Product on Review: ASRock H55M-LE
Manufacturer: ASRock
Expected Price: £50-60
At Vortez we have been mostly focussing on Intel X58 and AMD AM3 based motherboards but today I will be delving into a new category of board. LGA1156. New to Vortez, but certainly not new to the market, the LGA1156 platform first debuted Q3 2009/Q1 2010 and supports 45nm and 32nm processors in the flavour of Intel's Core i5 and Core i7 lineup - dual-core (Intel Core i5 650-760) and quad-core (Intel Core i7 860-880).
Coming in at a much lower price-tag to that of the big brother LGA1366, the LGA1156 platform allows consumers to channel into the Core i7 family of processors and get some quad-core goodness. In this first review of the LGA1156 category of motherboards I will be taking a close look at the H55M-LE from ASRock. A micro ATX sized board with one PCI-E x16 slot, one PCI-E x1 slot, integrated VGA and support for up to DDR3-2600+ (OC). Great for HTPC consumers on a budget, well at least so it seems!
ASRock Take:
The ASRock H55M-LE supports Intel LGA1156 processors including the Core i3 and Core i5 series. Dual Channel DDR3 2600 memory support, Dual VGA Output options: Support DVI-D and D-Sub ports by independent display controllers and PCIE Gigabit LAN.
Specficiations
CPU
- Supports the Intel® Core™ i7 / i5 / i3 and Pentium® G6950 Processors in the LGA1156 Package
- Solid Capacitor for CPU power
- Supports Intel® Turbo Boost Technology
Chipset
- Intel® H55 Chipset
Memory
- Supports Dual Channel DDR3 2600+ (OC)/2133(OC)/1866(OC)/1600/1333/1066 non-ECC, un-buffered memory, 2 x DIMM slots, Max. capacity up to 8GB
Graphics
- Supports Intel® HD Graphics
- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot (at x16 mode)
- Dual VGA Output options: support DVI-D and D-Sub ports by independent display controllers
- Supports HDCP function with DVI port
- Supports Full HD 1080p Blu-ray (BD) / HD-DVD playback with DVI port
Audio
- 7.1 CH HD Audio (VIA® VT1718S Audio Codec)
LAN
- Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
- Realtek RTL8111DL
- Supports Wake-On-LAN
Slots
- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot (at x16 mode)
- 1 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slot (2.5GT/s)
- 2 x PCI slots
Connector
- 4 x SATAII 3.0 Gb/s connectors, support NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug functions
- 1 x IR header
- 1 x Print Port header
- 1 x COM port header
- 1 x HDMI_SPDIF header
- 1 x Chassis Intrusion header
- CPU/Chassis/Power FAN connector
- 24 pin ATX power connector
- 4 pin 12V power connector
- Front panel audio connector
- 2 x USB 2.0 headers (support 4 USB 2.0 ports)
Rear Panel I/O
- 1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port
- 1 x VGA/D-Sub Port
- 1 x VGA/DVI-D Port
- 6 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports
- 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
- HD Audio Jack: Side Speaker / Rear Speaker / Central / Bass / Line in / Front Speaker / Microphone
