Final Words and Verdict
The Verdict,
Now agreeably, this is not the most sexy looking motherboard in terms of aesthetics. But fair enough, the product isn't targeted to be that anyway. It is what it is and that certainly is good value for money. For not a lot of dough you get a proper baseline performing Core i3 and i5 ready motherboard. Pop in a Clarkdale based processor and voilla, you'll have working 2D/3D graphics as well. It's pretty much all you need to get Windows Vista or 7 going properly. Should you want to game in a more serious fashion, then just make use of the PCIe slot and make use of a dedicated graphics card.
Overall the ECS H55H-M is a fair and good motherboard. Performance is as expected, and for the money the features are plenty decent. Do not expect a tweaking or overclocking monster though, this is not what the board is intended for, but you could overclock a little in the baseclock if you wanted to. But for your average desktop usage and mid-range classed activities, this motherboard will do just fine.
There's one side note I like to make to ECS. Why not integrate a HDMI connector ? Mainboards like these in combo with Clarkdale are a really nice combination for HTPCs. Next to that we see more and more monitors support HDMI. A HDMI connector would have made total sense to me.
Considering that the H55 chipset alone costs ECS 40 bucks a piece and then they still have to design a motherboard around it, the roughly 79 USD pricetag is warranted. A bit of a downer is not the motherboard, but the overall Clarkdale processor pricing. For the same amount of money you can pickup an AMD 785 based motherboard offering more features and performance when paired with a nice X3 or X4 Phenom II processor. But it's certainly good to have choices, and we like the H55 motherboard for what it brings to the table.
The ECS H55H-M motherboard comes recommended as a good value product.
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