ECS P67H2-A3 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: i dont overclock or anything, it works fine. $40 after rebates, which I received

Cons: nothing really

Pros: None.

Cons: DOA. RMA'd for a refund to get a better mobo. Now I check and it's discontinued. I wonder why?

Manufacturer Response:

We are sorry to hear about the DOA issue you experienced. We realize that you have stated you already RMA'ed your motherboard but we would just like to let you know that if you or any others have any issues or questions, we are here to help in anyway we can.

When contacting us, you can refer to case #ECD12121410001

I or any of my team members here at technical support will be able to help you.
Our hours are Mon-Fri 9am-6pm PST.

Thank you,
Andy
Phone# 1-510-771-0284
Email: andy_K@ecsusa.com

External Link(s):

Elite Member 99-hour service|

Pros: It works perfectly

Cons: Only one 16 pin and one 4 pin PCI slots. Filled quickly with a wireless card and GPU

Pros: Plenty of room for expansion

Cons: Item was DOA. Ordered it rush and now I have to send it back.

Manufacturer Response:

We are sorry to hear about the POST issues you are experiencing. Prior to shipping from our factory, all motherboards are tested to ensure that they are working properly. Since DOA can be interpreted differtly by all, please do contact us so we can find out what is the exact issue you are experiencing. We would like to work with you in finding a possible solution without having to ship the motherboard back.

When contacting us, you can refer to case #ECD12112610021

I or any of my team members here at technical support will be able to help you.
Our hours are Mon-Fri 9am-6pm PST.

Thank you,
Andy
Phone# 1-510-771-0284
Email: andy_K@ecsusa.com

External Link(s):

Elite Member 99-hour service|

Pros: Its a standard motherboard, nothing too special.

Cons: Mounting spots were a little strange, leading to the right side not actually being supported and left floating.

Other Thoughts: The board I had failed on me after a few boot attempts, and I decided to just go and get a more reliable board.

Pros: Price
fast startup
worked first try

Cons: Don't listen to other people on here. This is no where near high quality board. I have alt asrock and asus deluxe board builds and this board isn't even close.

Can't set ram exactly to what voltage i want. Its offset instead. One that don't remain constant. Changes every time you turn it on and is random.
Memory purchased was 1866. Set it to 1866 runs at 1333. Set it to 1600 runs at 1866.

sata connections come out perpendicular right in line with pcie slot #2 so sli and multi raid setups can't be done at the same time. Other boards go sideways allowing second videocards.

Overclocking is much easier on the other boards.

Other Thoughts: had a bad stick of ram my asus wouldn't boot with. This thing booted with it, but jammed randomly even if you moved the mouse after 3 minutes of idle. It shouldn't have allowed a successful boot with bad ram. made it hard to figure out what was causing the lock ups.

Pros: -4.5 GHz @ 1.32v OCCT, Prime 95
-cheap

Cons: BIOS a bit buggy...looking forward to BIOS update. Takes away one star. Nice looking board.

Other Thoughts: I like pancakes for breakfast.

Pros: *Most* of the features of the $150+ boards at a very affordable price, and B3 stepping.

Can use (insert top cpu manufacturer name here)'s Extreme Tuning Utility for overclocking (great tool, easy to use and comprehensive as all get out).

Overclocked i5-2500k to 4.2Ghz out of the box.

Integrated SATA RAID that seems to work pretty well.

Cons: Bios quirks (forget trying to overclock unless using the above utility).

Flimsy, you will feel like you are going to break the board during CPU and HSF install.

Half of the capacitors (the lesser-important ones) are electrolytic, and not solid state.

On-board LAN refuses to acknowledge a network connection is present if you use the built-in Win7 (64bit) driver, the ones provided on the CD work fine. Not a huge problem, but a big headache when trying to troubleshoot and device manager is showing "device is working properly) and network lights are showing activity. I guess this isn't ECS's fault.

Other Thoughts: Cheap on build quality, not cheap on features. You can certainly tell corners were cut but they are irrelevant once the system is together and running. 4/5 Eggs purely on the flimsiness of the board itself and minor BIOS issues.

System:
--------------------------------------------
PSU: PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad
MOBO: ECS P67HS-A3
CPU: Intel i5-2500k @ 4.2Ghz
HSF: Cooler Master Hyper N520
RAM: 2 x 2GB GSkill Ripjaws X DDR3 1600 @ 1600 9-9-9-24
GPU: Gigabyte Nvidia GTX460 768MB @ 750/1500
AUD: Creative X-Fi XtremeAudio
CAS: Cooler Master Elite 430
HDD1: WD 500GB 7200RPM
HDD2: 2 x Seagate 160GB 7200RPM striped RAID 0 (320GB)

Pros: Cheap P67 board. Overclocks.

Cons: The BIOS could use some work. Lacking some needed voltages adjustment. The adjustable voltages it does have need to more fine tune-able, makes me a little uncomfortable doing any 4.5ghz+ 24/7 overclocking. The PCB is very very thin, bends and warps easily with a large air heatsink. The mosfet heatsink gets very warm when overclocking, had to add a fan blowing on it to keep the temps down. Basically no thermal sensors on the board. Some of the capacitors are cheapies.

Other Thoughts: I'm using this board as a I7-2600k folding rig. I have it running stable at 4.8ghz w/1.36v vcore. The unit I bought here from Newegg was obviously used. It had thermal paste on the cpu socket, mosfet heatsink and audio jack housing and some of the capacitors are already bulging! The anti-static bag it came wrapped in looked like it was melted in spots as if someone put a blazzing hot mobo right back into it after some bench testing. It was disheartening to find it in this condition but even a used P67 at this price isn't a bad deal. Too bad it wasn't what I though I'd receive. Not ECS's fault.

Pros: Great budget gamer board for the price. B3 stepping on the box and the board. Overclocks easily by changing Core Ratio limit for all 4 cores under Turbo Mode in the bios and leaving the power saving features on. Put all mine at 45 for 4.5ghz and bumped cpu voltage to 1.27v and works great on my 2500k. Installed the turbo boost monitor from the system utility dvd under utility folder to make sure it was working properly. Also the 4x pci-e slot is great for using dedicated PhysX if you have an extra card lying around.

Cons: None really. I wouldn't of minded having the new UEFI bios, more than 2 SATA cables or a USB bracket but they had to skimp somewhere for a $100 board and I rather them skimp there than bios features.

Other Thoughts: This is my 3rd ECS motherboard in my last 3 builds. They seem to have a niche in the budget gamer market so I keep coming back and they never disappoint.