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ECS is also making a mini-ITX H55 motherboard

Published on 19th April 2010 by Richard Swinburne

ECS is tiptoeing into the small form factor market with its first mini-ITX motherboard based on the Intel H55 chipset.

Hot on the heels of the awesome mini-ITX board by Zotac and DFI and Gigabyte's recent announcement to follow suit, ECS is also planning to dive into the small form factor arena with a similar H55 board.

Dubbed the H55H-I, the board features a decent mix of four SATA plus one eSATA port, a pair of DDR3 slots, a full 16x PCI-E slot, HDMI and DVI outputs, Gigabit Ethernet and both types of S/PDIF outputs in addition to the usual 7.1 channel HD audio - so good for a HTPC and upgradable.

There's no WiFi like the Zotac board offers, nor is there USB 3 like the Gigabyte, but the benefit of this board is that it should be much cheaper than them both. The downside is that it's 4+1 phase power is designed for sub-85W Clarkdale CPUs only: Lynnfield CPUs do fit, but ECS explained they are certainly not recommended. That said, the board does feature some form of overclocking, which seems more than a little oxymoronic.

We're due one in the bit-tech lab come Monday for testing in the coming weeks in a head to head against Gigabyte's H55 mini-ITX! It'll be interesting to see if a budget ECS board is good enough, or if Gigabyte engineering is the better buy.

Are you in the market for a mini-ITX board? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.

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5 Comments

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amdavies 19th April 2010, 11:06

It's nice to see this form factor being made mainstream.
Pre-Intel's D201GLY, the only consumer game in town was VIA who charged an arm and a leg for a woefully under-powered and under-supported range of products.
Now, in theory, you can build a perfectly adequate gaming machine in something not much bigger than the size of a shoebox (as opposed to the VIA solution, which had about the same power as a shoebox).

Lockon Stratos 19th April 2010, 11:09

ugh.... ECS are the 'Foxconn' of old ages - I havent seen ECS come out with a decent board ever - the KN1 & KN2 were semi decent. they i think as a manufacturer they need to step back & re-evaluate their position - & either stick to making boards for OEMs such as dell & HP etc etc before trying to take on the mainstream market because there are similar boards that come with similar pricetags that are generally a lot better not just in performance, but build quality & Durability etc etc for that reason its hard to recommend ECS to anyone.

Cheapskate 19th April 2010, 17:19

I like this trend. I wouldn't mind seeing an 'extended ITX' format with more memory slots too. They might as well. The video cards will be hanging over that space anyway.

confusis 20th April 2010, 10:59

I have an ECS 6100PM-M2 board, most reliable and stable board I've ever owned, only cost me NZ$89 brand new (Currently US$39.99 on newegg), and runs a 10% overclock 24/7. They're getting a LOT better than they used to be. I was hesitant buying it after reading ECS reviews but it was a good purchase. Only time will tell if their newer boards will be as good!

1_legged_sheep 7th May 2010, 17:02

I have the ECS H55H-I in a SG05 with an i3-530. It's a great board. Running the i3-530 @ 4.074ghz stable and cool.