Dedicated Gigabyte EP45-DQ6 thread

[Richard Dower]

Starting a fresh thread for this mobo, i am gonna be throwing alot of info, pics and reviews at you. I'll also be adding bios and driver updates as and when they appear...stay tuned


The EP45-DQ6 is at the high end of Gigabyte's P45 lineup and has a number of improvements in PCB design over previous generations. One feature that has long been requested by overclockers is power/reset and clear CMOS buttons on the PCB, thus it's no longer nesscary to short the mobo's bios using the old style 2pin header.

A full featured motherboard which includes four 10/100/1000 Mbit LAN ports which use a "teaming" feature to increase throughput. Also a new hardware based TPM (Trusted Platform Module) by Infineon features 2048bit encryption and is TPM 1.2 spec compliant.

10 SATA ports are included, 6 ports (yellow)controlled by the Intel ICH10R Southbridge while a further four SATA ports (purple) are controlled by two hardware based Silicon Image SiI5723 chipsets...both of which are then linked to the Jmicron JMB363 chipset (labeled Gigabyte SATA 2).



http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles...?cid=6&id=2559

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles...?cid=6&id=2557

http://www.computex.biz/BestChoice20...5&index1=17420

http://www.xfastest.com/viewthread.p...a=&page=1#zoom

http://www.beareyes.com.cn/2/lib/200...80512133_1.htm

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,64...icle_id=643165

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/9422/m..._hq/index.html

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/14...dq6/index.html

http://bbs.cpcw.com/viewthread.php?t...age%3D2&page=1




I'll also discuss the various onboard chips and links to info about them, we'll start with the onboard IDT 89HPES16T7ZHBXG PCI-E switch chip:

http://www.idt.com/?partID=89HPES16T7ZHBXG

Silicon Image SiI5723 chip: http://www.siliconimage.com/products...ct.aspx?id=103

SteelVine software/drivers for XP/Vista: http://www.siliconimage.com/docs/57x...ne_V5.1.24.zip

Jmicrom JMB363: http://www.jmicron.com.tw/Product_JMB363.htm

JMB363 drivers for XP/Vista: ftp://driver.jmicron.com.tw/jmb36x/W....17.37WHQL.zip

Realtek 889A HD audio codec (no specs or info is available at the website) drivers for XP/Vista: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...&GetDown=false

Realtek 8111C NIC: http://www.realtek.com.tw/products/p...n=4&ProdID=142
Latest drivers for XP/Vista: http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...&GetDown=false

ITE IT8720 Super I/O chip: http://www.ite.com.tw/ite_news/press2_20071211.asp

Intersil ISL6322 chip, there are two separate chips on the PCB controlling the memory and NB: http://www.intersil.com/cda/devicein...SL6322,00.html

Intersil ISL6336, 6 phase PWM for the power regulation "virtual 12 phase": http://www.intersil.com/cda/devicein...SL6336,00.html

Pericom PI2PCIE2412ZHE PCI-E switch: http://www.pericom.com/products/swit...p/PI2PCIE2412/

ITE IT8268R, basically an overclock controller...no official specs are listed at ITE but the closest model can be found here: http://www.ite.com.tw/product_info/P...f-IT820x_2.asp

Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 1394a controller; http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folder...tsb43ab23.html




Here you can view another revision of the PCB, this was shown at tested at the recent Gigabyte "plug fest": http://www.tweaktown.com/news/9373/m...yte/index.html