AsRock H81 Pro BTC R2.0

With the new Haswell CPUs, Intel is also introducing a new chipset family codenamed "Lynx Point" and the LGA1150 socket. The motherboards, now manufactured in an efficient 32nm process, can be broadly categorized into a performance sector (Z87, H87) and a value segment (Q85, B85), with a wide mainstream field (H81, Q87) in between.

The former offer the most internal and external connections, allow overclocking of K processors via multiplier (only Z87), and enable the setup of multi-GPU configurations with multiple AMD graphics cards (CrossFireX) or NVIDIA GPUs (SLI). In contrast, the smaller motherboards shine with particularly attractive pricing for their performance and often provide exactly what the user actually needs.

The ASRock H81 PRO BTC R2.0 is a well-equipped H81 motherboard that serves as an ideal foundation, especially for fast quad-core processors from the Core i7 or Core i5 series. The black-dark gray board comes with two DIMM slots for DDR3 memory in fast dual-channel mode. It features the ALC662 sound chip, which can output 5.1 sound through three jacks.

Connectivity is extensive, with the ATX board providing a total of six USB 2.0 ports (partly external, partly internal) and two USB 3.0 ports, as well as managing hard drives and SSDs via two SATA 6G and 3G connections each. For graphics cards, there is a PCIe x16 slot in standard 2.0, while five PCIe x1 slots are available for additional cards and expansion.

For utilizing the integrated graphics unit (iGPU) of many Haswell CPUs, the I/O shield of the ASRock H81 PRO BTC includes an HDMI and a VGA port, with the iGPUs of the fourth-generation Core i processors allowing video output to three monitors simultaneously. Additionally, the motherboard features one serial and one parallel port on the I/O panel.