Hardware Zotac H55ITX-A-E Motherboard Review

Zotac launches another teeny motherboard - the H55ITX-A-E includes 802.11n WiFi and a full 16x PCI-E slot. We take it for a spin with a Core i5-750 and Core i5-661 to see what this little tiger can do (clue: a lot).

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/mo...zotac-h55itx-ae-mini-itx-motherboard-review/1

 

Wow. I will be dropping this and a 661 into PC3 just as soon as I have enough cash (or a sponsor )

 

i would love this and an i3 but sadly money dictates otherwise right now

 

HTPC perfect!

If it had the performance with the 750 I'd probably be sold!

 

Just wanted to say thanks for looking at this from the low power angle. Whilst it seems an obvious issue to look at when reviewing a board like this (which as you say, could be ideal for HTPC or file server duty), you'd be surprised how many sites completely ignore even the possibility of undervolting, underclocking and other low power issues. The best example for me was the reviews of the 235e and 240e Athlon II's released late last year. Most reviews only looked at them from the angle of whether the low power rating meant you could overclock them higher, and yet ignored how much of a power saving they offered. (or how quieter they could be against a similar processor etc...)

Anyway, thanks again. Hopefully if you carry on, and others follow, MB manufacturers might pay a bit more attention to power draw.

 

Likewise. It's a shame that it can't get more out of the 750 but it's to be expected - if you want a serious overclock why are you using a mini-ITX?!

 

this i s a great board
i currently have the older version
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXOl7TKVwLM

 

to be honest i dont really think this PC had overclocking in mind, rather a media pc, or casual small pc, with cpu/gpu built in or a small ati nvidia card for media editing...

 

The first 2 pages gave me major deja vu....

 

Wow - thankyou. I'm a hardcore modder (well was back in the late 80's at least) and have decided to do one last mod - already bought this mobo.Bought ram (2000mhz 95 quid 4 4gb @ play) & a cooolt it eco (£55 @ amazon) - just need a cpu - was gonna go I5 661 then changed to an I3 530 but this article has made me swing back to an I5 661 (for now anyways) gonna await case decision before make mind up on CPU). And am gobsmacked by power draw figures by my very rough calculation over a year at full power its £56 extra to run the I5 750 vs I5 661, only extra info I crave (I'm an info junkie) is how much of the power is down to grafix (in 750's side) and what would an I3 530 consume vs I5 661 ?? Ignore me if I'm being too pedantic butin my mad, mad world of the present its all I can do to keep sane

 

Yea we bolted on much of the first look, but also updated it with new information so we couldnt just link it straight in. Most people will not have seen the first look or remembered it so it was a refresher.

Oclocker - get the 530 mate! 661 is a complete waste of cash, but it's the only Clarkdale we could get a hold of.

 

Erm - since when have us serious modders ever worried about what the hardware designers had in mind I remember back when Intel didn't realise the overclockers were good for their business and we were getting slot 1 Celerons at screamingly high 600 Mhz speeds (Well at least us poor overclockers were - the richer ones were clocking slot1 450's .

 

Me tea's ready

 

I've already got 1 HTPC and another planned for the bedroom but this wouldn't quite fit my setup. What I'm more curious about is how well this would work as a Home Media Server. I can't find a Mini ITX case with 6 HDD slots to save my life but if there would be a real advantage to going with this board and an i3 over a mATX w/ AMD 605e in terms of power and efficiency I would love to give it a try. Anyone got any pro/cons? Mini ITX case suggestions?

 

Also, I really wouldn't need the Wifi as I have a wired Cat5e network throughout the house. Is it possible to remove the mini PCIe Wifi card and replace it with a mini PCIe netbook SSD? I'd much rather run Windows Home Server v2 off of a separate, low power, SSD, using the otherwise wasted mini PCIe slot than waste a Sata port.