reccomend me a budget mATX 1156 board..

[mb2]

looking for a cheap mATX s1156 board for an i3 530 or g6950.

have been looking at

*Gigabyte H55M-S2H, £67.62 @ scan
*ASUS P7H55-M SI (aka ASUS P7H55-M/CSM?.. not the Pro), £60.57 @ scan
*MSI H55M-E33, £77.16 @ eBuyer

if anyone knows of any good reviews of these boards please point me to them! Also note i'm open to other suggestions too!

would like the ability to OC (within budget/reason)


what would u recommend???

[BlackWhizz]

Not the MSI. MSI is the better with AMD cpu's. Intel cpu's gigabyte or asus.

[lodestar]

The main difference seems to be the quality of the onboard sound, the cheapest board uses a very basic VIA chip while the Gigabyte has the Realtek ALC888B. If sound quality is not important to you, or you are planning to deploy a separate sound card then buy the cheapest. Otherwise buy the Gigabyte H55M-S2H.

Overclocking? The cheap boards don't have the additional heatsinks and/or large size heatsinks of the more expensive boards. But certainly the BIOS controls for overclocking are there on the Gigabyte for example. From what web reviewers are saying a 4.0Ghz overclock on the 530 is relatively straightforward. It maybe that the cheaper boards won't stretch to 4.4Ghz, but given that this is a budget setup that may not matter. A 530 overclocked to 4.0Ghz still uses a fairly modest amount of power so you will only need a moderate PSU.

[quest_for_silence]

looking for a cheap mATX s1156 board for an i3 530 or g6950.

have been looking at

*Gigabyte H55M-S2H, £67.62 @ scan

For what is worth the Gigabyte H55M-UD2H or the H55M-USB3 should be preferable to the S2H (in Italy the price difference is usually no more than 10 euros).

Just FYI: even Biostar T-Power mobos (BHD and XE) may deserve some consideration.

EDIT: http://www.insidehw.com/Reviews/Motherb ... nd-i5.html.

Regards,
Luca