Super-budget Intel motherboards

Testing Methods

We test with our own Media Benchmarks suite, which can be downloaded so that you can test your own system. It uses a combination of Gimp image editing, H.264 encoding with Handbrake and multi-tasking with 7-Zip file compression combined with HD video playback. Finally, for our game testing we benchmark the board running Crysis 2 and Shogun 2:Total War and record the minimum and average frame rates.

As neither board we've tested here can overclock a K-series CPU, all the results are at stock speeds. The Asrock H61M-VS has a 16x PCI-E slot, so we've also included results for Crysis 2 compared to other motherboards when using our Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 2GB test graphics card. However, the MSI H61I-E35 (B3) is unable to support a discrete graphics card so could only be tested using the on-board graphics where necessary.

Test Setup:

Motherboards:

• ASRock H61M-VS
  
• MSI H61I-E35 (B3)

Common Components:

• Intel Core i7-3770K
  
• 4GB DDR3 1,600MHz C9
  
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 2GB
  
• PC Power and Cooling Silencer 750W PSU
  
• 120GB Patriot Wildfire SSD
  
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit