Asrock H67M-GE/HT review

Asrock’s H67M-GE/HT is a surprisingly inexpensive LGA1155 motherboard with a wealth of features. It doesn’t have many expansion slots, though – just one PCI, one PCI-E x16 and two PCI-E x1 slots, one of which will be blocked if you install a graphics card with a large cooler.

Four memory card slots can take 32GB of DDR3 RAM at a maximum speed of 2,100MHz. We were impressed by the glossy, graphical UEFI (the new BIOS replacement), and by the ease of overclocking. Even without any overclocking, this H67-based motherboard did well in our tests, scoring 176 Overall.

The H67M-GE/HT takes advantage of the Intel Core CPUs’ integrated graphics processing capabilities with VGA, DVI, DisplayPort and HDMI ports on the back panel. The HDMI port meets the HDMI 1.4a standard, which supports 3D Blu-ray provided you have appropriate playback software. The onboard graphics of LGA1155 processors also support HD Blu-ray audio, making this an attractive motherboard for a media centre PC. Also rattling around the box are a USB IR module, a media centre remote control and a USB3 front panel connector.

There are also two USB3 ports on the back panel, as well as another four standard USB ports and an eSATA port. A PS/2 port lets you save at least one USB port. A further four USB headers, including one USB3 header, allow you to add eight more ports. The motherboard also has two SATA3 ports and three SATA2 ports.

The original release of this board had issues with the SATA2 ports relating to its Sandy Bridge chipset. These have now been fixed, with a B3 stepping versions of the board, and you shouldn’t be able to find the flawed board on sale any more.

Asrock’s H67M-GE/HT is a brilliant combination of value and features, making it our Best Buy LGA1155 motherboard, despite its meagre one-year warranty. If you don’t require the additional bits and pieces, most notably the media centre remote, then you should buy the cheaper version, the Asrock H67M-GE, instead.