Intel LGA1155 miniITX motherboards

Borden · 5 Jan 2011 at 22:06

Guardsmon said:
Still lost on this, you say you'd want to try it, but you wouldn't buy a board with it?

When I say 'new BIOS' I mean UEFI. As in it would be a deal breaker if a board did not have UEFI.

gropingmantis · 5 Jan 2011 at 22:24

nightmare99 said:
While it is the same mechanically it is not the same electrically.

Ahh that's annoying.

Turambar said:
What are MSI thinking with that 1x PCI-E slot?

Exactly another board out of the running along with the Foxconn and very probably the Gigabyte as apparently none of their 1155 boards are coming with UEFI.

McPhee · 5 Jan 2011 at 23:57

That's a lot of mITX boards! I guess the form factor is taking traction then? Hmm, decisions. I feel like going back to ATX for Sandy Bridge, but at the same time it does seem perfect for mITX.

R088ieS86 · 6 Jan 2011 at 15:04

They've just put the Foxconn up on site:

Foxconn H67S Intel H67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard - (Sandybridge)

gropingmantis · 6 Jan 2011 at 16:07

That is very cheap but no UEFI or USB 3.0.

Skyboat · 6 Jan 2011 at 20:00

satchef1 said:
That's a lot of mITX boards! I guess the form factor is taking traction then?

Indeed it is. I wasn't going to wait for SB, instead just getting a S775 board to migrate all my kit over to ITX, but I think I will now seeing as I've already acquired a set of DDR3 RAM - so it's only a CPU that will be left to upgrade.

satchef1 said:
Hmm, decisions. I feel like going back to ATX for Sandy Bridge, but at the same time it does seem perfect for mITX.

I look at ATX boards now and find it ridiculous the standard is still around in this day and age of compact/green/portable computing. Who needs all 8 SATA, 10 USB, 4 PCI-e and 2 PCI slots these days apart from maybe 0.01% of consumers? Really.

Oh and FGS ditch the VGA connectors please vendors, if you really must still need it, use a DVI adapter. /rant

Tute · 6 Jan 2011 at 20:52

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.

gropingmantis · 6 Jan 2011 at 21:46

I'd be inclined to agree with Tute that the Zotac has the edge although I have my eye on the Gigabyte but really want more info. May wait though and see if any P67 boards appear or failing that Z68 (out in Q2) may offer mITX as it has integrated graphics support (as well as overclock) so is more likely to be shrunk to SFF than P67.

edit: Zotac specs are up on their website:
http://pden.zotac.com/index.php?page=shop.product_details&category_id=7&flypage=flypage_images.tpl&product_id=311&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

No UEFI but RAID support for the 4 SATA-II ports. Lots of headers and interestingly this at the bottom "Overclocking features" hmmmmmmmm...............

JonJ678 · 7 Jan 2011 at 09:57

Zotac seem fond of releasing boards which don't quite work though. I came close to buying one of the 775 range, then visited their forums. Nice things like, User: "your pci-e slot only seems to work with graphics cards, why is this?" Zotac: "We felt like it, and didn't see the point in telling anyone". The also refused to allow undervolting despite many people asking for it, as far as I can tell to spare themselves the time editing their bios. So I'm not going anywhere near them for the time being.

Regarding the electrical / mechanical mini pci-e point above, some are wired up like USB ports. They'll still take other cards, you just have to be careful which ones, and bandwidth will be limited to USB 2.

Does anyone know the status of overclocking on H67? At least one place states that the unlocked cpu multiplier, will not be unlocked if you use a H67. It wasn't the most reliable source, but pause for thought nonetheless.

Tute · 7 Jan 2011 at 12:26

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?

gropingmantis · 7 Jan 2011 at 12:48

They could do. I think that's what Gigabyte have planned too.

JonJ678: Aparrently you cant overclock H67 but that may just refer to FSB adjustments as Sandy Bridge is predominantly a CPU multiplier overclock. Just have to wait and see if someone tries it I guess.

Tute · 7 Jan 2011 at 14:52

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.

gropingmantis · 7 Jan 2011 at 16:49

I am still tempted to wait to see if P67 or Z68 goes to ITX or maybe even the new AMD APUs. The E-350 looks good for an HTPC build and the A series should be bringing faster processing and more cores at very low power.

phinix · 8 Jan 2011 at 18:37

So if you use integrated GPU you can't overclock cpu, right?
Does it mean that if I use regular graphic card in the slot, can I OC cpu?

Second thing: H67 = no RAID for SATAIII?

Also - what is UEFI?

Xelene · 8 Jan 2011 at 18:47

phinix said:
Also - what is UEFI?

BIOS Replacement; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_EFI_Forum

Macs have had it for a while.

Xelene · 8 Jan 2011 at 18:50

I'm after building a small powerhouse as the i7 920 seems to have been coopted into fulltime Sims 3 & Youtube duties. Looks like i'll have to wait for a p67 / x68 mITX board.

gropingmantis · 9 Jan 2011 at 00:49

phinix said:
Second thing: H67 = no RAID for SATAIII?

Does P67 even support SATA-III RAID? TBH I have been disappointed in Intel as far as MoBo chipsets go. No USB3 support on their chipsets? Really? The chipset roadmap shows none of the 1155 chipsets supporting USB3 which is ridiculous.

Tute · 9 Jan 2011 at 03:29

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?

gropingmantis · 9 Jan 2011 at 08:19

But Intel themselves have said that Light Peak will not be a replacement for USB (at least not in 2011). So it is a bit silly of them. I guess they figured that its easy for MoBo manufacturers to put a controller chip on their board...apart from SFF boards

TRIM in RAID is essential, yes that's true, especially with SF-2000 SSDs already announced and I suspect all SSDs will be using SATA 3 this year.

Aod · 9 Jan 2011 at 11:14

gropingmantis said:
Does P67 even support SATA-III RAID? TBH I have been disappointed in Intel as far as MoBo chipsets go. No USB3 support on their chipsets? Really? The chipset roadmap shows none of the 1155 chipsets supporting USB3 which is ridiculous.

Intel officially stated that their chipsets wouldn't have USB3 until 2011

Wikipedia USB article said:
Intel will not support USB 3.0 until 2011,[89] which will slow down mainstream adoption. These delays may be due to problems in the CMOS manufacturing process,[90] a focus to advance the Nehalem platform,[91] a wait to mature all the 3.0 connections standards (USB3, PCIe3, SATA3.0) before developing a new chip set,[92][93] or a tactic by Intel to boost its upcoming Light Peak interface.[94]

presumably that means Q3 2011...