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The average user had no need for a media pc capable of doing everything their gaming rig can do up until this point. With sites like HULU and Pandora out there the PC is beginning to assimilate every electronic device you own. Just like the cell phone is slowly antiquating the land line the PC is making bulky media components a thing of the past. Intel pushed the consumers to the next level by making it even more cost effective to build yourself an integrated media HTPC. The new i5 661 series of CPU’s made building an htpc much easier for the average user. No more will you have to worry about which graphics card and soundcard you will need to run your PC through HDMI. Now with the new H55 chipset the guess work is gone and all you are left with is a HTPC that you can be very happy with. Today we will be looking at Asus’s P7H55D-M EVO 1156 Motherboard and I for one consider myself a fan of this motherboard already. Let’s see if you will feel the same:

Provided by: Asus

Price: $129.99

Closer Look (The Board):

 

Closer Look (The Software):

Closer Look (The Bios):

 

 

 

Specifications and Features:

 

CPU	Intel® Socket 1156 Core™ i7 Processor/Core™ i5 Processor/Core™ i3 Processor/ Pentium® Processors Supports Intel® Turbo Boost Technology* * The Intel Turbo Boost Technology support depends on the CPU types. ** Refer to www.asus.com for Intel CPU support list
Chipset	Intel® H55 Express Chipset
Memory	4 x DIMM, Max. 16 GB, DDR3 2133(O.C.)*/1333/1066 Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory Dual Channel memory architecture Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) * Hyper DIMM support is subject to the physical characteristics of individual CPUs. Some hyper DIMMs only support one DIMM per channel. Please refer to Memory QVL for details. ** Refer to www.asus.com or this user manual for the Memory QVL(Qualified Vendors Lists).
Expansion Slots	1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 2 x PCIe 2.0 x1 (2.5GT/s, gray slots) 1 x PCI
VGA	Multi-VGA output support: HDMI, DVI-D, RGB Supports HDMI with max. resolution 1920 x 1200@60Hz Supports DVI with max. resolution 1920 x 1200@60Hz Supports RGB with max. resolution 2048 x 1536@75Hz Maximum shared memory of 1748 MB
Storage	Intel® H55 Express Chipset built-in 6 xSATA 3.0 Gb/s ports Marvell 88SE6111 1 xUltraDMA 133/100 for up to 2 PATA devices 1 xExternal SATA 3.0 Gb/s port (SATA on-the-go)
LAN	Gigabit LAN controller Realtek® 8112L Gigabit LAN controller featuring AI NET2
Audio	Realtek 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC - BD Audio Layer Content Protection - Supports Jack-Detection, Multi-streaming, Front Panel Jack-Retasking - Optical S/PDIF out ports at back I/O - ASUS Noise Filter
IEEE 1394	VIA® 6315N controller supports 2 x 1394a port(s) (one at mid-board; one at back panel)
USB	NEC® USB 3.0 controller: - 2 x USB 3.0 ports (blue; at back panel) Intel® H55 Express Chipset: - 10 x USB 2.0 ports (6 ports at mid-board, 4 ports at back panel)
ASUS Unique Features	ASUS Xtreme Design ASUS Exclusive Overclocking Features - GPU Boost - TurboV and Turbo Key ASUS Xtreme Phase - 8+3 Phase Power Design ASUS Exclusive Features - Express Gate - MemOK! - ASUS EPU ASUS Quiet Thermal Solution - ASUS Fanless Design: Stack Cool 3 - ASUS Fan Xpert ASUS EZ DIY - ASUS Q-DIMM - ASUS Q-Connector - ASUS O.C. Profile - ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 - ASUS EZ Flash 2 - ASUS MyLogo 2 - Multi-language BIOS
Overclocking Features	Precision Tweaker 2 - vCore: Adjustable CPU voltage at 0.00625V increment - vIMC: Adjustable IMC voltage at 0.02V increment - vDRAM Bus: Adjustable DRAM voltage at 0.02V increment - vPCH: Adjustable PCH voltage at 0.01V increment - vCPU_PLL: Adjustable CPU_PLL voltage at 0.02V increment - iGPU: Adjustable iGPU voltage at 0.0125V increment SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection) - PCI Express frequency tuning from 100MHz up to 200MHz at 1MHz increment - Internal Base Clock tuning from 80MHz up to 500MHz at 1MHz increment Overclocking Protection - ASUS C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall)
Back Panel I/O Ports	1 x D-Sub 1 x HDMI 1 x External SATA 1 x S/PDIF Out (Optical) 1 x IEEE 1394a 1 x LAN(RJ45) port 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 8 -Channel Audio I/O 1 x PS/2 Keyboard (Purple) 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports 1 x DVI-D
Internal I/O Connectors	3 x USB connectors support additional 6 USB ports 1 x IDE connector 1 x IEEE 1394a connector 1 x CPU Fan connector 1 x Power Fan connector 6 x SATA 3.0Gb/s connectors 1 x Chassis Fan connector (1x4-pin) Front panel audio connector 1 x S/PDIF Out Header 1 x 24-pin ATX Power connector 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V Power connector System Panel(Q-Connector) 1 x COM connector 1 x Clear CMOS jumper 1 x MemOK! button
BIOS	64 Mb Flash ROM , SPI, AMI BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 2.5, ACPI 2.0a, Multi-language BIOS, ASUS EZ Flash 2, ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3
Manageability	WfM 2.0,DMI 2.0,WOL by PME,WOR by PME,PXE
Accessories	User's manual 1 x I/O Shield 1 x UltraDMA 133/100 cable 2 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s cables 2 in 1 Q-connector
Support Disc	Drivers Anti-virus software (OEM version) ASUS Update ASUS Utilities
Form Factor	uATX Form Factor 9.6 inch x 9.6 inch ( 24.5 cm x 24.5 cm )

 

Testing Setup:

• Intel Core i5 - 661 Clarkdale CPU
• Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler
• Crucial DDR3 PC3 16000 2 x 1 GB
• Cooler Master GX 750W PSU
• Cooler Master CM 690 II PC Chassis
• ATI Radeon 5570
• Seagate 1TB HDD
• Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit Edition

In order to for us to try to test our systems full potential we use a testing methodology that encompasses combinations of real world testing and full blown benchmarking. Unlike other sites we do not test out systems under obscure test beds and poor component pairings. What this means is that we try to keep the ram and hard drive the same across the board but if we are testing a media PC we don’t like to use a graphics card with major horsepower on a PC that is built for light gaming and media. In like manner we do not test low end graphics cards on our i7 $2000+ PC test bed.

The reason we do things this way is to appeal to the end user. A logical thinking person will not be sporting a $600 graphics card on their $500 Media PC and someone that dropped the coin on a $2000 gaming PC is not going to be putting an $80 graphics card in it. That being said we decided to use a graphics card capable of gaming and media for this build so that the cards abilities don’t over shadow what you are really getting from the motherboard performance. We do use high end memory but we need the ram in place in order to overclock the snot out of the test beds because why would we bother calling ourselves OverclockersHQ if the best we could do is a 5% OC, right? Right.

Because this is going to be a media and all around PC we went with benchmarks that fully utilize the motherboard ability to help with rendering HD and how fast it can render Photoshop effects.

We will be putting the Asus P7H55D-M EVO up against an Asrock H55M mATX Motherboard both board are mATX and the same chipset so I thought it a fitting comparison. Both boards have identical components and the overclock on both will be at 4.4GHz on the CPU and 1760MHz 9-9-9-28 on the Memory. The CPU, Graphics card, Ram, PSU, HDD, and even the Case are all 100% identical. Let’s see what the consensus is:

 

Apophysis:

Apophysis is a program used to generate fractal images, this is a great test of a CPU's ability to render complex visual and numeral algorithms. We will run this benchmark with the following settings:

• Resolution: 2750x2048
• Quality: 500
• Limit Memory use: 512MB

Time to Render:

Asrock Stock	Asrock Overclocked	Asus Stock	Asus Overclocked
6M 23.8 Sec	3M 06.25 Sec	6M 4 Sec	2M 1 Sec

POV Ray 3.7:

POV Ray uses ray tracing in order to benchmark CPU performance. The latest versions support SMP (Symetric MultiProcessing) enabling the workload to be spread across the cores for a quicker completion. Which fully utilizes the whole CPU and motherboard which gives you a well rounded number using the full potential of the CPU for benchmarking. The results will be in Pixels per second.

Asrock Stock	Asrock Overclocked	Asus Stock	Asus Overclocked
2401.20	2844.26	2249.24	2873.94

 

Sisoft Sandra:

If Everest is a cornucopia or nerdy goodness than Sisoft Sandra would be that plus some sort of cult-like mass marriage of all things nerdy in one impressively put together package.  Sisoft combines everything you could ever possibly want to know about your pc, stress it, and test it all in one package. We will be running a big batch of tests from Sisoft to see what this chip can do.

 

Processor Arithmetic:

---

Asrock	Dhrystone Gips	Whetston gflops
Stock	54.1	35.15
Overclocked	64.4	41.77

Asus	Dhrystone Gips	Whetston gflops
Stock	51	33
Overclocked	66.8	42.1

Multi-Core Efficiency:

 

---

Asrock	Bandwidth GBs	Latency ns
Stock	30.75	14
Overclocked	33	12

Asus	Bandwidth GBs	Latency ns
Stock	23.6	15
Overclocked	33.8	12

 

Memory Bandwidth:

 

---

Asrock	Integer GBs	Float GBs
Stock	14.5	14.48
Overclocked	13.86	13.74

Asus	Integer GBs	Float GBs
Stock	14.1	14
Overclocked	10.1	10

 

Memory Latency:

---

Asrock	ns
Stock	89
Overclocked	95

Asus	ns
Stock	88
Overclocked	95

 

Cache and Memory;

---

Asrock	Bandwidth GBs
Stock	45.28
Overclocked	46

Asus	Bandwidth GBs
Stock	37.4
Overclocked	40.78

 

File System:

---

Asrock	Drive Index MBs	Random Access Time ms
Stock	100	7
Overclocked	95.13	6.7

Asus	Drive Index MBs	Random Access Time ms
Stock	94.2	4.8
Overclocked	92.6	7

 

Physical Disks:

---

Asrock	Index MBs	Random ms
Stock	85.53	12.65
Overclocked	84.4	13.16

Asus	Index MBs	Random ms
Stock	85	12.76
Overclocked	84.6	13.4

 

Power Management Efficiency:

---

Asrock	Gips
Stock	15.25
Overclocked	12.8

Asus	Gips
Stock	14.23
Overclocked	12.8

 

So essentially we can see the two Motherboards didn’t fluctuate much from each other. The Asus seemed to Render the POV Bench a little better at OC settings than the Asrock but the bulk of the system tests through Sisoft Sandra are pretty neck and neck. Let’s take a look at some Photoshop Benches and some HD Rendering.

Driver Heaven's Photoshop Benchmark:

This test is about as real world a benchmark as you can get. If you are a photoshop user then you already know that having a pc that cannot handle photoshop can be a painful and aggravating event. This benchmark goes through a number of the effects that you can use in photoshop and times how long it take to complete these tasks. Let’s see how the two board stack up:

 

 

Test	Asrock Stock	Asrock OC	Asus Stock	Asus OC
Texturizer	1.4	1.4	1.4	1.3
CMY Colour Converter	1.3	1.2	1.4	1.2
RGB Colour Converter	1.5	1.3	1.4	1.3
Ink Outlines	18.6	16.7	19.8	15.6
Dust and Scratches	1.8	1.5	2	1.6
Water Color	18.7	15.7	20	18
Stained Glass	8.5	7.4	9.1	7
Lighting Effect	1.5	1.2	1.5	1.2
Mosaic Tiles	9.2	7.8	9.7	7.6
Extrude	81.3	69.5	86.6	68.3
Smart Blur	41.8	35.7	44.4	36.1
Under Painting	16.7	14	17.9	15
Palette Knife	14.4	12.1	15.4	12.2
Sponge	26	22	27.9	21.8

x264 - HD Benchmark (TecArp):

Our affiliates over at Techarp came up with a great way to benchmark HD rendering this handy little tool tells you exactly how much time it takes to render an HD file. Here are the results:

 

Asrock Stock:

 encoded 1442 frames, 62.36 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 62.74 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 62.15 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 61.90 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 17.35 fps, 3971.06 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 17.31 fps, 3971.90 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 17.34 fps, 3971.76 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 17.33 fps, 3970.75 kb/s

Asrock OC:

encoded 1442 frames, 52.95 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 45.16 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 55.44 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 57.40 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 12.66 fps, 3971.98 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 15.30 fps, 3970.73 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 12.60 fps, 3970.45 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 15.19 fps, 3970.98 kb/s

Asus OC:
encoded 1442 frames, 66.66 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 67.35 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 67.04 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 67.04 fps, 3901.21 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 19.29 fps, 3971.76 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 19.40 fps, 3971.74 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 19.35 fps, 3970.34 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 19.35 fps, 3971.61 kb/s

Asus: Stock:

encoded 1442 frames, 57.84 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 58.03 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 58.47 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 57.85 fps, 3900.68 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 16.12 fps, 3971.73 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 16.17 fps, 3971.98 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 16.17 fps, 3971.91 kb/s
encoded 1442 frames, 16.20 fps, 3970.62 kb/s
 

Even though the throughput was the same on both board we do see improvement on FPS with the Asus over the Asrock so this is essential information if you will be rendering HD video with this setup. It is nice to see some actual differences between these boards because they both performed very similar.

 

Super Pi:

So just for the heck of it, maybe for nostalgia sake, I decided to do a quick 1MB file run on Super Pi just to see how well the Motherboards fair:

 

Asrock Stock:

 11.73 seconds

Asrock Overclocked:

6.7 seconds

Asus Stock:

 12.32

Asus Overclocked:

10.14

So surprisingly enough we see major speed differences between the two boards with super pi. I tried the Asus under the 4.7 overclock mentioned in the software video and Iwas still only able to get a 9.07 Super pi score. So kudos to the people at Asrock on this one; I don't think many will be using their media PC for complex calculations but if they ever need to I suggest grabbing the Asrock board instead.

 

Cinebench, Future Mark Benches, and Gaming Performance:

Conclusion:

So overall we did see some performance improvements with the Asus Board over the Asrock but most of the benchmarks proved the same. The Asus really shined when it got to overclocking. I was easily able to reproduce the 4.4 GHz benchmark I achieved with the Asrock and then I promptly destroyed my previous record. I was able to get a 4.76 OC with the ram running at 1900MHz so needless to say I was very impressed with what I was able to achieve with the Asus P7H55D-M EVO Bios and hardware. This is a great board for both Media and Gaming, it fully utilizes the potential of the i5 661, and the software included makes it a killer board for its price point.

Would I recommend this motherboard? I think you could say yes, I was extremely impressed with the Asrock board, but once I got my hands on the Asus board I was even more impressed. This is another win for Asus which I say they deserve because they have been constantly making top quality products from the start.

Pros:

• Price
• OC Ability
• Software
• USB 3.0
• Quality
• Awesome Looking as is Most Asus Boards
• Great for Almost any Application

Cons:

• None to Speak of for This Price Range

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