The Board - A Closer Look

Although the B75M-D3H is an entry-evel product, its BIOS is definitely over the top, including dual ROMs attached to the board's surface. It's unfortunate that there aren't options to choose which BIOS is in use like some of the more expensive Gigabyte products, but then again, that's understandable considering the B75M-D3H's pricing. For video output, I found dual ASMedia ASM1442 TMDS switches right by the rear I/O ports.


Monitoring duties and fan control are provided by an ITE IT8728F, a Super I/O chip we've seen quite commonly. It also provides support for the PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port. It's also tied into the VRM controller, which seems to be an International Recitifier-built part.


The VRM itself is pretty basic, with just five main phases pushing power to the CPU. The DIMM VRM is built with a matching single-phase design, which actually proved pretty capable when I was testing the board.


The audio is provided by a Realtek ALC887, a pretty basic, but at the same time, decent port, while the LAN controller comes from Realtek as well, an RTL8111F port that's pretty common on the market today.


The B75M-D3H has an equally simple PCH cooler, made of fine aluminum and attached using plastic pins. I did not remove the cooler from this board because of those plastic pins, but since this is an entry-level product, I did not expect to see screws used here either.