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Since the release of Intel H57 chipset, the motherboard manufactures follow this release by producting Intel motherboards based Intel H57 chipset, and Gigabyte was one of the first out there to ship out one of their H57 based motherboards by releasing GA-H57M-USB3 motherboard. As its name, this motherboard from Gigabyte is one of motherboards with USB 3.0 support through NEC uPD720200 host controller. Like another Intel motherboards from Gigabyte, GA-H57M-USB3 also entails Gigabyte's Ultra Durable 3 design, 2 Oz copper and additional functions such as Smart6 PC management tools, Dynamic Energy Saver 2 utilities for power saving, and DualBIOS. Gigabyte GA-H57M-USB3 motherboard features a 3x USB power boost, delivering greater compatibility and extra power for USB devices. Howerver, Gigabyte is not adding an extra PLX chip for additional bandwidth to their motherboards while implementing that USB3.0 controller. If Gigabyte in the near future adds say a SATA 6GBPs controller to their motherboards then these motherboards in their current design can run into bandwidth issues. This Gigabyte's decision can be understand, cause adding that PLX chip also increases pricing and the PLX costs 20~25 USD a piece. The baseline performance of Gigabyte GA-H57M-USB3 is on par with all Intel H55/H57 motherboards, but where it really shines is overclockability and it's feature set. You get to play around with heaps of SATA ports, USB ports, and then the monitor I/O wowzers, you get VGA, DVI, HDMI and Display port, that's quite a bunch of connectivity and options alright. The stability of Gigabyte GA-H57M-USB3 mainboard is perfect, it is seem that the Gigabyte's Ultra Durable design is working and the BIOS options are wide, extensive and will allow you to pull a trick or two overclocking wise. Don't forget that for the display outputs to work, you will need an Intel Clarkdale processor (Core i3 500 and Core i5 600 series). A processor like the Core i5 750, will work just fine, but does not have an embedded graphics unit inside the processor.
Labels: Gigabyte, Intel
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