Asrock H67M-GE review

We were worried that the new LGA1155 motherboards would prove as expensive as their LGA1156 siblings were upon launch. High prices for LGA1156 boards, often around £150, proved a major stumbling block soon after release; taking the shine off building a new PC around the new technology.

At only £72 the H67M-GE looks to banish any such worries immediately – it’s a very reasonable price for a board based on a brand new chipset. However, before you rush out to buy one it’s worth noting that this board is based around the H67 chipset. On the plus side this means you can make the most of the new processors’ superior built-in graphics; however, H67 boards cannot be overclocked. You still get the benefit of Intel’s Turbo Boost, but you can’t push the maximum multiplier higher – an easy way to gain extra performance.

Putting this to one side, the board has everything most users will need – there’s even a couple of SATA3 and USB3 ports for those with up-to-date storage devices. VGA, DVI-D and HDMI outputs are provided for use with Intel HD graphics (which is on all LGA1155 compatible processors). There’s even an eSATA port and an optical S/PDIF output fitted.

There’s a single PCI-Express x16 slot should you wish to add a graphics card, plus two PCI-Express x1 slots and a PCI slot for other extras. The four memory slots hold up to 16GB of memory, which is the limit for Windows 7 Home Premium anyhow. Our one complaint about the board’s design is that fitting a graphics card fouls the catches on the memory slots, though that’s unlikely to bother any but the most constant tinkerers.

For those who want to build a media centre PC around the new 2nd generation Intel processors, the H67M-GE is a good choice. We doubt we’ll see any board significantly cheaper for some time. A natural fit for this board should be one of the new upcoming 2nd gen Core i3 chips, which we await with anticipation.