Intel LGA1155 miniITX motherboards

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Thought i'd bring any info about these together. I've got most of this off the [H] forums but I thought posters here might be interested.

ASRock H67M-ITX
Here

ASUS P8H67-I
Here

ECS H67H-I
Here

ECS H67H2-I
Here

Gigabyte GA-H67-USB3
Here

Intel DH67CF
Here

MSI H67 Mini-ITX
Here

Zotac H67-ITX WiFi
Here

Foxconn H67-S
Here

I'll try to keep this updated as we get closer but these boards look to be the way to go. :)
 
DFI are gone and they were my best hope. It all falls to Asus now, and the hope that there will be a Republic of Gamers miniITX P67 board.

We can but dream eh?
 
Not necessarily. DFI had the problem of arrogance. I seem to remember good ol' Angry Games and RGone over at DFI Street. They hit the nail on the head - DFI boards are great if you have a cherry picked CPU and RAM, exotic cooling, and time to burn.

If you just want a reliable board that won't blow up, look elsewhere.

I've had their X48 LP board ship refusing to work with the 3870X2. When I tried to update the BIOS to fix it, the board crapped itself and never worked again.

Then the P55 mITX board. The only company to do one, but again, stability was questionable. "I don't like THIS particular RAM". "I don't like THIS particular CPU". Well DFI, **** you then.

As horrible as it sounds, at the end they fully deserved to go bust.
 
Well they're not completely bust, just the Lanparty part I believe. The OEM side is still going strong.

They should relaunch their INFINITY boards, those were much better with a bigger emphasis on "working properly out of the box".
 
My thoughts:

ASRock H67M-ITX : There's a WiFi version of this board but it doesn't come as standard. Details are scarce.

ASUS P8H67-I : Seems to pack a lot of features but I can't tell regarding UEFI support, and the amount of stuff on this board means going with SO-DIMMS. You do get WiFi, USB3, and SATA 6Gb though.

ECS H67H-I/ECS H67H2-I : I'm inclined to think this is the same board - maybe the H-I was an earlier revision? I just don't see why ECS would go with two almost identical ITX boards.
There's full DDR3, USB3, Bluetooth, and even a mini PCIe slot on the board. No WiFi. Unsure about UEFI.

Gigabyte GA-H67-USB3 : Details again scarce about this one but it looks like it gets USB3. Gigabyte have said there won't be UEFI on their boards for now so it's safe to accept it doesn't have that. Full DDR3, but no WiFi.

Intel DH67CF : Intel site says FOUR DDR3 slots but picture shows only two. No official support for the i7-2600 and i7-2600K. USB3 and SATA 6Gb both present. Doesn't look to have UEFI.

MSI H67 Mini-ITX : Not a lot on this either. NO PCIe x16 SLOT. Full DDR3.

Zotac H67-ITX WiFi : Has WiFi, SATA 6Gb, USB3, full DDR3. Can't tell regarding UEFI - I would have assumed it would be mentioned on their product page so i'm guessing it'll be BIOS.

Foxconn H67-S : SATA 6Gb. No USB3, WiFi, or UEFI. Interesting to note - this board doesn't have the CPU bang next to the PCIe slot like all the others!

----------

From what i've seen, I would give the edge to the Zotac for overall board. It's got everything you could ask for bar UEFI, but the details on support for that are sketchy at best.

[Edit] I've just seen someone claim on the [H] forums that the Asus board does indeed have UEFI.
 
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mariachi76 on the HardOCP forums said:
I contacted Zotac support, and their H67 ITX board also has UEFI. Thats good news, and makes the Zotac board definitely my favourite (6 SATA-Ports vs. 4 on the Asus, and normal Dimms)

If it does indeed have UEFI it surely makes it the best board without question?

[Edit] I've just found the manual for the Zotac and there doesn't seem to be any UEFI. Could they launch it with BIOS and then patch UEFI in later?
 
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Ugh, I hope if they're going to add it later that they do it properly. Flashing BIOS updates always gives me the chills. It's just one of those things where, if something goes wrong, you often brick the board good and proper.

As for the Zotac board being a bit finnicky, well at the end of the day you take a risk with most untested boards. None of those listed above are in the retail channels yet so whichever you go for, there's a chance it'll have problems.

I'm still not 100% decided myself. The only one i've seen actually priced and ready for orders is OcUK's own Foxconn board, but it lacks USB3 and (possibly/probably) UEFI. I do like the CPU placement though, it could certainly be the board to get if you don't mind the drawbacks but want to put a big CPU cooler on.

I guess i'll see what pops up. OcUK are normally a popular stockist of Zotac products, so I would expect that board to appear sometime in the near future.
 
I don't think Intel are bothered about USB3, or SATA 6Gb for that matter. I've heard that the Intel G3 SSD drives will NOT have SATA 3 on them at all.

I think Intel are concentrating on Light's Peak as a replacement for USB/SATA/etc. and that's why they're not fussed about getting the technology adopted.

Plus, we need TRIM in RAID before it becomes worth putting RAID on SATA 3. You're hardly going to connect a mechanical drive to them, are you? :p
 
Hmm, I wanted to order today while OcUK still have the 2.5% off - but I can only see the Foxconn available at retail?

Not sure what to do really.
 
What else are you going with?

Tempted to go with the Foxconn and then stick or twist when more boards appear.
 
I'm going to wait and see how you get on. I'm leaning towards the Intel as they're generally always good boards.

It can't be a long wait either - you can already get it in the US.
 
Just to let people know, i've seen the ASUS P8H67-I and Intel DH67CF board up for sale in the UK.

OcUK still only seem to have the Foxconn for now though.
 
Intel around £100, Asus about £120. As it stands I still think the Foxconn is the one to go for at it's price unless you must have USB3/Wifi.
 
I have to admit, i'll probably just go for the Intel board again if/when I go Sandy Bridge.

I came to flash the BIOS today. Very worried as i'd lost three boards to duff BIOS flashes before.

Downloaded the file, extracted it, ran it.
Box pops up - "This computer will now restart".
Computer restarts.
On the bootup screen, it tells me it will now update the BIOS. Progress bar comes up, shows me how it's getting on.
Flash completes, system reboots, Windows boots.
All done.

Seriously, Intel may make some very simple boards with limited features, but what you do get, works incredibly well.

I think an Intel "Extreme Series" P67 mITX would make me wet myself. :D
 
Oooh, harder to find but they are out there. As the "all singing, all dancing" board i'd recommend the J&W 890GX-USB3 owned by our own Lunatic Dreyfus in this thread:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18209716

If you don't want to spend that much there are offerings from Sapphire, and J&W that are cheaper. You just start to lose CPU support if you slash the budget (I only know of the 890GX-USB3 that can carry X6 CPUs in that form factor).

If you're serious about doing a mini ITX AMD build, i'd just stump up for the top board, saves headaches.

Of course, Bulldozer is showcased in less than a month, with retail ETA of April (ish). Can you wait?
 
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