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Review Conclusion of Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H Intel G45+ICH10R mainboard
Bluetooth 25 Aug 2008

Conclusion

The Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H is the first Intel G45 board we tested here at our labs. From G33 to G35, we have seen how Intel integrated chipset has matured in terms of drivers in ensuring image quality and low cpu utilisation when decoding HD titles. In fact, we were surprised by the low cpu utilised during the test. Previous generation of the chipsets weren't able to handle such films with at least a 50% CPU utilised.

In terms of 3D DX9 and DX10 performance,  the G45 chipset still has a long way to go. From our test with a QX9770, the 3D performance levels can't even match that of another Gigabyte board running a Phenom with a 790GX chipset. 

Features-wise, the board has a number of options already pre built in the chipset and on board. There are also 6 SATA II ports supporting raid 0,1,5,0+1. There is also TPM, eSATA, GbE, HDA, HDMI, USB, 1394 etc. The phase LED also helps you to see if your machine is in power conserving mode. Other than the PCIe x4 only vga slot, the board is quite complete.

As for CPU overclocking, the BIOS do have options to set the CPU Freq of (200~1200MHz), multiplier, async memory settings and voltage options. See gallery for more information. In our test with the max CPU Freq, we managed to push it up to 410-420MHz x 6. That seems to be the highest we can reach for a E6550 Processor on board.

In conclusion, Gigabyte has a complete solution for Intel platform HTPC users. The 1394 is definitely one of the plus points of this board. With it's capability of playing back of HD movies in H.264/VC-1 with lower CPU utilisation, this chipset does perform very well in Multimedia playback, but lack the punch for 3D when the Integrated graphics is concerned.

Discuss

Pros

  • Excellent Image quality
  • Low CPU Utilization when playing back AVC/Mpeg4
  • HDMI, D-SUB, DVI-D interfaces all on board
  • Phase LED

Cons

  • no debug led
  • PCIe x4 for external VGA

Ratings

Here are my ratings out of 10.

 Category

Score

 Performance

7 / 10

 Features

10 / 10

 Ease Of Installation

10 / 10

 Overclocking Features

8 / 10

 Documentation

7 / 10

 Packaging

8 / 10

 Cost / Performance

7 / 10

 Overall Rating :

8.1/ 10

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