14 DAY TRIAL // Eager to provide its customers with high-performance motherboards with support for Intel's future processors, ASRock detailed its H55 motherboard lineup which consists of two micro-ATX and a “normal” ATX motherboard. These three products will support Intel's upcoming Core i3 and Core i5 “Clarkdale” processors. The motherboards are the H55DE3 (ATX) and the H55M and H55M Pro (micro-ATX). The products are expected to become available in early January.
The H55 chipset is a version of the more impressive H57 which has support for technologies such as Remote PC Assist and Rapid Storage. Still, the H57, even though it lacks these two features, comes with a larger number of USB ports and PCI-Express lanes. In addition, the H55 comes with the Flexible Display Interface which will see to the connectivity of the embedded graphics processors of the aforementioned Core i5 and Core i3.
The H55M and H55M Pro are almost identical, with their main resources being a a PCI Express 2.0 x16, a PCI Express x16 (electrical x4), PCI-Express x1 and a legacy PCI slot. Both motherboards have the similar 4+1 VRM, 8-channel audio, gigabit Ethernet and eSATA, as well as display options including DVI, D-Sub and HDMI ports. A notable feature lies in the DuraCap solid-state capacitors which are Conductive Polymer Capacitors made in Japan and which have a lifespan 2.5 times longer than other types of capacitors.
As differing elements between the two micro-ATX boards, the H55M Pro is somewhat broader and, thus, able to power four DDR3 DIMM slots instead of the two accommodated by the H55M. The H55M Pro also has more connectivity options than its sibling, with six SATA 3 Gbps ports, out of which five are internal, one eSATA and even FireWire connectivity. The H55M lacks FireWire and only two of its four internal SATA 3 Gbps ports are assigned as eSATA.
The ATX motherboard H55DE3 naturally has an increased number of features, even though it uses the same basic design as the H55M. Being larger, there is enough room around the CPU to install large coolers. The board has four DDR3 DIMM slots and out of the six eSATA ports, four are internal. The rear-panel retains the 8-channel audio of the H55M.
Finally, as one would expect from ASRock motherboards, the products will incorporate OC DNA, OC Tuner, Intelligent Energy Saver, Instant Boot, Instant Flash and Good Night LED technologies, and they will come with a trial pack of Creative X-Fi MB software.
