amazon ASRock H81M-G reviews
Design & Components
For a universal product, the casing of the H81M-G is quite eye-catching.
Included accessories include manuals, drivers, two SATA 3 6 Gbps cables and a main block.
Despite the popular H81 segment, the H81M-G looks pretty good with the popular black-and-red tone of recent times. Unfortunately, the circuit board still uses brown, if black is always so beautiful.
At first thought H81M-G has 5 power phases, but actually only 4. The fifth one is actually to filter the power to the CPU.
Power on the CPU is the top of the 8-pin, indicating that ASRock drives its products to run high-end TDP CPUs such as Core i5, i7 or Xeon.
Not only many phases, this horse is also equipped with mosfet radiator again. Of course, at this price can not be beautiful. However, the heat dissipation is high and cleaved thoroughly to increase the area of contact with the air, towards cooling effect rather than decoration.
Imagine four power phases on a motherboard that cost less than a million and a half ASRock will use a cheap 3-foot mosfet. But not! They equip two low impedance mosfets for each phase of electricity. These mosfets are code 8300DL – which is used on some Killer Gaming Series motherboards.
Two RAM slots are painted bright red, powered by two power phases, supporting XMP Profile. For main H81, even with the i5 or i7 plug, only 1600 MHz RAM is the highest. Surprisingly, these RAM slots are 15μ gold-plated, anti-jamming, anti-oxidant, which is only seen in the mid-range and high end segments.
Aside from the PCIe x16 slots painted red, ASRock is equipped with three PCIe x1 slots for devices such as sound cards, wifi cards or PCIe x1 SSDs. PCIe x16 slot is also 15μ gold plated.
Right below the battery Cmos is a clear cmos jumper. If the OC fails, the user does not need to remove the battery but just change the jumper pins to reset the BIOS.
Two red 6 Gbps SATA3 ports and two 3 Gbps SATA2 ports are located in the lower right corner of the main. Due to the narrow width of Micro ATX, all four SATA ports must be swiveled out. The H81M-G uses the same B85 main board as the motherboard, leaving 2 SATA3 ports out of the way. There is something I’m wondering why they do not remove the two ports on the middle, looking slightly unreasonable.
The H81M-G uses the ALC662 audio chip. Significantly, the decoded audio will be amplified by the TI NE5532 – amp used in high-end Purity Sound audio solutions on ASRock Gaming KILLER motherboards. Combined with four ELNA dedicated audio converters.
Interface ports on the back include: 2 PS / 2 mouse and keyboard ports, 2 DVI and Dsub output ports, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports and an audio port. Notably, one of them has an Ultra USB Power port that draws power from the 12V rail (reducing the voltage to 5V) instead of the 5V rail, which can deliver up to 2.6A – for smartphone and tablet.
where can you get a ASRock H81M-G online
ASROCK H81M-DGS R2.0 ASRock H81M-DGS R2.0 LGA1150/ Intel H81/ DDR3/ SATA3&USB3.0/ A&G: Buy it now
ASRock H81M-HDS LGA1150/ Intel H81/ DDR3/ SATA3&USB3.0/ A&GbE/ MicroATX Motherboard: Buy it now
Conclude
There is a lightweight cramp in the H81M-G. There are many components and features in the higher segment are backward ASRock for this product:
– 4 power phases.
– Low impedance Mosfet of the same type with some KILLER main.
– Overclocked perfectly like the real Z97.
– RAM slots and PCIe x16 gold plated 15μ.
– Ultra USB Power 2,6A line to charge phone and tablet very fast.
– Chip TI NE5532 improves the sound field, increasing the bass strings.
– Dedicated ELNA audio.
– The board is made of fiberglass against moisture.
– Equipped with Full Spike Protection against magnetic interference, lightning strike.
The most frustrating thing about the H81 is that it will have to replace the main with a higher CPU upgrade. The ASRock H81M-G is completely unobstructed. You can build either a Pentium or Core i3-based or mid-range configuration, then gradually upgrade to Core i5, i7, or even diagonal overclockers. Main support overclocking to the teeth, just a few clicks to add 20 -> 25% of delicious performance.
However, the H81M-G is not perfect. The location of two 3 Gbps SATA2 ports is slightly unreasonable, and will require a SATA cable if you use a long VGA.