Pocket Rocket: Zotac H55-ITX WiFi

While the Intel P45 Express and AMD 780G chipsets aren’t exactly meant for mini PCs, they still appeared on very early ITX solutions. When the desktop bound Intel P55 Express and AMD 785G chipsets were out, Zotac stuffed them into their mini boards anyway. Today, we’ll be taking a look at the H55-ITX WiFi, which has the latest Intel H55 Express underneath. Small-sized ultra-performance rig? This could be your dream come true.

Previously the battle in the ITX area is between the Intel’s LGA775 lead by Zotac and Intel, and the AMD’s AM2+/3 lead by J&W MINIX. With the introduction to LGA1156 socket for the mainstream users, ITX has soon found its way into that path, with the first P55 chipset for ITX by DFI which started its first ITX series with the LANPARTY MI. H55 and H57 chipsets soon came along to support Intel’s HD graphics core, and other hosts of brand new features, supporting their new Core i7s, Core i5s, and Core i3s processors.

Zotac is one of the pioneer ITX motherboard makers moving up the grade from the P45 LGA775 ITX board to the H55 chipset, with their brand new H55-ITX WiFi. VR-Zone has the opportunity to get its hands on one for benching purpose.

A brief overview of the H55-ITX WiFi:

• Intel H55 Express Chipset
• LGA1156 Socket
• Intel Core i3, i5 & i7* ready
• Intel QuickPath Technology
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD
• DirectX 10 with Shader Model 4.0
• Intel Clear Video HD Technology
• HDMI DeepColour and x.v.Colour support
• High-quality DVD Upscaling
• Blu-ray Premium Audio Support
• 1 PCI Express x16
• DVI-I & HDMI outputs
• Dual Channel DDR3-1066/1333 MHz
• 2 DIMM sots up to 8GB of memory
• 6 SATA 3.0Gb/s
• 1 eSATA 3.0Gb/s
• 7.1-channel High-Definition Audio
• 14 USB 2.0 ports (10 on back panel, 4 on header)
• Gigabit LAN
• 802.11n WiFi (300Mb/s)

*Core i7 support limited to only 800 series processors