H61 vs H67: does H61 Quick Sync and Clear Video?

[dhalbert]

I am trying to compare the the video feature sets of the H61 and H67 chipsets, and I am getting lots of conflicting indications about the video technology supported.

This Intel page, comparing the H61 and H67 chipsets says the H61 does have Clear Video. However, this page, which compares Intel H61 and H67 motherboards, indicates that the Intel H61 motherboards do not have Clear Video. Quick Sync is not mentioned for either chipset. I thought I had found an intel.com page that says Quick Sync is not supported on H61, but I haven't been able to find it again.

By comparison, various motherboard manufacturers say other things. This ASRock H61 motherboard says it does Clear Video and Quick Sync. This Asus H61 motherboard and a Gigabyte one mention Quick Sync but not Clear Video. And this poster in AVSforum says he tested some ASRock boards and they have identical video capabilities (though he did not mention Quick Sync).

So I'm pretty confused. What is the definitive answer (and how can I know it's definitive?!)?

 

[PreferLinux]

Chipset support != (or <>) Motherboard support

 

[nenforcer]

Well pretty much any Core iX 2K processor should support Clear Video since they all have onboard graphics.

Clear Video isn't a feature that some have and some don't. (At least it shouldn't be)

I think the issue is some motherboards have the onboard graphics headers which will allow both Clear Video and Quick Sync and some don't. You probably want to use a digital connector as opposed to analog, as well.

I would check with the manufacturer of whatever motherboard you choose to buy to make sure those features are supported before you purchase.

 

[moriz]

As far as I know, h61 supports neither.

 

[stargazr]

H67 supports Quick Sync, and also certain motherboards using the new Z68 chipset. It requires a mb that can use the SB internal graphics, one with video ports.

 

[dhalbert]

Some partial closure on this: Apparently the H61 vs H67 comparison chart I linked to in the OP used to be wrong: it used to say Clear Video was not supported on H61. I have no explanation for the Intel motherboard listings. There are several posts at avsforum.com which repeat that there was misinformation on H61 at first.

 

[PreferLinux]

As I said, even if the chipset supports something, it does not mean that motherboards based on it support it.

 

[dhalbert]

As I said, even if the chipset supports something, it does not mean that motherboards based on it support it.

Yes, thanks, I do understand that. However, I've found plenty of errors on the intel.com site over the years. For instance, a few years ago their official price list for several months incorrectly identified which processors had virtualization support and which did not. So I think it's quite possible the published specs for their boards are wrong. We know it was true the H61 chipset features were listed incorrectly for a while.

My overall conclusion is that H61 does support Clear Video and Quick Sync. It does not support 6Gb SATA, as we know, and I think it does not support AHCI, despite some MSI boards putting it in the BIOS. There is an ASRock H61 board that has 6Gb SATA and AHCI (on the 6Gb ports): my guess is that it has a third-party SATA controller added, which is very unusual for a low-end board.

UPDATE: I bought an Asus P8H61-M motherboard. The printed manual does not show AHCI support, but the BIOS does (I updated to the latest before checking).

I had already installed Windows 7 64-bit in IDE Mode. I followed the instructions in post #3 in this Asus forum topic for editing the registry. After changing the UEFI setting to AHCI, rebooting, and logging in, Windows installed the MS versions of the AHCI drivers, and asked for a reboot. On reboot Device Manager showed that AHCI was in use.