The rich feature set of the Intel P45 chipset has led to motherboard manufacturers offering a' host of models-there are so many options available that one would need a comparison chart to take a pick. For instance, Gigabyte has 24 P45¬based motherboards which have varying combinations of features such as the type of memory supported, the number of PCle x16 slots and Ethernet ports, the type of cooling system, the power phase design, and so on. Thus the entire range has boards spanning all applications and budgets. Out of the two dozen models, we chose to test the Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3L which is a solution with a single PCle x16 slot for mainstream users who want future upgradability.



Features

The model numbers of all Gigabyte P45 motherboards start with 'E' which stands for Ultra Power Efficient, and come with a tool that Gigabyte calls Dynamic Energy Saver Advanced. This allows for efficient power phase switching depending on the CPU workload. Since the EP45-DS3L has a four-phase design, it has four LEDs near the RAM slots which show the status of each phase. DESA can be controlled by a bundled software utility of the same name which displays the CPU voltage and the total power savings achieved. The 'D' in the second half of the model number stands for Ultra Durable and means that the board has all-solid capacitors and ferrite core' chokes.

Coming to the list of regular features, the EP45-DS3L natively supports DDR2 memory speeds up to 1333 MHz and the maximum installable amount stands at a hefty 8 GB. The ICH 10 southbridge offers six SATA ports supporting all types of RAID setups and 12 USB ports out of which eight are on the rear panel along with coaxial and optical SPDIF outputs and a gigabit Ethernet port. The application suite comprises Norton Internet Security and utilities for overclocking updating the BIOS.

Performance

The EP45-0S3L lived up to our expectatiqf1s and cruised through the tests without any bottlenecks. The northbridge is located close to the CPU and is cooted by the air blown through the CPU cooler's fins, but the southbridge should have had a better heatsink or been cooled by a fan. DESA also helped with overclocking, and keeping voltages under control.