of "integratedcircuit" non-repairability was called. Although Kilby applied for a patent as early as February 1959, and Fairchild did not do so until July of that year, the latter was granted a patent earlier - in April 1961, and Kilby - only in June 1964. Then there was a ten-year war of priorities, in as a result of which, as they say, friendship won. Ultimately, the Court of Appeal upheld Noyce's claim to technology leadership, but ruled that Kilby was the creator of the first working microchip. In 2000, Kilby received the Nobel Prize for this invention (Academician Alferov was among the other two laureates).
Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore left FairchildSemiconductor to form their own firm, soon joined by AndyGrove. The same financier who had earlier helped create Fairchild provided $2.5 million, although the one-page business plan, hand-typed by Robert Noyce, did not look very impressive: a lot of typos, plus very general statements.
Choosing a name was no easy task. Dozens of options were proposed, but they were all discarded. By the way, do the names CalComp or CompTek mean anything to you? But they could belong not to those popular companies that wear them now, but to the largest processor manufacturer - at one time they were rejected among other options. In the end, it was decided to name the company Intel, from the words "integrated electronics". True, at first they had to buy this name from a group of motels that had registered it earlier.
So in 1969 Intel started with memory chips and achieved some success, but clearly not enough for fame. In the first year of existence, the income was only $ 2,672.
Today, Intel manufactures chips for market sales, but in its early years, the company often made chips to order. In April 1969, representatives of the Japanese calculator company Busicom approached Intel. The Japanese have heard that Intel has the most advanced chip technology. For their new desktop calculator, Busicom wanted to order 12 chips for various purposes. The problem, however, was that Intel's resources at the time did not allow for such an order. The methodology for developing microcircuits today is not very different from the one that was in the late 60s of the XX century, however, the toolkit differs quite noticeably.
In those long, long years, such very laborious operations as design and testing were performed manually. Designers drew drafts on graph paper, and draftsmen transferred them to special waxed paper (wax). The prototype mask was made by manually drawing lines on huge sheets of lavsan film. None computer systems calculation of the circuit and its nodes did not yet exist. The correctness was checked by "passing" along all the lines with a green or yellow felt-tip pen. The mask itself was made by transferring a drawing from a lavsan film to the so-called rubilite - huge two-layer ruby-colored sheets. The engraving on rubilite was also carried out by hand. Then a few days had to double-check the accuracy of the engraving. In the event that it was necessary to remove or add some transistors, this was again done manually, using a scalpel. Only after a thorough check, the rubylite sheet was handed over to the mask maker. The slightest mistake at any stage - and everything had to start over. For example, the first test instance of "product 3101" is 63-bit.
In short, 12 new Intel chips physically could not pull. But Moore and Noyce were not only great engineers, but also entrepreneurs, in connection with which they strongly did not want to lose a profitable order. And then it occurred to one of Intel employees, Ted Hoff (TedHoff), that since the company does not have the ability to design 12 microcircuits, it is necessary to make only one universal microcircuit, which in its own way functionality will replace them all. In other words, Ted Hoff formulated the idea of a microprocessor - the first in the world. In July 1969, a development team was formed and work began. In September, StanMazor also joined the band, having moved from Fairchild. The Japanese Masatoshi Shima entered the group as a controller from the customer. To fully ensure the operation of the calculator, it was necessary to make not one, but four microcircuits. Thus, instead of 12 chips, it was required to develop only four, but one of them is universal. No one has been involved in the manufacture of microcircuits of such complexity before.
What is a chipset
Chipset (Chipset) - the basis of the motherboard, is a set of chips for system logic. Through the chipset, all subsystems of the PC interact. Chipsets have a high degree of integration, and are (most often) two microcircuits (single-chip solutions are less common), in which integrated controllers are implemented that ensure the operation and interaction of the main computer subsystems.
In almost all modern chipsets, the system logic set consists of two northbridge and southbridge chips. The name of the microcircuits is due to their position relative to the PSI bus: north is higher, south is lower.
The northbridge chip provides operation with the fastest subsystems.
It contains: a system bus controller, through which interaction with the processor takes place; a memory controller that works with system memory; an AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) graphics bus controller that provides interaction with the graphics subsystem (today, most chipsets support 1x / 2x / 4x interfaces, AGP 8th speed is coming soon); Southbridge communication bus controller (PCI - buses in the classical sense).
The task of the north bridge is to organize the servicing of requests to the system memory with minimal delays. Solutions to this problem are based on the implementation of a memory controller that allows you to simultaneously process a large number of requests and data, prioritizing and sequencing access to the main memory. For more efficient use of the memory bus, data buffering is used, which ensures simultaneous work with the memory of several devices in the access time sharing mode.
As mentioned earlier, the classic implementation of the two-bridge architecture involves the use of the PCI bus as a communication channel between bridges. But a 32-bit PCI bus running at 33MHz has a peak bandwidth of 133Mb/s, which is not enough to meet the needs of today's peripherals. Therefore, most manufacturers use other interfaces to connect chipset chips, which, in turn, made it possible to bring the PCI bus controller from the north bridge to the south bridge. The hub architecture (Intel 800-series chipsets) has become a pioneer in this area. Its essence is reduced to the transition to the connection of bridges according to the "point-to-point" scheme. In this case, a special 8-bit bus was used, providing a bandwidth of 266 Mb/s. The controller of this bus, using proprietary technologies, optimizes the work with requests from peripheral devices to the main memory. All this makes the operation of the hubs (north and south bridges) more independent and removes the restrictions imposed by the use of the PCI bus as a link. Similar technologies are implemented in chipsets from VIA (V-Link Hub architecture) and two-processor solutions from SiS (MnTIOL bus).
The south bridge provides work with slower system components and peripherals. The following controllers and devices have become standard for the south bridge:
2. USB controller (one or more) to handle Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices, USB should replace legacy external interfaces such as RS-232 serial (COM port) and IEEE-1284 parallel (LPT) -port). Disadvantages of old solutions: low bandwidth, impossibility of hot swapping and connection of several devices in a chain to the same port, as well as a small length of the interface cable.
3. LPC bus controller (Low Pin Count Interface), which replaced the outdated ISA. The LPC bus has a 4-bit interface connected to a Super I/O chip that supports external ports (serial COM and parallel LPT, PS/2 and infrared), as well as a floppy drive controller.
Most modern chipsets implement the AC'97 (Audio Codec) audio controller in their southbridge. The AC'97 specification implies the separation of digital and analog processing processes, each of which is performed by a separate microcircuit, and the AC-Link interface for their interaction is also defined. Thus, in the south bridge, the audio signal is processed in in digital form- in other words, it implements the digital part (Digital AC’97 Controller). To implement all the features provided by the AC'97 specification, an AMP controller is integrated into the south bridge chip. The AMP cards (Audio/Modem Riser Card) it supports contain the analog circuits of the AC'97 audio codec and/or the MC'97 (Modem Codec) modem codec. The use of dual-chip chipsets allows different combinations of northbridges and southbridges, as long as they support the same interface. This makes it possible to create the most productive systems at minimal cost and in the shortest possible time, since in order to implement the latest specifications, it is enough to upgrade only one chipset of the system logic, and not the chipset as a whole.
Intel H55 and H57 Express
Why chipsets are called "integrated" is obviously already well known: this is usually what solutions with integrated video are called, but now the GPU has left the chipset and moved to the CPU in the same way as the memory controller (in Bloomfield) and the PCI Express controller for graphics ( at Lynnfield) earlier. In accordance with this, the Intel product range has slightly changed: the former letter G has been replaced by H. The H55 and H57 are really very close in functionality, and the H57 of this pair is certainly the older one. However, if we compare the capabilities of the new products with the hitherto lonely chipset for Socket 1156 - P55 processors, it turns out that the H57 is the most similar to it, having only two differences, just due to the implementation of the video system. H55 is the youngest PCH in the family, with reduced functionality.
H57 Chipset Specification
The key features of the H57 are as follows:
Up to 8 PCIEx1 ports (PCI-E 2.0, but with PCI-E 1.1 data rate);
Up to 4 PCI slots
· 6 Serial ATA II ports for 6 SATA300 devices (SATA-II, the second generation of the standard), with support for AHCI mode and functions like NCQ, with the ability to disable individually, with support for eSATA and port splitters;
the ability to organize a RAID array of levels 0, 1, 0 + 1 (10) and 5 with the Matrix RAID function (one set of disks can be used in several RAID modes at once - for example, on two disks you can organize RAID 0 and RAID 1, for each the array will be allocated its own part of the disk);
· 14 USB 2.0 devices (on two EHCI host controllers) with the ability to individually disable;
P55 differences of the newcomer were minimal. The architecture has been preserved (one chip, without division into north and south bridges - de facto it is just the south bridge), all the traditional "peripheral" functionality has remained unchanged. The first difference is the implementation of a specialized FDI interface in the H57, through which the processor sends the generated screen image (be it a Windows desktop with application windows, a full-screen demonstration of a movie or a 3D game), and the task of the chipset is to pre-configure display devices to ensure timely display of this image to the [desired] screen (Intel HD Graphics supports up to two monitors. However, there is nothing new in the very fact of additional interfaces between the processor and the chipset (formerly between chipset bridges), and when we talk about the DMI bus as the only corresponding communication channel, we mean only the main channel for transmitting data of a wide profile, no more, and some highly specialized interfaces have always existed.
The second difference on the block diagram of the chipset is impossible to notice - however, it is also impossible to notice it in objective reality, since it exists only in the reality of marketing. Here, Intel applies the same approach that segmented the chipsets of the previous architecture: the top chipset (today it is X58) implements two full-speed interfaces for external graphics, the mid-range solution (P55) - one, but split into two at half speed, and the younger ones and integrated products of the line - one full-speed, without the ability to use a pair of video cards. It is quite obvious that the actual chipset of the current architecture cannot affect the support or lack of support for two graphical interfaces in any way (yes, P45 and P43 were obviously the same chip). It's just that when you start configuring the system, the H57 or H55 motherboard "doesn't find" options to organize the operation of a pair of PCI Express 2.0 ports, while the P55 motherboard manages to do this in a similar situation. The real, "iron" background of the situation to a simple user, in general, does not matter. So, SLI and CrossFire are available on P55 based systems, but not on H55/H57 based systems.
The key features of the H55 are as follows:
Support for all Socket 1156 processors (including the corresponding Core i7, Core i5, Core i3 and Pentium families) based on the Nehalem microarchitecture when connected to these processors via the DMI bus (with a throughput of ~2 GB/s);
· FDI interface for receiving a fully rendered screen image from the processor and a block for outputting this image to the display device(s);
· up to 6 PCIEx1 ports (PCI-E 2.0, but with data transfer rate PCI-E 1.1);
Up to 4 PCI slots
· 6 Serial ATA II ports for 6 SATA300 devices (SATA-II, the second generation of the standard), with support for AHCI mode and functions like NCQ, with the ability to disable individually, with support for eSATA and port splitters;
· 12 USB 2.0 devices (on two EHCI host controllers) with the ability to individually disable;
MAC controller gigabit ethernet and a special interface (LCI/GLCI) for connecting a PHY controller (i82567 for Gigabit Ethernet implementation, i82562 for Fast Ethernet implementation);
· High Definition Audio (7.1);
· strapping for low-speed and obsolete peripherals, etc.
There are already changes in the support of traditional peripherals - though not too significant (it's almost impossible to determine by eye how many USB ports a chipset supports). It is clearly seen that the regression in this case "rolls back" the situation at the time of the ICH10/R southbridges: the H55 is devoid of exactly those changes that allowed us to suggest the name ICH11R for the P55. H55 is in its pure form ICH10, and without the letter R: the junior chipset of the Intel 5x line also did not receive the functionality of a RAID controller. Of course, the FDI interface was added to the list of ICH10 characteristics in this case, and it is equally obvious that the H55 does not support SLI / CrossFire, and indeed two [normal] graphical interfaces. Summing up the differences: the most budget solution the new line has 12 USB ports instead of 14 for the P55/H57, 6 PCI-E ports instead of 8, and no RAID functionality. The "peripheral" PCI Express controller still formally complies with the second version of the standard, however, the data transfer rate over its lines is set at PCI-E 1.1 (up to 250 MB/s in each of two directions simultaneously) - ICH10, definitely. How bad or good is the peripheral support of the new chipsets? In the case of H57, this is still the same maximum, but not unique for today set. In the case of the H55, I suppose many will notice the lack of RAID (but, of course, not the grandiose limitation of the number of USB ports to 12 pieces). Actually, buyers might not have noticed (few people still need more than one hard drive at home), but how can you sell motherboards without RAID? Well, quite cheap microATX-models, of course, will be released anyway - Intel, for example, offers such a solution as a reference for the new platform. But more serious products without the usual attribute… hardly. This means that they will unsolder an additional RAID controller, bringing the already excessive number of SATA ports to 8-10. On the other hand, perhaps the H55 will have its own well-defined niche, and more demanding (or not knowing exactly what they want) buyers will be offered models based on the H57. The difference in the selling price of the chipsets ($3) is unlikely to significantly affect the price of the final product.
Comparison table of characteristics of motherboards
ASUS P7H55-M Pro
ASUS has the widest range of boards based on the Intel H55 chipset, which includes six models. Among them, the P7H55-M Pro is a mid-range product without any unique features. Accordingly, its expandability and functionality will satisfy the needs of most users, as well as the price, which is about 3600 rubles.
Let's start with the fact that the configuration of the ASUS P7H55-M Pro expansion slots is the most optimal, and includes one PEG slot, one PCI Express x1 slot and a pair of PCI slots.
We didn't have any complaints about the rear panel configuration, although we wouldn't mind the optional DisplayPort video output.
The processor power subsystem is made according to a 4-phase scheme, and the memory controller power converter is made according to a 2-phase scheme.
Motherboard ASUS P7H55-M Pro supports a large number of proprietary utilities and technologies. These include the Express Gate shell, the MyLogo 2 POST screen replacement function, and the BIOS firmware recovery system - CrashFree BIOS 3. We note support for profiles BIOS settings- OC Profile:
As well as the multifunctional utility TurboV EVO, which, in addition to overclocking the processor and memory, allows you to overclock the integrated graphics core:
As for the BIOS, the board boasts a very large set of RAM settings.
System monitoring performed perfectly high level. In particular, the board displays the current temperatures of the processor and system, monitors voltages, rotation speeds of all fans, which, using the Q-Fan2 function, can change the rotation speed depending on the temperature of the processor and system.
Overclocking features are concentrated in the "AI Tweaker" section, and do not have any drawbacks:
In particular, on the ASUS P7H55-M Pro board, we achieved stable system operation at a Bclk frequency of 190 MHz.
Formulate conclusions on the maternal ASUS board The P7H55-M Pro is quite easy, since the price of the product fully corresponds to its main features, and as a bonus, the user receives support for the ParallelATA protocol, as well as a lot of additional ASUS technologies.
high stability and performance;
6-phase processor power circuit;
Support for one P-ATA channel (JMicron JMB368);
High Definition Audio 7.1 sound and Gigabit Ethernet network controller;
Support for USB 2.0 interface (twelve ports);
· a wide range of ASUS proprietary technologies (PC Probe II, EZ Flash 2, CrashFree BIOS 3, MyLogo 2, Q-Fan, etc.);
An additional set of AI Proactive technologies (AI Overclock, OC Profile (eight profiles), AI Net 2, TurboV EVO, EPU, etc.).
· not detected.
Board Features:
Powerful overclocking features and fairly good results;
· no support for LPT and FDD interfaces;
· Only one PS/2 port.
Conclusion
In this course project, I had to get acquainted with the "Integrated" Intel H55 and H57 chipsets. First of all, you need to understand that incompatibility between different chipsets and processors of this socket is not fatal. Any of these processors will work in a board on any of these chipsets, the only question is whether its owner will lose integrated graphics, for which he has already paid anyway. Everything seems to be simple: if you want to use the built-in Clarkdale graphics, take the H57. If you want to create a normal (we don't say "full", 2 x16) SLI/CrossFire - take the P55. You can't be together. And in the most probable intermediate case, when exactly one external video card is planned to be used as video? In this case, there is no difference at all between P55 and H57, and even the selling price does not play a role here - you will buy the motherboard in the store, and not the chipset crystal near the checkpoint at the Intel factory.
Product release date.
Lithography
Lithography indicates the semiconductor technology used to produce integrated chipsets and the report is shown in nanometer (nm) indicating the size of the features embedded in the semiconductor.
Estimated power
Thermal Design Power (TDP) indicates the average performance in watts when processor power is dissipated (when running at base frequency with all cores engaged) under a complex workload as defined by Intel. Review the requirements for thermoregulation systems in the datasheet.
Embedded options available
Available Options for Embedded Systems refers to products that provide extended purchase options for smart systems and embedded solutions. Product specifications and terms of use are provided in the Production Release Qualification (PRQ) report. Contact your Intel representative for details.
Integrated Graphics ‡
The integrated graphics system delivers stunning graphics quality and performance, as well as flexible display options without the need for a separate graphics card.
Graphics system output
The graphics system output defines the interfaces available for interacting with device displays.
Intel® Clear Video Technology
Intel® Clear Video Technology is a set of video encoding and processing technologies built into the processor's integrated graphics system. These technologies make video playback more stable and graphics more clear, vivid and realistic.
PCI support
PCI support indicates the type of support for the Peripheral Component Interconnect standard
PCI Express Edition
The PCI Express edition is the version supported by the processor. PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) is a high-speed serial expansion bus standard for computers to connect hardware devices to it. Various PCI Express versions support various speeds data transmission.
PCI Express Configurations‡
PCI Express (PCIe) configurations describe the available PCIe channel configurations that can be used to bind PCIe PCH channels to PCIe devices.
Max. number of PCI Express lanes
The PCI Express (PCIe) lane consists of two differential signal pairs for receiving and transmitting data, and is also the basic element of the PCIe bus. The number of PCI Express lanes is the total number of lanes supported by the processor.
USB version
USB (Universal Serial Bus) is an industry standard connection technology for connecting peripherals to a computer.
Total number of SATA ports
SATA (serial data interface used to connect storage devices) is a high-speed standard for connecting storage devices such as hard drives And optical discs, to the motherboard.
Integrated network adapter
Integrated network adapter assumes the MAC address of the built-in Intel Ethernet device or ports local network on the system board.
Integrated IDE adapter
The IDE interface is an interface standard for connecting storage devices that indicates that the disk controller is integrated into the disk and is not separate component on the motherboard.
T CASE
The critical temperature is the maximum temperature allowed in the processor's integrated heat spreader (IHS).
Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) ‡
Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O enhances virtualization support in IA-32 (VT-x) and Itanium® (VT-i) processors with I/O virtualization features. Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O helps users improve system security, reliability, and I/O device performance in virtualized environments.
Compliant with Intel® vPro™ platform ‡
The Intel vPro® platform is a set of hardware and technologies used to build end-to-end business computing systems with high performance, built-in security, modern features platform management and stability.
Intel® ME Firmware Version
Embedded Intel® Management Engine (Intel® ME) leverages the platform's built-in management and security application capabilities for remote out-of-band management of networked computing resources.
Intel® Remote PC Assist Technology
Intel® Remote PC Assist Technology allows you to request remote technical assistance from your service provider when you experience a PC problem, even when the OS, network software, or applications are not working. This service was discontinued in October 2010.
Intel® Quick Resume Technology
Driver Intel technologies® Quick Resume (QRTD) allows you to use your Intel® Viv™ technology-based PC as a consumer electronics device that can be turned on and off instantly (after the initial boot if this feature is enabled).
Intel® Quiet System Technology
Intel® Quiet System Technology reduces system noise and heat generation with intelligent fan speed control algorithms.
Intel® HD Audio Technology
The Intel® High Definition Audio subsystem supports playback of more channels in more high quality than previous integrated audio systems. In addition, the technology required to support the latest audio formats is integrated into the Intel® High Definition Audio subsystem.
Intel® AC97 Technology
Intel® AC97 Technology is an audio codec standard that defines a high-quality, surround sound-enabled audio architecture for PCs. It is the predecessor to the Intel® High Definition Audio subsystem.
Intel® Matrix Storage Technology
Intel® Matrix Storage Technology provides security, performance, and scalability for desktop and mobile PC platforms. By using one or more hard drives, users can take advantage of increased performance and reduced power consumption. When using multiple drives, the user receives additional protection against data loss in case of failure hard drive. Predecessor of Intel® Rapid Storage Technology
Intel® Trusted Execution Technology‡
Intel® Trusted Execution Technology enhances secure command execution through hardware enhancements to Intel® processors and chipsets. This technology provides digital office platforms with security features such as measured application launch and secure command execution. This is achieved by creating an environment where applications run in isolation from other applications on the system.
Anti-theft technology
Intel® Anti-Theft Technology helps keep the data on your laptop safe in case it's lost or stolen. To use Intel® Anti-Theft Technology, you must subscribe to an Intel® Anti-Theft Technology Service Provider.
04/12/2010 | Quality |
1 - Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H 2 - MSI H55M-E33 3 - Test results. Conclusions Show as one page
With the announcement of the 32nm Core i5-6xx, Core i3-5xx and Pentium G processors based on the Clarkdale core, Intel introduced the H55, H57 and Q57 Express chipsets, allowing you to use the graphics core built into the new CPUs under Socket LGA1156. Previously, the GPU function was performed by the northbridges of integrated chipsets. Now modern central processing units acquire an increasing number of various controllers, while the chipsets are responsible only for communication capabilities ready systems.
We have already talked about the new line of chipsets in the material devoted to Clarkdale processors. Then the emphasis was placed on the CPU. In this review, we will look at a couple of representatives based on the Intel H55 Express, which differs from its older counterparts in somewhat limited functionality.
Like the entire line of chipsets that support the integrated graphics core in new LGA1156 processors, the Intel H55 has an FDI (Flexible Display Interface) bus, which allows the video signal from the GPU to be transmitted via the PCH chip to the connectors on the rear panel of the motherboard. Recall that the "set" of system logic Intel P55 Express, presented together with processors based on the Lynnfield core, is deprived of such an opportunity, but has backward compatibility with solutions from the Clarkdale family. In this case, the video core is simply not used, although the ability to use 16 PCI Express 2.0 lanes according to the x8 + x8 formula remains valid.
To limit the younger chipset, the number of USB ports was reduced from 14 to 12, and PCI Express lanes from 8 to 6, which is not so critical for home or office use. According to the specifications, the PCI-E interface belongs to the second generation, but its bandwidth belongs to the first. Also, the H55 lacks the ability to organize RAID arrays. But again, not all users need them so much, and many manufacturers install external controllers on their products to expand the functionality of end products. As a result, even with an additional chip, motherboards based on the Intel H55 Express are cheaper than those on the more advanced H57. And when every ten counts, then, of course, the choice is obvious.
In this article, we will get acquainted with motherboards manufactured by Gigabyte and MSI, which belong to the middle price category. All basic product data are listed in the table below.
| Model | ||
| Chipset | ||
| Processor socket | Socket LGA1156 | Socket LGA1156 |
| Processors | Core i7, Core i5, Core i3 and Pentium G | |
| Memory | 4 DIMM DDR3 SDRAM 800/1066/1333/1600* (OC), 16GB max | 4 DIMM DDR3 SDRAM 800/1066/1333/1600*/2000*/2133* (OC), 16GB max |
| PCI slots | 1 PCI Express 2.0 x16 1 PCI Express 1.1 x16 (x4) |
1 PCI Express 2.0 x16 2 PCI Express 1.1x1 |
| PCI slots | 2 | 1 |
| Integrated video core (in processor) | Intel HD Graphics | Intel HD Graphics |
| Video connectors | D-Sub, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort | D-Sub, DVI and HDMI |
| Number of connected fans | 2 (4pin) | 3 (1x 4pin and 2x 3pin) |
| USB 2.0 ports | 12 (6 connectors on the rear panel) | |
| ATA-133 | 1 channel (two devices, JMicron JMB368) | |
| Serial ATA | 5 channels SATA-II (Intel H55) | 6 channels SATA-II (Intel H55) |
| eSATA | 1 channel (H55) | - |
| RAID | - | - |
| Built-in sound | Realtek ALC889 (7.1, HDA) | Realtek ALC889 (7.1, HDA) |
| S/PDIF | Optic | - |
| Built-in network | Realtek RTL 8111D (Gigabit Ethernet) | Realtek RTL 8111DL (Gigabit Ethernet) |
| Firewire 1394 | 2 ports (one on board, Texas Instruments TSB43AB23) | - |
| LPT | - | + (on board) |
| COM | 1 (on board) | 2 (on board) |
| BIOS | Award | AMI |
| Form factor | microATX | microATX |
| Dimensions, mm | 244x230 | 244x240 |
| Additional features | Dual BIOS | Jumper for overclocking the system by 10%, 15% and 20% of the nominal |
The Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H motherboard was tested without any delivery kit. At retail, the boards will have to ship with a software disk, instructions, one IDE cable, two SATA cables, and a bracket for back panel.
Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H is made on a corporate blue textolite in the microATX form factor, which allows you to assemble small systems and media centers. Of the supported processors, all modern models for Socket LGA1156 are declared, including even server solutions of the Xeon family. Naturally, the latter is not particularly advertised. In addition to the standard third-generation DDR memory frequencies, it is possible to use DDR3-1600 brackets. For Core i7 processors, in this case, it will be enough to set the appropriate multiplier, and for younger models, you will already have to increase the base frequency, since they are limited by a memory multiplier equal to x10.
The design of the board has some flaws, but they are not critical for such a form factor. So, the DIMM slots are close to the graphical interface, the IDE and FDD connectors are located between the main power connector and the last memory slot. In addition, one SATA connector will be blocked after installing a large graphics card.
But, as a rule, memory is rarely changed in systems based on such boards, floppy drives and IDE drives are not used now, and four drives, including DVD cutters, will be more than enough for the average user. Moreover, the Intel H55 Express chipset lacks support for RAID arrays, and the GA-H55M-UD2H does not have any external controllers to make up for this shortcoming. The rest of the product is solid, no complaints.
The processor power subsystem is built in a 4-phase scheme based on the Intersil ISL6334 PWM controller. Two more phases (Intersil ISL6322G) are provided for the memory controller and one (Intersil ISL6314 chip) for the integrated graphics core. The board belongs to the Ultra Durable 3 series, so polymer capacitors and chokes with ferrite cores are used in all power circuits. As connector additional food The processor on the GA-H55M-UD2H is set to the usual ATX12V.
The chipset is cooled by a small aluminum heatsink, since the low TDP level of the H55 chip, equal to 5.2 W, allows this. There are two 4-pin connectors on the board for connecting fans.
The functionality of the Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H is actually limited by the capabilities of the chipset itself: six SATA II channels, twelve USB 2.0 ports (six on the rear panel), two PCI slots and two PCI Express x16, one of which has only four high-speed interface lines from H55. On this model, a COM port is also divorced, but you will have to find a bar with a connector yourself.
The parallel interface for connecting IDE drives is implemented using the widely used JMicron JMB368 chip. The sound subsystem is based on the Realtek ALC889 HDA codec, the Gigabit Ethernet network is based on the Realtek 8111D chip.
Due to the tight mounting on the board, the Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 controller responsible for two IEEE1394 ports is located under the last PCI-E x16 slot - the missing high-speed interface lines just contributed to this.
On the rear panel there is a universal PS / 2 connector, six USB ports, an optical S / PDIF, a network connector, D-Sub, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort video interfaces, as well as six audio connectors, one eSATA and FireWire.
Of the features of the Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H, we note the proprietary Dual BIOS technology, which allows, if one of the two chips with the BIOS microcode is damaged, to still boot the system and restore the problem chip. True, if some serious failure occurs, for example, when updating the BIOS from under the OS, then no technology will save you and the board will have to be taken to a service center.
By the way, the contacts for resetting the CMOS memory are located near the SATA connectors - usually the company's engineers place them as far as possible from the edge of the board, almost in its center. If you install a video card of the GeForce GTX 2xx or Radeon HD 58xx class, then you still won't be able to close the contacts and the accelerator will have to be removed from the case. In this case, this is not important, since the motherboard is not of the level to install such video adapters on it, and you will not need to reset CMOS every day.
BIOS
Board BIOS Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H is based on Award Software microcode and its ability to produce fine tuning and overclocking of the system are no different from the possibilities of full-format solutions designed for enthusiasts.
All the necessary settings for tuning and overclocking are located in the MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) section. As usual for Gigabyte products, all items in the sections appear after pressing the Ctrl+F1 key combination in the main menu.
There are several more sections in MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) responsible for general information about the system, setting the frequencies of various nodes, memory and voltages. It also displays the BIOS version, current frequencies, memory size, processor and chipset temperatures, voltage on memory modules and Vcore.
M.I.T. Current Status allows you to view current information on the installed processor, multipliers of various system nodes, frequencies, temperatures of a single core, the amount of RAM and its timings.
The Advanced Frequency Setting contains settings for the processor multiplier, QPI bus, and memory. It is possible to change the base frequency from 100 to 600 MHz and the PCI Express frequency from 90 to 150 MHz. You can also adjust the amplitude of the processor and PCI Express signals, as well as the time delays between the CPU and chipset clocks.
The Advanced CPU Core Features subsection is designed to manage the technologies supported by the processor. Note that in the first BIOS versions, up to F4, the function to disable Hyper-Threading in the Core i5-6xx did not work, and when it was activated, the system simply hung after saving the settings.
In the Advanced Memory Settings section, as the name implies, memory settings are concentrated, namely the ability to select XMP profiles, multiplier, settings mode and timings. The Performance Enhance parameter allows you to either speed up the memory subsystem (Turbo and Extreme modes), or increase the board's overclocking potential (Standart). DRAM Timing Selectable allows you to use modules with default settings taken from SPD strips, or adjust timings for all channels at once (Quick mode) or individually for each (Expert). This is useful when "mismatched" or problematic modules are installed on the system.
Advanced Voltage Setting allows you to change all the main system supply voltages: processor, memory controller, graphics core built into the CPU, chipset, memory.
The range of changes is listed in the following table:
| Parameter | Range of changes |
| CPU Vcore | 0.5 to 1.9 V in 0.00625 V steps |
| Dynamic Vcore (DVID) | -0.8 to +0.59375V in 0.00625V steps |
| QPI/Vtt Voltage | 1.05 to 1.49V in 0.05-0.02V steps |
| Graphics Core | 0.2 to 1.8V in 0.05-0.02V steps |
| PCH Core | 0.95 to 1.5V in 0.02V steps |
| CPU PLL | 1.6 to 2.54V in 0.1-0.02V steps |
| DRAM Voltage | 1.3 to 2.6V in 0.1-0.02V steps |
| DRAM Termination | 0.45 to 1.155V in 0.02-0.025V steps |
| Ch-A Data VRef. | |
| Ch-B Data VRef. | 0.64 to 1.51 in 0.01-0.05V steps |
| Ch-A Address VRef. | 0.64 to 1.51 in 0.01-0.05V steps |
| Ch-B Address VRef. | 0.64 to 1.51 in 0.01-0.05V steps |
The PC Health Status section is responsible for system monitoring. Here you can track the values of the main voltages, the temperature of the processor and motherboard, the speed of the two connected fans. You can also set up a notification about CPU overheating or a stop of a fan and automatic adjustment of the speed of rotation of the impeller. In the latter case, the fans must have connectors with a control contact.
A built-in Q-Flash utility is provided for updating the BIOS. It is enough to connect a flash drive with microcode to the board and update it.
The motherboard was tested with a discrete graphics card, so the settings regarding the built-in GPU processor in the screenshots BIOS Setup are not reflected (except for the supply voltage). If you use the integrated video core, then the user will be able to select the amount of memory for the needs of the video system (maximum 128 MB) and the frequency of the graphics processor.
Overclocking
To find out the overclocking potential of the board, the following configuration was assembled:
- Processor: Intel Core i5-660 (3.33 GHz);
- Memory: G.Skill F3-10666CL7T-6GBPK (2x2 GB, DDR3-1333);
- Cooler: Prolimatech Megahalems + Nanoxia FX12-2000;
- Video card: ASUS EAH4890/HTDI/1GD5/A (Radeon HD 4890);
- Hard drive: Samsung HD252HJ (250GB, SATAII);
- Power supply: Seasonic SS-750KM (750 W);
- Thermal interface: Noctua NT-H1.
With these settings, the board behaved stably up to Bclk 220 MHz, which is quite good for a product of this price category and mATX form factor. For further overclocking, the QPI bus multiplier was lowered to x16, and the voltage on it had to be increased to 1.39 V. But even with these settings, we managed to pass tests at a base frequency that exceeded the previous result by only 5 MHz. By reducing the processor multiplier to x15 and increasing the chipset supply voltage to 1.16 V, 230 MHz has already been conquered - and this is quite a worthy result.
But for overclocking Lynnfield processors, the Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H motherboard is clearly not suitable. The fact is that with activated Hyper-Threading technology Xeon processor X3470 managed to overclock to 3.8 GHz, after which the power supply went into protection. It was possible to start the system only after some time (I had to disassemble the stand, then reinstall all the components in their places and additionally change the processor to Core i5-660). When virtual multi-core was disabled, the system remained stable at 3.8 GHz, but experiments to further increase the frequency were no longer carried out. Perhaps we just came across such a copy of the GA-H55M-UD2H, but extra caution does not hurt users.
It is also worth recalling that the maximum allowable voltages for Clarkdale processors are at the level of 1.4 V for the processor, 1.4 V for the Uncore block (QPI bus, memory controller and third-level cache), 1.65 V for memory modules and 1 .98V for CPU PLL. The integrated graphics core can safely transfer 1.55 V, but such a value may be required (it all depends on the CPU instance) when overclocking the processor without discrete graphics card or when raising the frequencies of the video core itself. Also, do not forget about the temperature regime of the CPU, which should not exceed the 85-degree threshold.
Our next member also refers to compact solutions that allow you to build small media centers or office machines. Although for the latter, the cost of ready-made systems based on the LGA1156 platform is currently too high.
The board comes in a small purple-and-white box, on the lid of which the main features of the product are marked.
The kit included the following:
- instructions for the motherboard;
- quick guide to system assembly;
- instructions for working with images partitions of the hard disk;
- a guide to using Winki (embedded OS, but not included in the kit for our region);
- disk with drivers;
- two SATA cables;
- rear I/O bar.
Like the previous model, MSI H55M-E33 is made in the microATX form factor. Unlike the red textolite and multi-colored connectors previously used for the production of inexpensive boards, the Taiwanese company has almost completely switched to a single strict style for its products of various price categories. Now, whether the board is based on the Intel X58 Express or the Intel G41 Express, everything will be made on a brown PCB with black and blue connectors and gray heatsinks. From the aesthetic side, it looks much nicer than multi-colored christmas garland. But the latter is especially valued in the Asian region. But we, of course, do not understand them.
MSI H55M-E33 supports all modern processors with an LGA1156 connector and DDR3 memory up to 2133 MHz, of course, in overclocking mode. The Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H motherboard discussed above is also capable of working with modules at this frequency - you simply have to raise the base frequency and reduce the processor multiplier if you want to leave the CPU running in the nominal mode.
The layout of the elements on the board is more or less thought out, and apart from the DIMM slots, there is practically nothing to complain about. But again, for such compact solutions, this disadvantage can be ignored. A pair of SATA connectors are rotated 90° relative to the board, so they will not be blocked when installing a large video card.
The processor is powered by a 4-channel circuit based on the uP6206AK controller from uPI Semiconductor Corp. For the rest of the CPU blocks, there is one more channel on the Intersil ISL6314. Thanks to APS (Active Phase Switching) hardware technology, the number of processor power phases can change depending on the degree of system load, which should positively affect the power efficiency of the board. The connector for connecting additional power is a regular, four-pin.
The PCH chip is cooled by a small aluminum heatsink. The number of fan connectors is limited to three, including a 4-pin processor connector. This is more than enough.
The functionality of the board is even somewhat lower than that of the GA-H55M-UD2H, although the price difference is about ten dollars. There is one graphical interface, two PCI-E x1, regular PCI, six SATA, 12 USB ports - everything that is determined by the specifications of the chipset and processor. Nothing extra. Although, the board also has blocks for LPT and COM ports. But for them you still need to look for strips with connectors.
Of the external controllers, the standard set is the JMicron JMB368 for the IDE, the audio path is assembled on the Realtek ALC889, and the network is on the Realtek 8111DL chip.
The back panel looks a little modest: two PS / 2, six USB ports, D-Sub, DVI and HDMI, one network port and six audio jacks.
For lovers of hardware overclocking, when the system itself selects the necessary parameters to increase the processor frequency, the board has a DIP switch (OC Switch technology) that allows you to overclock the system by 10, 15 or 20% of the nominal value.
BIOS is based on AMI microcode. The number of various adjustable parameters allows you to fine-tune the system quite finely.
All the necessary parameters for overclocking are concentrated in the Cell Menu section. Here you can immediately change the number of active processor cores, disable energy-saving technologies and Turbo Boost, control the frequencies of Bclk (100-600 MHz) and PCI Express bus (90-190 MHz), CPU and memory multipliers, as well as supply voltages. The QPI multiplier on our board, alas, was blocked.
In addition to OC Switch, Auto OverClocking Technology is provided for overclocking. It is enough to activate it, reboot the system and the board itself will select the necessary parameters to increase the processor frequency.
Management of a large number of technologies supported by the processor is already in the CPU Feature subsection.
You can find out information about the memory modules installed in the system in the Memory-Z subsection, and the timings themselves can already be configured in Advanced DRAM Configuration. The parameters are available for two channels at once.
The supply voltage range is shown in the following table:
| Parameter | Range of changes |
| CPU Voltage | |
| CPU VTT Voltage | 0.451 to 2.018V in 0.005-0.006V steps |
| GPU Voltage | +0.0 to +0.453V in 0.001V steps |
| DRAM Voltage | 0.978 to 1.898V in 0.006-0.009V steps |
| PCH 1.05 | 0.451 to 1.953V in 0.005-0.006V steps |
Monitoring is limited by the voltages on the board's power lines, on the processor and integrated graphics core, the rotation speed of three fans, and the CPU and system temperatures. You can also configure fan control in this section.
The M-Flash section is intended for updating the BIOS. Only the file must be located in the root of the disk, otherwise the board will not find it. Also, in case of damage to the microcode, it will be possible to boot from the flash drive and restore the BIOS.
Enthusiasts will appreciate the ability to save up to six profiles with system settings in the Overclocking Profile section, each of which can be briefly named using any Latin characters.
It will also be possible to adjust the number of "start-stops" in case of unsuccessful overclocking, until the system starts to boot with more benign default settings.
Software
In addition to the drivers, the MSI H55M-E33 comes with a few more utilities. One of them is MSI Live Update 4, designed to update the BIOS. But it is better to carry out this process with help M-Flash, since there is a possibility of a failure during the firmware from under operating system, which can lead to failure of the board.
Control Center is designed to monitor, overclock and control power-saving features.
Overclocking
It would seem that there are plenty of settings for overclocking, there are all the necessary supply voltages to change. But knowing MSI's love to cut down the BIOS functionality of cheap motherboards, one can't hope for decent overclocking. In this case, the limiting factor was the inability to change the QPI bus multiplier. Fortunately, Clarkdale processors tolerate the high frequency of this interface well, which can exceed the 4 GHz threshold.
To overclock the board, we used the same configuration as for the GA-H55M-UD2H. The voltage on the processor was raised to + 0.287, the rest of the settings were the same as when testing a competitor.
Concerns about overclocking were confirmed - the board stably passed tests at a base frequency of no more than 183 MHz. The QPI bus at the same time worked at 4405 MHz, which ultimately gave a data transfer rate of 8810 MT / s. CPU voltage boost VTT to best result did not lead.
Interestingly, once the MSI H55M-E33 was able to boot at a base frequency of 200 MHz (QPI 9600 GT/s!). Moreover, such an indicator was achieved randomly - it was not possible to repeat it again.
If you don’t want to bother with overclocking, but you want to increase system performance, you can use Auto OverClocking Technology, which itself will select all the necessary parameters to increase the processor frequency. But there is one thing here. Our test Core i5-660 board overclocked to 4.0 GHz, with Turbo Boost the frequency was 4.15 GHz. At the same time, the memory worked at 1280 MHz, the CPU supply voltage rose by + 0.179 V, but for some reason the modules stood at 1.72 V.
Such strange behavior with the memory supply voltage is not a peculiarity of this representative of the product line based on the Intel H55. All MSI boards with the auto-overclocking feature that we visited in our test lab were characterized by a constant rise in voltage to such a value, while the modules always worked at a frequency close to 1333 MHz. Unfortunately, we have not received an answer yet. Therefore, it is possible to recommend using such technology only at your own peril and risk.
The percentage-fixed overclock available when using the OC Switch sets the same voltages as in automatic mode. Only when raising the Bclk frequency by 10 and 15 percent does the memory work with a x5 multiplier, and with 20% overclocking - with x4.
Test configuration
Testing was carried out on the same
There is no clear leader in Lavalys Everest, all participants are equal in terms of memory subsystem performance. After integrating the memory controller, and indeed the entire north bridge into the processor, it becomes almost pointless to test motherboards, since the difference between them is negligible and can easily be attributed to a testing error. Exceptions can only be raw versions of the BIOS, which can just affect performance.
Archiving
Synthetic gaming packages on the boards are not unambiguous - in 3DMark'06 the GA-H55M-UD2H is more productive, in 3DMark Vantage it is already the MSI H55M-E33.
Products in games behave similarly. One has more fps on the model from Gigabyte, the other - on MSI. But keep in mind that testing was carried out at low resolution and average graphics quality. With normal settings, there will be no difference between the boards in games.
conclusions
As before, Intel still offers solutions for various market segments without any hint of universality. Want integrated graphics? Please, but you won't be able to install two video cards in the full-fledged CrossFireX or SLI mode later - for this, as usual, chipsets of a different level are provided. The same AMD in its arsenal has an integrated set of system logic with the ability to organize a bunch of Radeon series cards. On the other hand, the number of users who want to switch from integrated graphics to tandems is not so large, most likely, in the future there will be a purchase of only one, but a powerful video card. And in this case, solutions based on new Intel chipsets for the LGA1156 platform look great. Unlike products based on the P55 Express, the new products allow you to use the functionality of the integrated graphics core in Clarkdale processors, while they are cheaper, and for the mass user this is much more important than an additional PCI Express slot. The lack of support for RAID arrays in the Intel H55 is also not critical for many.
The Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H motherboard, based on the Intel H55 Express, has good functionality and quality for its price group. The model has all the necessary video connectors, and even a FireWire controller. The possibilities of BIOS Setup will be enough not only for an ordinary user, but also for the most demanding enthusiast. But in terms of overclocking, it is only suitable for new processors made using the 32-nm process technology. A weak power subsystem does not allow overclocking solutions based on the Lynnfield core to high frequencies- for them it is better to look at more expensive products.
MSI H55M-E33 is a representative of inexpensive, but high-quality solutions based on the most affordable chipset of the new Intel line. The Spartan delivery kit will be enough to assemble a simple system or media center. True, without a hint of the use of FireWire devices. Changeable parameters in the BIOS are enough to customize the computer for yourself. It will even be possible to overclock the processor by 20 percent, but no more. But for some reason, MSI products with auto-overclocking functions still suffer from a serious drawback, which consists in exceeding the allowable supply voltage of memory modules during overclocking. In this case, the company's programmers have more work to do.
Test equipment was provided by the following companies:
- Gigabyte - Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H motherboard;
- Intel- Intel processor Core i5-660, Xeon X3470;
- Master Group - ASUS EAH4890/HTDI/1GD5/A video card;
- MSI - MSI H55M-E33 motherboard;
- Noctua - Noctua NH-D14 cooler, Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste;
- Syntex - Seasonic SS-750KM power supply.