ASRock H67M-GE/HT Intel H67 board full review Exclusive @ OCWorkbench

ASRock H67M-GE/HT Intel H67 board review  – Introduction
Bluetooth 5 Dec 2010 (updated 7 Jan 2011)

Early next year, Intel will be releasing it’s new generation of Intel Sandy bridge processors. No doubt you would need a new motherboard to support the new processors with integrated graphics and memory within the processor. The new processor is somewhat going to change the perception of integrated graphics. HD decoding is nothing new. How about 3D and improved transcoding speed of the new processor.

The new Sandy Bridge processor improves on a number of areas and they include INTEL Quick Sync Video which allows fast conversion of video files for portable media players or online sharing.

It also brings Full BluRay 3D playback with HD 1080p over HDMI 1.4 with 3D with Intel InTru 3D technology. HD playback is also improved with it’s Clear Video technology.

The new processor embedded graphics is improved with Intel HD Graphics 2000/3000 with DX10.1, OpenGL 3.0. Last but not least, Intel AVX (Advanced Vector Experience) brings improved performance for video and image editing.

Today, we take a look at the ASRock H67M-GE/HT mATX mainboard which supports the LGA1155 processor. The ASRock H67M-GE/HT is a nicely laid out board using 100% all solid capacitors. It supports the new generation K series unlock processors and dual channel DDR3-1333.

Although the socket type doesn’t fit the old LGA1156, you do not need to change your existing heatsinks as it supports Combo Cooler Option. There are multiple holes for you to mount older generation of heatsinks on this new socket. So you can save some money to get more peripherals.

On the mainboard, there are 2 USB 3.0 ports at the rear, PCIe GbE, Multi vga output options including D-SUB, DVI-D, HDMI and Displayport. There is also front USB 3.0 support using the bundled USB 3.0 front panel.

ASRock on it’s new generation boards uses Etrontech USB 3.0 controller which is supposedly faster than the NEC USB 3.0 chipset. It claims that it is 3.7% faster than NEC in CyrstlaDiskMark 3.0 (Read Seq)  and 97.7% (8M Write) faster in ATTO Disk benchmark.

In addition, ASRock also bundled in a MCE remote controller & multi angle receiver allowing you to control your PC using the remote control thrown in for FREE. On top of that, ASrock also bundled a 3D Red/Cyan Anaglyph Glasses, allowing you to enjoy 3D with Intel INTRU 3D technology. You no longer need to buy special monitor to view 3D Bluray as it is able to decode Stereoscopic 3D Bluray playback in full HD 1080p resolution over HDMI 1.4a.

For those who prefer the old text based BIOS, be in for a treat as UEFI BIOS now gives you a graphical visual display of yoru system. You can now control different aspects of the BIOS using a mouse. UEFI also supports bootable HDD over 2TB.

For overclockers, ASRock includes AXTU. AXTU is a tuning program software utility that suppoerts overclocking and hardware tuning such as energy usage, hardware monitoring and speed control and OC DNA.

On the next few pages, we will take a look at the board layout and chipsets.