ECS H57H-MUS Motherboard

Memory Support

Socket LGA1156 CPUs, like socket LGA1366 and AMD processors, have an embedded memory controller. All other Intel CPUs use an external memory controller, which is located on the north bridge chip (a.k.a. MCH or Memory Controller Hub) from the chipset. This means that with other Intel CPUs the chipset (and thus the motherboard) is the component that says what memory technologies and the maximum amount of memory you can have on your PC.

Since now the memory controller is inside the CPU, it is the processor, and not the chipset, that defines the memory technologies and the maximum amount of memory you can have. The motherboard, however, may have a limitation as to how much memory can be installed.

At the moment, the integrated memory controller of socket LGA1156 processors supports only DDR3 memories up to 1,333 MHz under dual-channel architecture.

ECS H57H-MUS has four DDR3-DIMM sockets, so you can have up to 16 GB, if you use four 4 GB modules.

ECS made a mistake on the sample they sent us. Usually motherboards based on Intel chipsets have the first and third sockets with one color and the second and fourth sockets with another color, allowing you to easily identify which sockets must be used when installing two memory modules in order to enable the dual channel feature: simply install the modules on sockets with the same color.

On the sample we’ve got however, sockets one and two are yellow and sockets three and four are orange (ECS also counts the sockets starting with the one closest to the CPU socket, instead of starting with the one closest to the power supply 24-pin connector like other manufacturers). If you are installing two memory modules you have to install the first one on the second socket (yellow) and the second one on the fourth socket (orange) – translation, install one module on the orange socket closest to the power supply 24-pin connector, skip one socket, and then install the second module on the first yellow socket. Any other configuration the computer won’t turn on or you won’t have dual-channel enabled.

ECS contacted us explaining that this huge mistake will be corrected on the final product that will reach the market (we got a pre-production sample), where sockets 1 and 3 will be yellow and sockets 2 and 4 will be orange. So on the final product you will need to install memory modules on the yellow sockets if you have two memory modules and want to enable dual channel configuration.

Figure 3: Memory modules. Pay attention because this motherboard uses an unusual configuration.