ASRock H55M – H55 on a budget
Despite having been spun off from ASUS in 2002 I have a small confession to make – this is the first time I’ve ever used an ASRock motherboard.
Originally conceived as a low-end, high volume competitor to the likes of ECS and Foxconn, ASRock quickly found themselves an enthusiast following with a string of products that bent the original specifications of chipsets.
This allowed, for example, the use of the AGP and DDR 865PE chipset, which first launched in 2003, with processors such as the first generation Core 2 Duos and Quads in 2006 – extending the useful life of components for the enthusiast on a budget.
So it’s for this reason that today we look at the ASRock H55M – not for anything as complex as a chipset – but for 4 little holes and a large bit of metal.
So why the H55M?
Home Theatre PCs can be somewhat compromised systems. In the quest for a sleek, quiet, compact system you can find yourself sacrificing in a number of areas. In my case this comes down to a few key demands; half height, mATX, and a passive cooler ducted through the case’s PSU’s fans.
For the H55M that last factor is key. There are plenty mATX H55 boards available that would otherwise fit the bill, but with H55 comes the new LGA1156 socket, complete with new cooler mounting points, while the chassis I personally use includes a passive LGA775 cooler.
ASRock gets round this problem with an incredibly simple solution; the standard LGA1156 mounting holes are positioned normally on the board, while the LGA775 holes are located alongside, rotated round a couple degrees clockwise.
It may seem trivial, but the LGA1156 socket lacks the sheer range of coolers available for LGA775 and it’s a feature that, to the best of my knowledge, is unique to the ASRock boards.
Bundle
As a budget board it would be a little unreasonable to expect ASRock to be throwing in everything and the kitchen sink.
The box makes promises of plenty features, but the majority of these are just BIOS or software features, when you look inside….
…. you find the usual manual, quickstart guides, a couple SATA cables and a CD of software.
This mostly comprises a few system monitoring and overclocking tools which for an HTPC system probably won’t be of a great deal of interest.
For some they may be interesting additions but most manufacturers offer similar tools so it’s more a case of ‘us too’ than a unique selling point.
Layout
The H55M actually sits at the bottom of ASRock’s H55 range, a range which bizarrely also includes an ATX board with no video output . Two other microATX boards exist in their H55 range, the near identical H55M LE – which just gains uprated capacitors – and the H55M Pro which has a few other changes we’ll look into in a moment.
First thing the eagle eyed amongst you may notice is that the board is not quite the full size permitted by the microATX specification; the inclusion of only 2 of a possible 4 DIMM slots allows ASRock to trim a couple centimetres off the bottom of the board.
On the plus side this makes it a little easier to work with if your case is a little on the tight size, but it does mean you are restricted to just 4GB of memory (unless you want to shell out for expensive 4GB DIMMs) and there is no support along the bottom edge of the board, which can cause it to flex quite a bit when fitting the memory and power connector.
At the bottom of the board you’ll also find the SATA ports. While the H55 chipset offers a total of six SATA 3Gbps ports the H55M features just 4 here. If you upgrade to the H55M Pro you gain a fifth, but neither board supports RAID; users have to shell out for an H57 equipped board if they want that.
Looking in at the socket area we can see the dual heatsink mounting holes.
The area around the socket is fairly clear, with low rise capacitors and no heatsinks on the VRMs to contend with, although over-sized memory modules and large heatsinks may clash. There is just enough room between the PEG (PCI Express Graphics) slot and memory to easily swap the memory even with a graphics card installed.
The H55 chipset itself is towards the bottom corner of the board, located behind the PEG slots. Unlike previous generation Intel chipsets this is a single chip solution, with the traditional northbridge functionality such as the memory controller and PCI Express links for the graphics card now being contained on the CPU.
We also find the front panel connectors and three sets of USB 2.0 headers, but no Firewire – again this is reserved for the H55M Pro.
ASRock have managed to provide a reasonable range of expansion slots; with a PEG slot connecting directly to the processors PCIe 2.0 16x controller, along with a 1x PCIe and PEG slot (although only 4x PCIe electrically), and a single PCI slot connected to the H55 chipset.
Officially neither the H55 nor the H57 chipset offer support for either SLI or CrossFire, but ASRock claim CrossFire compatibility. Even if it does work, however, the relatively low bandwidth between the CPU and H55 chipset would likely limit performance.
Finally on the back panel we find the usual range of audio, USB, and Ethernet ports along with an Optical Out for those using a separate receiver, a pair of combined USB and eSATA ports – making up the rest of the H55′s SATA connectivity – and DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI video output. There’s also a PS2 port for those who still hang on to a PS2 keyboard or mouse.
Usage
As our first motherboard review we unfortunately don’t have any data to compare it against other products, so a quantitive analysis would be a bit pointless - but based on previous experience with the H55 chipset there aren’t any obvious performance problems with the board.
Instead we are going to be focusing on the general functionality of the board, particularly features of interest to Home Theatre usage.
The BIOS offers a surprising range of options for such a low priced offering, with a decent selection of overclocking features; from manual control to ASRock’s “Turbo 50″ mode, which automatically overclocks the processor and memory for improved performance.
For those using the Core i3 or i5′s integrated GMA HD graphics core there is also the ability to overclock the graphics core – on our i5-661 from the 900MHz stock speed up to 1.1GHz.
Really though in the compact, low noise, confines of an HTPC chassis it’s unlikely many will be too worried about overclocking potential, and it’s good to see the board hasn’t missed out on the basics in the quest for higher end functionality.
Boot times are quick, and more importantly the S3 sleep state works perfectly. This means not only can you turn the system off and on quickly with the standard Media Center remote and receiver, but also that the system can wake itself up automatically to record scheduled TV shows.
Audio is provided by VIA’s VT1718S codec, and while in our testing this worked well there are a couple of minor pitfalls. The first is that it is very important to install VIA’s own drivers; the built in Windows 7 drivers do not give the optimal output. Secondly the VIA control panel software, while functional, is a little unintuitive – it took a little while to work out how to get it to recognise my receiver as supporting DTS and Dolby Digital over the Optical Out. Once this was solved, however, it all worked as expected.
Having spent a few days with the board on the test bench and then with it installed in my personal Media Center system the only issue I’ve found has been the occasional lock up in the BIOS screens when changing settings - other than that it has been near flawless.
Conclussion
ASRock have done a great job with the H55M; it’s a solid board with some quirky features while still coming in at a bargain price – we paid just £65 for this board from Ebuyer.
Combine that with its small size, respectable expansion options, flexible cooling solutions, and reliable operation mean that if you are looking to build an HTPC around the LGA1156 platform the ASRock H55M is definitely one worth considering.
