ECS Elitegroup H55H-M (V1.0/1.1) Pro Reviews

ECS has a winner here with the new H55 Chipset! The only negative thing that I could really think to write about was the lack of an HDMI output, which would have made perfect sense for a board that fits the HTPC crowd so well. For the most part, you get a great buy here for what you are spending. The ECS H55H-M is the real deal! This board gets our value award!

No budget oriented motherboard roundup is complete without taking a look at a board from ECS. The H55H-V1.0 is the kind of board that suits a person who is not interested in overclocking and wants bare-bones functionality and low cost. At $80, that's exactly what you get, from package contents to onboard features—it's all "light".

ECS is known for having less expensive products than their competition and the ECS H55H-M motherboard is a perfect example of using a mainstream chipset without all of the bells and whistles of the competition to deliver a motherboard that costs less than $75. The ability of the H55 chipset to use the Clarksdale CPU for integrated graphics means that you can have a real system at a very low cost of ownership as you only need to drop the CPU into the Socket, add memory, a HDD and an optical drive and you have the makings of a nice Home Theater PC.. If you want to install a video card you can like the HD 5870 or even a 5970 to give great gaming experience with this motherboard. Overall for 73 bucks this is a good motherboard despite its shortcomings on high end features being its only drawback.

If you are looking for a micro ATX motherboard that is compatible with Clarkdale's Core i3 and Core i5 processors whether it is just for a small form factor PC or is being built with intentions of media playback, the ECS H55H-M is a rather nice introductory offering.

We like to thank ECS for providing the H55H-M for our review today. We've evaluated several H55 motherboards this year and overall been impressed with the capabilities provided by this chipset. It's low power consumption also makes it an ideal option for HTPC builders and other users looking for a low-cost, budget solution that can handle multimedia applications and gaming at a high level. The lack of RAID and USB 3.0 support is an issue for users looking for a "future proof" solution, but those options can be handled by an add-on card too. So, if you're look to save some cash and don't need all the bells and whistles, the H55H-M provides users with a stable, no-frills solution that should be more than adequate for any home theater user or multimedia enthusiast.