GIGABYTE H55M-USB3 Motherboard Review :: Board Layout

board

8-pin power

CPU socket

Back of PCB)

The GIGABYTE H55M-USB3 board is a Micro-ATX motherboard with a dark purple color for the PCB, much like many of GIGABYTE’s motherboards available. Starting at the top right hand corner, there is an 8-pin power connector. Many H55 boards come with 4-pin power connectors, but the 8-pin is more common.

The CPU Socket area is completely bare of obstacles, meaning you can easily fit after-market cooling on the LGA-1156 CPU. Note if you have an earlier CPU than the Clarkdale, you will need to add external graphics to the motherboard as the Lynnfield CPUs do not have integrated graphics. The H55M-USB3 can use any LGA-1156 CPU including Core i7, i5 and i3 on that interface.

DIMM Sockets

H55 PCH

CPUFan header

ITE and ISL chip

Moving below the CPU Socket area are the four DIMM Sockets that take up to 16GB of Dual Channel DDR3 2200 memory. Note that the memory controller is on the CPU, like the AMD CPUs from the Athlon 64 and later series. DDR3 speeds are determined by the CPU being used and if the system is overclocked. Each like colored pair of DIMMs constitutes a memory channel.

IDE and FDD

SATA

GIGABYTE SATA2 chip

FP I/O

There is an IDE and a FDD port under the memory. Under those ports is a 24-pin power connector. It is good to see a motherboard manufacturer include a FDD and IDE port since this is meant for a basic system and some people still use these legacy devices. There are five blue SATA ports next and two white SATA ports under those ports. GIGABYTE includes a GIGABYTE SATA2 chip to support the other two ports and they support RAID 0, 1 and JBOD while the H55 PCH does not.

Expansion

Winbond chips

ITE chip

USB

Expansion on the board consists of a PCI Express x16 slot running at full speed and a PCI Express x16 slot configured at x4. There are also two PCI slots on the board. The Intel LGA-1156 CPUs support up to 16 PCI Express lanes and this board supports ATI’s CrossfireX Multi-GPU solution. Install two video cards connect them via a Crossfire bridge, connect the monitor and turn o n the computer. Upon installing the ATI drivers, the use of two video cards can dramatically improve performance.

Firewire

NEC USB 3.0 controller

P13VDP

RTL8111DL

GIGABYTE uses the ALC889 CODEC for the onboard sound solution. The 889 can support 7.1+2 channel sound simultaneously (Multi-Stream) has high-quality DACs with a 108dB Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) and much more. Dolby Home Theater, S/PDIF and CD-In are all supported. The Rear I/O on the board consists of a singular PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port, a D-Sub port a DVI-D port, an optical S/PDIF Out connector, a HDMI connector, a DisplayPort connector, 6 USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, a Firewire port, an e-SATA 3Gb/second connector controlled by the H55 chipset, a RJ-45 port and 6 audio jacks for the onboard audio.

ALC889

Audio

Driver version

Rear I/O