ECS Elitegroup HDC-I (V1.0) Pro Reviews

The main thing about the ECS that's hard to ignore is that automatic overclock option. Having 33% free of anything is usually a good idea, so when it comes part of the package with very little increase in power consumption, it is a good thing. As a result, all the benchmarks and all the games had much, much higher scores than the other boards we tested. A couple of areas let the ECS board down though - the front panel connectors are in an odd place, there's no physical connector for the wifi aerial (have to use a spare PCI card holder), and the other boards we tested were passive (I don't find this much of an issue personally as the fan was inaudible, but others may suggest otherwise). If this comes onto the market at its suggested retail price, it's a serious option for people wanting to go down the Fusion route with a little more horsepower under their belts. It's not enough to win an award, but it's worth a look.

This little board is full of useful and updated technologies, like the USB 3.0 ports and the Bluetooth interface, as well as the SATA-600 ports and the included Wi-Fi card, which helps the product to have a still better cost/performance ratio. So, if you are looking for a motherboard/CPU to build an inexpensive, quiet and low-consumption small form factor (SFF) computer or for an HTPC, the ECS HDC-I is a great choice, thus receiving our Silver Award.

Performance-wise the HDC-I proved to be more than adequate. It out-performed the basic CPU-only or GPU-only benchmarks, such as decompressing ZIP files or low-resolution gaming. Aside from the benchmarks, I found everyday tasks, such as 1080p HD video-streaming and multitasking, to run without a hitch. Where the HDC-I fell behind the comparison boards was in the heavier benchmarks. Even though most of the comparison boards in these tests did not perform desirably, they still fared slightly better. Out of all the boards tested, the HDC-I was most in need of CPU and GPU overclocking. If you are looking to build an HD media box or a low-power PC without sacrificing connectivity and expandability, then the ECS HDC-I is one of the best motherboard options currently in this market.