GIGABYTE GA-H61N-USB3 LGA 1155 Intel H61 HDMI USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Small form factor, supports full size graphics card and 2 sticks of ram, pretty good price. Plays well with other operating systems :)

Cons: Only 2 Sata ports

Other Thoughts: One ram stick caused problems and memory error crashes in windows 7. This may be the Ram, but memtest did not find any errors. So it is either incompatible with 2 sticks of Corsiar XMS3 4GB ram (the 8GB kit), OR it's a defect with something on the motherboard. Either way, I would recommend not using Corsair XMS3 ram with this board. I could not find it on the compatibility charts on Gigabyte's website either. Other than that, the board has been fine with no issues.

Pros: -HDMI
-Compact Design
-Value ($29.99 combo price)

Cons: -Memory won't run faster than 1066 MHz, I tried 2 sets of 1600 MHz
-Only 2x SATA ports but thats all I needed

Pros: Followed the Customac template and built a Mac Mini hackintosh. First installed Snow Leopard without issue, patched it to 10.6.8 and then upgraded to Mountain Lion. Geekbench score runs around 9700.

Fits well in a Silverstone Sugo SG05 case.

Decent amount of external ports for a mini ITX motherboard, layout is acceptable.

Cons: Didn't buy it from Newegg as the price + i5-2500K was much higher here than the deal at the local Mxxxxxxx shop :(

Couldn't boot off a USB stick for some reason, but creating the Mountain Lion Unibeast install on an external USB hard disk worked fine.

Would have been nice to have an additional SATA connector as 2 is fairly skimpy. No wireless or Bluetooth built in but I knew this. Also with the H61 chipset you can't overclock with the multiplier, despite the fact that you can set it in the bios. Not fiddling with the base clock.

Other Thoughts: Configuration for a nearly "out of the box" inexpensive Hackintosh experience:

H61N-USB3
i5-2500K or i3-2105, stock cooler is fine
4, 8 or 16GB DDR3 1333
SATA disk, either
Sony Optiarc DVD drive (preferred)
integrated HD3000 graphics or nVidia Kepler-based graphics card (I'm using the new GT 640, pretty cheap and decent)
Shell out $29 for Snow Leopard (have to special order it for pickup at an Apple Store or mailed to you)
Shell out $19 for Mountain Lion.

So far I'm very happy with the build!

Pros: Great board! Have bought 3 or 4 of these now. Excellent choice for an ITX build. Warranty is good. Express Recovery 2 is a very useful tool, especially for those that build and sell these systems. It allows you to create a recovery partition, much like places like Dell or HP would. I have been using that tool on nearly every system I build using a Gigabyte board. Probably the past 50 systems or so, been a wonderful tool.

As for this board? HDMI out. PCIe16x slot. Small size. Bundled with an i3 or higher processor, and it will rip though about anything. Most of the ones I build have either dual core Cels, or Pentiums, but a couple of them have had i3's, etc. 8-16GB as well. 500GB drives or bigger. One even has Blu Ray setup on it. Really awesome little systems. Using Inwin ITX towers with these.

Cons: Well, with any ITX build, you are working with limited space. Take your time, plan how you want to assemble. Watch installing the 24pin power connector. You WILL flex the board too much if you just shove it on there. I tend to work it down gently, by rocking it back and forth (along the length of the connector) as it goes down so the board doesn't over flex. Its possible that you could crack off a component if you are too forceful.

Other Thoughts: Did have a DOA once, but Newegg came through as always, so no worries. My customers are starting to want these smaller computers more and more, now that they are more powerful yet still in a small package.

Inwin ITX Tower cases (50 dollar price point)
Pareema 8GB kit (4gbx2 1333)
500GB WD SATA
Samsung, LG, or Asus DVD drives,
Windows 7 Home Premium 64Bit
Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse combos


Makes for a nice simple home compute build.

Pros: Stellar interface, solid capacitors, "hybrid efi", excellent form factor, easy set up and makes for a very nice custo-mac.

Cons: This, my first Gigabyte motherboard, died almost two months in. Warnings all over Newegg and the internet about this, but I didn't listen.

Other Thoughts: Baffling. Bought the unit to set up as a custo mac. Gigabyte has a stellar reputation and after going through hell with my Intel board I was more then happy to give this one a try (even tho it is not overclockable). Set up for my Mac went like a breeze, then all of a sudden I started having problems waking from sleep (to a black screen), then today -- just died. Will not post or go into bios. Seems like a waste. Avoid! You've been warned.

Pros: - eSATA
- Price
- Doesn't blink the LED in S3 sleep

Cons: - Only 2 x SATA
- Not as nice a BIOS as ASUS
- CPU fan control

Other Thoughts: I am using this motherboard for my office PC in a Realan E-I7 mini-ITX case. If you know Gigabyte you know this board. It's nice and cheap, works well right out of the box and is nice and stable so far. On the plus side, it has eSATA which I needed. I love that Gigabyte has figured out no one needs the power LED to blink in S3 sleep making this a good HTPC board. On the minus side, it only has 2 x SATA so if you need more than a ODD and HDD you're out of luck. The BIOS is not the new graphical BIOS. The CPU fan tends to speed up and slow down constantly which can get annoying at all but the lowest settings. There does not seem to be BIOS control for a chassis fan -- it just runs at full speed. Overall I am very please with this board. It was cheap, does the basic things I need and works.

Pros: This is a great little board when you get a good one. I have experienced a high failure rate on the 2 I have purchased. One ran great for a few months, a second one failed out of the box.

Cons: High failure rate

Pros: Nice looking, fairly well laid out. Lots of features for a mini-itx

Cons: Pretty high in price considering it appears to have a bad memory slot right out of the box. The clips on the ram feel a bit cheap. When ever I put ram in the one slot the screen changes colors and displays jibberish and freezes if the board gets even the slightest tap. I've tried other ram and it appears to be a problem with only the one slot. Its really disappointing considering this was my first Gigabyte board.

Other Thoughts: have $87 tied up in a board that can't be used to full potential.

Pros: I previously mentioned that analog audio was hissing. But after further testing it was only from the front ports.
Chances are it is my cheapo case which is at fault.

Cons: only 2x internal sata ports

Pros: Plays blu-rays and other HD content smoothly

Cons: analogue audio seams to be poorly shielded and causes hissing
(doesn't affect hdmi coax or spdif)

Other Thoughts: cpu I3 2105
ram 2x2gb 1333
win7 x64
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Originally purchased this to make a customac. But in the end Osx wasn't for me.