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.
