Gigabyte EP45 DS4R Motherboard Review :: Gigabyte EP45 DS4 Layout

The first thing that you notice about the Gigabyte EP45-DS4 layout is the SilentPipe cooling around the CPU Socket. The SilentPipe design is a passive cooling system with a heatsink covering the Northbridge, Southbridge and a heatsink on the left side of the board. Two heatpipes lead out from the NB to the HS and then the SB, another leads out from the SB to the heatsink. There are a row of solid capacitors on the top and right side of the CPU Socket, but they do not get in the way of anything. This is a good thing as some aftermarket CPU coolers cannot be mounted if there is too much interference in the CPU ZIF area.

In order to support CrossFireX, Gigabyte outfits this board with two PCI Express x16 Generation 2 slots. The P45 Memory Controller Hub has 16 PCI Express lanes, meaning that to operate in CrossFireX mode, the PCI bus is split into two x8 lanes. The ICH10R Southbridge has 6 more PCI Express x1 lanes for other devices. PCI Express 2.0 doubles the bandwidth of the first generation meaning that x8 PCI Express lanes have the same bandwidth as x16 PCI Express Generation 1 lanes. There is a third PCI Express slot that is electrically wired to x4 lanes on the board and two PCI Express x1 slots. Legacy devices can be installed on the two PCI slots on the board if needed.

The board has four DIMM Sockets, allowing for the installation of up to 8GB of unbuffered DDR2-1200MHz memory. Note that systems with Windows 32-bit including Vista or XP require the 64-bit version to access more than 4GB. Memory is installed in like colored slots for Dual Channel Memory configuration. The P45 chipset supports DDR3 but that standard is generally more expensive than DDR2 memory and in that light many companies are still making P45 boards with DDR2 instead of DDR3.

There are six SATA ports on the board, which is fine for most users but I would have preferred to see eight SATA ports on this board. A Legacy IDE port and a FDD port round out drive expansion options on the EP45-DS4 board. Intel’s ICH10R Southbridge has support for Intel’s Matrix Storage Technology which supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 modes. An ITE8213 chip controls the IDE port and an ITE IT8720 chip controls the FDD controller.

Gigabyte outfits this board with onboard buttons for the Clear CMOS, Power and Reset buttons. These buttons allow the end-user to turn on or off the computer, reset the computer or Clear the CMOS. This is especially useful for those that want to try their new computer without installing it in a case as it could be a pain to remove from most motherboards once the motherboard is installed. This is a very good thing for overclockers who use their boards on a test bed in lieu of a case.

Gigabyte’s board has the Realtek ALC889A CODEC, the latest audio CODEC from Realtek. The ALC889A supports simultaneous 8 channels and 2 channels from the Front Panel Audio connections. ALC889A also supports Content Protection for Full-Rate loss-less DVD Audio, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD High Definition media is also supported by the CODEC. A secondary SPDIF-Out output and converter to transport digital audio output to a HDMI transmitter is also supported by the CODEC. The rear IO on the board is pretty extensive by any measure. There are eight USB 2.0 ports, with most motherboards having four or six. There are also two LAN jacks for the 2 Gigabit with Teaming Ethernet. An IEEE-1394a and 1394b port provides support for both Firewire standards. Onboard audio support is provided by an S/PDIF Out and Coaxial port and six jacks for Speakers. Finally, the IO has the standard PS/2 mouse and keyboard ports for the legacy user.