Well, to be fair, when you buy an Intel motherboard, you don't buy for gaming innovation (or usually even Silent PC innovation) - you buy for reliability and ruggedness. It'll never be the Supra or the Prius - it is the Corolla of motherboards.

In other words, it's great for that computer build you're putting together for a friend or family member that you hope you'll never get support calls on.

-D

That was as always informative without being the 29-page over-done piece of work we have come to love from X-Bit, but this had a slight twist of humour and sarcasm that made me feel at home.












Andy

Just couldn't hold back that Larry!

Thanks for a really good clear concise review. This is the kind of work that keeps me coming back to SPCR!

Would the system described have worked with a Ninja?

Suppose you don't need HDMI and can manage without mobo fan control, and mainly care about heat/power. How far is the described system from an AMD 690G (plus low-power CPU) PC in terms of heat and power consumption?

Humor is missing in most, if not all, reviews- which is a shame, because it's such an effective device.

I appreciate your efforts!

P.S. Yes, a Ninja fits with zero issues in my hands, but I use a Thermalright bolt-through kit. (Those ________ push pins could not have been designed and tested by anyone wanting repeat business.)

Larry explicitly mentioned that the review board is 17W higher at idle than the 35W of the Asus AMD690G system he reviewed a couple weeks ago. With more BIOS options, turning off any board features you don't use or need, you could probably make the idle lower, but not with this Intel board. Using CrystalCPUIDmight also help.

Hmm I wasn't been sarcastic. [/sarcasm]

nice review, though "You could toss on a gaming graphics card and turn it " seems to be an orphan phrase in the Final Thoughts section.

TBH, as soon as I saw the BIOS page I pretty much gave up any interest. Throw in lack of Speedfan support and I'm just not interested. However, it would make a good reliable box for a friend or family member - where it doesn't have to be flashy, it just has to work. Interesting to see the microATX reviews on here - given how full featured many of them are and how many features on full ATX boards are superfluous, they really fit well into the SPCR ethos.

Thanks for the review; I'm always interested in mATX boards.

Some notes:

1. You mention that this board is "legacy-free", but I submit that it is not. It still retains a VGA connector, perfect for a poor-quality, fuzzy connection to your monitor. Sure, it's got DVI, but the VGA connector could easily be replaced by HDMI, as you mention in the review. Or even S-video. At least it's got digital audio out. Now that I think about it, another couple of USB ports would be welcome, seeing as there are no PS2 ports. Or integrated wifi! The wishlist continues.

Also on that wishlist: one more PCI slot (yeah, more legacy) in exchange for a useless PCIe x1 slot. Seriously. How many years after the introduction of PCIe, and there still aren't hardly any x1 or x4 devices? One x1 slot is sufficient for any board out there. What's going to go on it anyway? (Perhaps RAID cards, but I'd be very surprised if that would be used on such a small board in the first place.) Two x1 slots crosses the line from "mostly useless" to "stupidly useless."

2. At the top of the wishlist would have to be a better BIOS, that's for sure. The review mentions that the board would be suited to businesses or other environments where adjustments are not needed or wanted; that it should just work. Has Intel been marketing the board this way? To whom are they catering? I haven't heard much about it before. The BIOS still seems pretty crappy regardless of intended usage.

3. Longish typo in the penultimate paragraph:

4. The review lists "Large northbridge heatsink" as a pro, but given quotes like:

I should think that the heatsink is more of a con. Just about all silent coolers do have cooling apparatus on their upper side. Gigabyte's cards come to mind, as well as some of the more ridiculous wraparound aftermarket heatsinks.

Overall, this board is kinda "meh." Nothing really attention-getting. No heart or soul. It's got some solid selling points, but for $120+ . . . I dunno. I bought a much more fully-featured full ATX board for that price!

Hi !

It's really strange that your motherboard didn't report the 3 pins rpm. I'm a computer builder, use only Intel Motherboard, and always have the rpm for the fans connected to these 3 pins connectors.

@nightmorph

What you talking about?
This motherboard is simple, stable, Intel mobo.
I run 24 h/daily/365 HP-Compaq computer totally silent, with guess what mobo? Lite-On. With Lite-On PSU->>far better than any Seasonics and Corsairs. This PSU is only 250 W, totally silent, and HP-Compaq BIOS is totally closed. I never change anything in my BIOS for years.

I'm searching for for that type of motherboard. I'm tired from too many experiments-they are useless.
The "OC subject" is rubbish for the people which have tooo many time to play.

I'm simply searching for for the stable mobo.

I'm using the board on my HTPC/File Server. It runs 24/7 and it's rock stable. Yeah it doesn't have fancy stuff on it, but I decided on this board for it's stability.

And so far, I've been very happy with it.