Zotac H55-ITX Review
BIOS & Overclocking
Published: 7th April 2010 | Source: Zotac | Price: £109.99 |
Testbed
Intel Core i3 530 2.93GHz Processor
Zotac H55-ITX WIFI Motherboard
4GB Corsair PC3-12800C8 RAM
XFX Radeon HD 5670 1GB GDDR5 Graphics Card
320GB Samsung Spinpoint F1 SATA II HDD
22x Samsung DVD+/-RW SATA
Silverstone Sugo SG05 Case
Silverstone 300W 80PLUS PSU
Windows 7 Home Premium x64
BIOS & Overclocking
The Zotac H55-ITX includes a fairly intuitive BIOS Menu, sharing a similar structure to menu's on Asus and Biostar boards. We are pleased to see that the board does offer CPU Overclocking functionality, however the variables are somewhat limited. That said, with CPU BCLK, DRAM Frequency and their respective Voltage parameters, it's not a complete disaster. About the only major missing piece of the overclocking puzzle was the absence of a QPI Multiplier which will inevitably hold back the maximum BCLK.
We were right. The motherboard failed to POST at a BCLK frequency of just 160MHz and we were unable to reach a stable BCLK any higher than 150MHz. A modest but noticeable 366MHz overclock was achieved with our Core i3 530 2.93GHz CPU. For a board of it's size, this is not a poor show at all.
With a maximum overclock verified, let's get testing.
Most Recent Comments
QuoteOther known issues are lack of turbo boost support on first production batch and waking from S3 problems with most PCI-E video cards. So far all these issues remain unfixed.Quote
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Originally Posted by name='Diablo'
Really nice looking board. I love the mini itx form factor, but am always stumped by fitting a graphics chip as the powersuplies aren't built to take them. This one looks very good for a media PC, or for a mini gaming box.
With the GMAHD from the CPU, will it handle basic media duties like bluray as its 9300 predessecor would? |
I've found the Core i3/i5's Integrated GMA to be a considerable step up from predecessors such as the GMA950. Performance wise, it is most certainly up there with the GeForce 9300 and Radeon HD 4200 and should not really struggle with HD Video.Quote
If I were going to do an HTPC build (not on the cards right now thanks to my debit cards just melting) that's certainly good news.Quote
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With the GMAHD from the CPU, will it handle basic media duties like bluray as its 9300 predessecor would?Quote