Building a Core i7 HTPC with Sapphire Mini ITX H67

The American Megatrends bios doesn't offer many customisable settings unfortunately, however for this specific system build we are going to be using the reference Intel Cooler. Overclocking isn't really an option.

The main options are included, such as configuring bios boot up drives and controlling fan settings – smartfan is recommended to ensure the system is as quiet as possible, when not heavily loaded. There are also a plethora of voltage and memory timing settings, but they worked fine with the Core i7 2600k on ‘auto'. We couldn't get the board to run our 2000mhz DDR3 memory at native speeds, however it ran at 1333mhz with fairly tight timings.

We enabled the Turbo frequency option, allowing for speeds up to 3.8ghz.

System validation is available here.

Software is installed from the supplied disc. Sapphire include all the necessary drivers and we particularly like the TriXX motherboard software as it gives quick access to important system temperatures. You can drag this software around the screen to suit (or disable it completely).

After our system is built, the score rates at 7.1 out of 7.9, with the lowest common denominator being the HD6670 graphics.

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