ASRock H61M/U3S3 Motherboard
On-Board Peripherals
Contents
The Intel H61 chipset is a single-chip solution which is also known as a PCH (Platform Controller Hub). This chip is targeted to entry-level motherboards and supports only four SATA-300 ports, with no support for SATA-600 ports or RAID. The ASRock H61M-U3S3, however, provides two SATA-600 ports, controlled by an ASMedia ASM1061 chip. The SATA ports are located in a position that the installation of a video card won’t block them.
Figure 4: SATA-300 (blue) and SATA-600 (white) ports
This motherboard has eight USB 2.0 ports, four soldered on the rear panel and four available through two headers located on the motherboard. It also has two USB 3.0 ports located on the rear panel, controlled by an ASMedia ASM1042 chip.
No FireWire (IEEE1394) ports are available.
The ASRock H61M/U3S3 comes with six-channel audio, generated by the chipset using a Realtek ALC662 codec. This chip provides a 98 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, 90 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, up to 96 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs, 24-bit resolution for its outputs, and 20-bit resolution for its inputs. These specs are good for the mainstream user, but if you are looking into working professionally with audio editing, you should look for a motherboard that provides an SNR of at least 97 dB and 24-bit resolution for the analog input.
As it normally happens with low-end products, there are only three audio jacks (line out, line in, and mic in). Therefore, if you want to install a 5.1 analog speaker set, you will have to use the line in and mic in jacks, and they won’t be available for use.
Digital audio is available through the on-board HDMI connector, but this motherboard doesn’t have an SPDIF header, preventing you from installing SPDIF connectors or route digital audio to your video card to have digital audio in its HDMI connector.
The portrayed motherboard has one Gigabit Ethernet port, controlled by an Atheros AR8151 chip.
In Figure 6, you can see the motherboard rear panel, with mouse and keyboard PS/2 connectors, VGA output, DVI-D output, HDMI output, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports (blue), Gigabit Ethernet port, and shared 5.1 analog audio jacks.
Figure 5: Motherboard rear panel
