Yesterday, our friends at EVGA officially launched their latest motherboards based on Intel’s socket LGA-1156 mainstream H55 and H57 chipsets. For those unfamiliar with the new chipsets, they are designed specifically for Intel’s new 32nm Clarkdale processors also known as Core i3 and Core i5.

Due to the fact that the already-launched P55 motherboards do not feature integrated display outputs, Intel decided to launch three new chipsets – H55, H57 and Q57 – which all support integrated DVI, VGA and DisplayPort connectivity for Clarkdale-based processors. EVGA’s launch-day solutions include its H55 motherboard (123-CD-E635-KR), its H57 motherboard (123-CD-E637-KR) and its barebones H55-V micro-ATX motherboard (111-CD-E630-TR).

The H55 and H57 come in ATX form factor and both feature four DDR3 slots capable of 1333MHz+ speeds and up to 16GB of total memory capacity. The main differences between the two chipsets are 14 USB ports, two PCI-E x1 slots on the H57 versus 12 USB ports and no PCI-E x1 slots on the H55. It is important to note that both chipsets feature only one PCI-E x16 slot, making SLI and CrossFire nonexistent on these platforms and only available on P55 and above.

Meanwhile, the H55-V barebones board comes in micro-ATX form factor and features the same four DDR3 slots, but only capable of up to 1333MHz speeds. Like the H55, it also features 12 USB ports but only has one PCI slot and lacks Firewire and an IDE connector.



All three boards support Intel’s new Core 2010 processors with IGPs, including the Core i5 670, Core i5 661, Core i5 660, Core i5 650, Core i3 540, Core i3 530 as well as the Pentium G6920. It is important to note that any socket 1156-based Core i7, Core i5 and Core i3 processor will work in H57 and H55 motherboards. The CPU’s listed above have the added functionality of embedded graphics, eliminating the need for budgeting any discreet GPU from Nvidia or AMD into total system costs.

EVGA’s H55-V is priced at $99.99, while its H55 is priced at $169.99 and its H57 is listed at an undisclosed price at time of writing. We will have more information tomorrow when we visit the company at its CES debut location in the Wynn Hotel and Resort.