This Mini-ITX mainboard is very similar to the Gigabyte GA-H55N-USB3. As proven in the benchmarks, this board can also serve as a very strong mini-gaming system by just adding a discrete video card. It offers a better media experience when compared to the previous generation Intel chipsets. If we had one wish for this board, it would be for both Wi-Fi and a little better audio performance.
Compared To:
Intel DP67BG Barrage
Benchmarks Tested:
3D Mark 2011, Cinebench, CrystalDiskMark, Media Espresso 6, Power Consumption, RightMark Audio Analyzer, Sisoft Sandra, Stalker Pripyat Benchmark Demo, SYSmark 2007.
Test Setup:
CPU : Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge
Graphics Card : MSI NVIDIA Geforce GTX560 Ti TwinFrozr II
HDD : Seagate 2TB BaRAM : acuda XT
Mainboard : ECS H67H2-I (as tested)
Operating System: Win 7 Pro x64-bit
Power Supply : Antec CP-850 Watt
RAM : Patriot Memory Division II 4GB DDR3 1866MHz
SSD : Kingston 128GB V+ SSDNow
USB 3.0 Drive : Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB
Overclocking:
The BIOS isn't UEFI. It's a standard BIOS that's very easy to move through with ECS' M.I.B. III software and is setup as one of the first pages for overclocking. There are other settings for making sure Intel Turbo Tech 2.0 is enabled which you'll definitely want given that the fastest frequency approaches 3.85GHz with the Core i7-2600K processor.
