ECS H55H-CM - Features
There is always one thing you can count on ECS for and that's to deliver the absolute cheapest product possible. Note that we don't necessarily mean in terms of quality but rather the price tag. ECS has a total of four H55 boards on offer, and while the version we are looking at today is not their most affordable, it's still one of least expensive in this article.
Priced at just $90, there is no mistaking the ECS H55H-CM for a high-end motherboard, but it's a worthy competitor and a welcomed addition to our roundup. As you might have already suspected, with such a low price tag, the vast majority of the features found on this board derive from the H55 chipset itself.
We were disappointed by the fact that while the H55H-CM will sell for more or less the same as the Asrock H55M Pro, it lacks many of the features found on the latter. Starting with the audio, ECS used a lowly Realtek ALC662 5.1 channel HD audio codec. Although this chip does add support for S/PDIF output it appears ECS has not bothered to include it on the I/O panel. Instead, this is an optional extra.
The ECS H55H-CM is the only H55 motherboard in this roundup to utilize an Intel Gigabit controller. The Intel 82578DC was released last year and is designed to be used with the Intel 5 series chipsets for desktop computers. It's surprising that more manufacturers don't use Intel network solutions.
Other than the Realtek ALC662 and Intel 82578DC chips the ECS H55H-CM has no other features to speak of. The board does feature a floppy disk connector despite failing to incorporate PATA support, which would have been more useful.