Hardware DFI MI P55-T36 mini-ITX motherboard review

ATi or nVidia onboard-GFX beats the integrated GPU of intel any day, so there's allready boards, that have way better on-board-graphics then the new i3 or i5 will provide.

 

No, in this form factor there's only ION and the odd nvidia 9300 mITX board.

 

Might use this for a small m-itx or m-atx build I'm planning, though maybe by then some more will be out with usb3 and new sata etc.

 

You should do a little bit of research I think. There's mITX boards available with AM2 + nVidia 8200 or AM2 + ATi HD3200 aswell

 

I would like to see the Core i5-661 benchmarked against all those onboard graphics chips especially at higher resolutions. On-die graphics is suppose to provide crazy memory bandwidth.

 

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3704

Here you go.

But for the price of the i5-661 you can get loads more bang for the buck, if you pair an i5-750 + an nVidida or ATi onboard-GFX.

The only reasonable CPU with integrated GFX here would be the i3-530 and intel admits this themselves actually, if you ask them.

 

Mr. Swinburne Me thinks you over scored the features since it has no built in WiFi, sata 6gb/s, or usb 3.0. All things you'd want in a media cube under the TV.

 

Whoops. I was thinking about Intel only

 

Mr. Nature. I respect your opinion, however you will NOT need any of those things. If you seriously want a media centre and you want to stream data then WiFi is certainly a poor choice. Plus, where would it go? I'd rather have the PCI-Express x16 port frankly - you can buy USB WiFi dongles if you need it.

SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0 is also unnecessary and you won't find either of these on any other mini-ITX board. Only some P55 have them, and they command and extra cost we don't recommend spending. Yet.

If it had all these things then it would get a 10.

It's on our to-do lists.

John, we have a H55 mini-ITX board from Zotac on the way mate This will be perfect for you.

 

I needs now!!! When will this be out? I'm very interested in a very SSF for Shats and giggles to build for my son and would like to see how the two would compare against each other. Of course I would prefer something with onboard GFX as long as it supported (at the least) 720p playback.

 

Yep, it is massive. I had to make so support, cause card was bending the mobo Now it is all working on test bench, but soon it will go to my NanoTower

 

When I think of the itx format I think of accessability, interaxtivity, and convienience.

Why not wireless N w/ antenna onboard? Can't Win7 act as a router with your connections? Lot's of options w/ wifi.
Why no State-of-the-art usb 3.0 and SATA 6gbs? As you said you'll find find no other itx board with any of these three... features...

 

mini-ITX is about space saving. There is physically limited space on the motherboard to include everything like extra chipsets for USB 3.0 and SATA 6G. Plus, you DONT NEED either of those two: those are performance additions which mini-ITX is not primarily designed for. It still has enough of SATA, eSATA and plenty of normal USB which everything uses: that is convenient.

As for wireless-n: you can buy USB dongles. You don't need everything on board, all the time, however if you do really want it then the Zotac H55 board above does include it!

 

I've built a sweet little lan box using the SG05 with this mobo, i5 750, 4gb ram, Original HD4870 and a 128GB Falcon ssd. I'll be upgrading to a corsair H50 WC setup and HD5850 in the next month or so. Had awesome fun setting this box up yesturday =)

I don't know about other uses, but this motherboard seems perfect for the Silverstone SG05 or 06. The cases look tiny, but it still doesn't really convey the size.. you can't fit a 12" cold cathode in this case, it's too small for even that. Yet it can match my main pc in games.

 

Argh. I keep wanting to buy one of these and build a super-small uni computer, but I just can't justify it when I know the graphics card and the PSU to power them both will make it the size of an mATX anyway.

What's the most powerful graphics card that's shorter than 20-25cm? Anybody? Or is the best option for tiny gaming a Clarkdale i6** with IGP?

[EDIT]In fact if anyone can come up with a decent graphics card that will fit a normal mITX case I'll have that, too[/EDIT]

 

The new Radeon HD5670 maybe ? ~17cm long, 61W TDP, single slot quiet cooling solution, no external power connector.. 14W idle too.

 

There is no need to include "extra" chipsets as usb 3.0 and sata 6gbs are backwards compatible and can replace the 2.0 and 3gbs. Furthermore having an antenna for wireless N usually has better signal strength than a USB dongle, and since there's no pci or pci express x1 slot it makes even more sense if you have a wireless router in the house and have a big family on their laptops.

I'm just curious as to your score: 9/10. There have been other dfi motherboards you personally have reviewed in the past that have a lot less of a score for example the lan party junior...

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2008/11/24/dfi-lanparty-jr-p45-t2rs/14

 

You do need extra chipsets: An NEC one for USB and Marvell for SATA 6Gbps. That takes up valuable board space (not to mention complex trace routing and possibly extra PCB layers) and adds extra cost. USB 2.0 and SATA 3Gbps are native to the P55 PCH, so are all included in the cost of the board anyway.

Only Zotac includes WiFi-n on its boards. No one else does. I would say that makes it a "nice to have" niche feature rather than one of necessity. But again, it depends on cost. That's likely a $10 part, which would make a £110 motherboard £115-£120 in a price sensitive market.

Finally, you're talking 2008, and P45. The two are entirely non-comparable.

 

Hmm, nice find! I need some benchmarks on those... *Goes Googling*

 

wow, small and insane, looks like I shall be ordering one soon