GIGABYTE GA-H61M-DS2 LGA 1155 Intel H61 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: mATX form factor. Has the basic requirements for a simple system build. Support for most of the 1155 processors. I have had no bad motherboards to date. But other things keep popping up, see below. I have bought this board through two revisions, so far both have been working for me. Probably have bought 20 or so, hard to keep track unless I look through my past purchases! lol OH. And those that keep complaining about SATA placement. Don't be trying to fit a huge gaming card on this board, it wasn't designed or intended for gaming use anyway. Get a real board for that! lol I find it amazing to see how many complain about that, because they cheaped out on the motherboard so they could spring for the expensive video card. A good gaming system needs all the components to be high quality. :P

Cons: Hmmm where to start? Ever since they went to the latest build rev 3 using the newer style of BIOS, I have been having a few random issues (and this has been on nearly every one of those boards) with the system not going past the post screen. It will like hang there, with the BIOS page. I hit reset and its fine maybe, or it may take a couple resets. Called into Gigabyte, and the tech could not really answer the question, outside of guessing the BIOS needed updated to F7 (They ship with F4). Updating it seemed to fix a couple at that time, but the latest ones I got still do it, even after doing the update to F7. And with it being totally random, I have no idea as to the cause yet. I have used a couple of different brands of RAM, but that doesn't matter. CPU type doesn't seem to matter, nor do what brand or size of drives. Outside of that, they work perfectly, no other problems. If I happen to find more, I will post again.

Overall Review: Well, despite the random halt at the BIOS page, ALL of the earlier revisions have been flawless. No issues, no problems, and no worries which is why it got 4 out of 5. I'm assuming for the time being that either I'm not doing something right (which is always possible) or there is something flaky with that newer BIOS. System builds that I work with typically include: Celeron dual core, Pentium dual core, i3 or i5s. Most are built with 8GB of DDR3 1333 RAM, usually budget based, like Pareema or Corsair Value, etc. Some were built with one stick of 4GB to keep cost down and upgrade potential easy. Western Digital blue drives, or Hitachi drives, typically 320-500GB. LG, Samsung, Asus, or Sony/Optiarc drives. Rosewill mATX cases with stock PSU (400W). Rosewill card readers. Logitech wireless keyboard combos. Windows 7 something 64 bit. My primary reasons for using Gigabyte is they have good warranty support, and Xpress Recovery 2.

Pros: Support for Sandy Bridge processors from the G-series on the low-end up to the i7-series on the high-end. Excellent build quality. Excellent documentation The board was shipped with the latest BIOS for this board's revision, thereby eliminating the need to "flash" the BIOS.

Cons: Only 4 SATAs, but that is acceptable in an economy board. No 6 Gb/s SATAs nor USB 3.0, but that is also acceptable in an economy board. The documentation is certainly up to Gigabyte's high standards, but this particular board is made in three or four revisions and these may have different E-net and/or Sound chips, so be forewarned. The Gigabyte documentation simply refered to "Realtek or Atheros LAN", and similar non-specific language, so a physical examination of the board was necessary to determine what I truly had in my hands.

Overall Review: This board was purchased as a part of an "Egg Beater" combo deal, which included a G850 proc, 2x2GB = 4GB of DDR3 1333 RAM, a 7-slot case and a 480 watt PSU. My goal was an economy MacOS X Lion build, and I was not to be disappointed. I had Lion installed within an hour or so and everything was working to my complete satisfaction several hours after that. I used tonymacx86's USB installation method and a Lion product purchased and downloaded from the Apple Store. I DID have issues with MultiBeast for Lion, but those were resolved within several hours after I realized that Gigabyte was using a different E-net chip than I was expecting. Sound took a little longer, but it, too, was quickly resolved. I did the DSDT (for Snow Leopard and for Lion) myself, using tonymacx86's as a reference, but also starting with an Ubuntu 9.0.4 Desktop dump of the board's raw DSDT, as is my basic practice. Whether you're running Snow Leopard or Lion, this is a great basic board.

Pros: This is a well built motherboard with solid capacitors. It comes with all the basic connectors you would expect at this price point and even gigabit LAN if needed. Also comes with two SATA cables (one with right angle). Gigabyte has built up a reputation with quality built motherboards and I hope they keep it up. When it comes down to it this is a great little motherboard for the price and quality wise is a solid choice.

Cons: If you plan on installing a graphics card make sure it will fit. I attempted to put a BFG 8800 gts on the motherboard when I soon realized that it blocked all the SATA ports. Luckily I was able to just go with the built in intel graphics for the time being. The system is for my fiance and the only thing she wanted to be able to play is Sims 3. So I'll probably end up buying a shorter graphics card later down the road.

Overall Review: I bought this board for my girls computer. Put in a intel g620 and 4GB Gskill Ram stick. Re-used PSU, case, hard drive, and optical drive. First installed everything inside case, then let my cable-management OCD kick in, slept, woke, worked, home, connected to the outlet, hit power switches, POST. -- Good times. Running windows 7 64 bit with latest gigabyte motherboard drivers from website. I didn't bother updating BIOS as there was no need.

Pros: Low price, Flex ATX size Perfect for a small NAS. 2 1xpcie slots and a 16x pcie slot leave room for quite a bit of expansion.

Cons: nic is not intel

Overall Review: I build a nas with this Motherboard and a Intel Pentium G620 Sandy Bridge, 8gb of corsair vengeance ram, 3, 3TB Western digital hard Drives, and an Intel nic. I am using freenas 8.02 and so far everything seems to work great. I also purchased a corsair 430watt 80+ power supply and at load I pull 48 watts from the wall and at idle 28-33. I have not tried a raid controller in the 16x slot, I guess that would be a real test. I am very happy with this purchase.

Pros: -Great deal for the price -Absolute tank (see other comments) -Does what they say it does

Cons: None, I bought this knowing there were only 2 RAM slots, 4 pin CPU connector and 1 PCI 2.0 lane.

Overall Review: I used this board temporarily when my gaming rig was down. I wanted something cheap that would work while I'd wait a month for ASUS RMA. This is an absolute tank in the way I accidentally dropped it once, no damage at all and it works like a charm. People that complain about no overclocking and only 2 RAM slots need help. It's obvious you can't overclock a $55 board, what would you expect? You should know what you are buying if you want to overclock and have more RAM slots. Now the one thing I don't like (which I knew it had) was how when you have a dual slot video card, it covers the main SATA connectors. Not a big deal if you have a right angle set of SATA connectors, and if you get anything decent then you should. Oh and one last message to the people who want to overclock: If you want to overclock, you can't get a cheap motherboard like this. It's common sense. I thought people would know what they are buying, and be expecting premium product features. Now this is a long review, sorry, but I just am wanting people to get the right things when they go and buy things instead of read faulty reviews and get terrible products.

Pros: Full range of 1155 CPU support including Ivy Bridge series, stable, cheap, reliable. Good for OSX 10.7 or later hackintosh (ALC887 audio will not work with 10.6 or previous). This board has been good to me and my GTX480/i3 for about a year now and since we're parting ways for a Z68/i5 soon (to better match the 480), I figured I'd put in my two cents.

Cons: None really, as always, know what you're buying. See other thoughts regarding SATA layout.

Overall Review: Yes, the SATA ports are directly underneath your GPU. With so many people complaining about this it makes me wonder; did you even look at the pictures before you bought it? It's obvious from the photos that if you're going to use straight SATA cables, make sure your GPU isn't going to reach that far and if it does, be prepared for using right angle cables and removing your GPU if any work needs to be done. Really though, how often is that going to happen? Once the machine is set up, you're done. For the record I have a GTX480 hooked up to this board and three of the SATA ports in use with right angle cables. How often does it come apart? Never, because it's a good motherboard. Seriously people, use some common sense and stop complaining about things because you didn't do your homework.

Pros: Price - Solid feel for being so small

Cons: Like most other posts the sata ports are horribly placed. Was able to run a Gigabyte ati 6850 by using the bottom two sata ports and the supplied right angle sata cable and a 2nd one from another build.

Overall Review: Excellent board for the price range, will have to use a single slot video card if you need all 4 sata ports. Hopefully will hold up like a gigabyte board time will tell...

Pros: Easy to install in case..no problems with placement of screws

Cons: I got the motherboard because it seemed to be highly rated. However, the original board and a replacement from NewEgg would not accept 2x4gig memory modules I had bought with the memory configurator. If you tried to put a memory stick in slot 1, the system would not post during boot. A stick in slot 2 was fine. I ended up having to get a bit of a higher end Gigabyte mboard and that worked fine. The system I built now runs well, but it took me a lot of time and effort to figure out the problem.

Overall Review: Newegg and Gigabyte support was very professional and helpful in trying to track down the problem and offer advice. That is why I went with another Gigabyte board.