[Team.AU] Gigabyte EP45 EXTREME motherboard on test bench

[dinos22]

Hi guys

Gigabyte sent over their new board yesterday for testing. This board is their EXTREME version of P45 chipset. We've worked with them on many aspects in terms of board design and bios design to improve the board for extreme overclocker and what better way to introduce an exclusive but to pop in here and show you guys what it's all about

What am i planning to do

First I will start with some photos........and in the following few days get into testing

Second stage will be board bios and initial stock impressions (there is a fair bit more written on these board already from Gigabyte marketing material but i am not going to get into that...you can do some searches here and check those out. I will look at the actual final design board from user perspective)

Third > air overclocking

Forth > LN2 Insulation & overclocking



Components i am planning to test with:

Gigabyte EP45 EXTREME DDR2 Motherboard (rev1.0) STOCK BOARD NO MODS
Intel Core2 Duo E8400 Q807A414 (PCB **3001)
2GB DDR2 PC10000 CORSAIR DOMINATORS of course heheh
1GB Gigabyte 9800GX2
HX1000 > 1kW Corsair PSU
Thermaltake Big Typhoon with 100CFM fan (AIR)
kingpin F1 Extreme Edition Solid copper CPU LN2 Pot
Big mamma 35L LN2 Dewar
160GB PATA
Windows XP Pro 32bit & Vista Ultimate

Things i already like about the board (since i asked for some of these personally and i'm sure many of other beta testers have)

I LOVE THE COLOUR SCHEME >> this will get the haters revved up

You will already notice some interesting inclusions with this board from hardware side of things. First of all they've changed the socket/PWM position from X48 range >> what does that mean to DICE/LN2 guys >> well in my experience you will have less condensation issues with socket design like this compared to their X48 range. Secondly i believe that this socket design provides a more stable power delivery as well which i will test in later stages

Gigabyte engineers have finally included hardware overvoltage control IC (upgrade from GPIO control) >>> basically much smoother power >> less swing and substantially smaller voltage control (20mV) >>> when you're pushing a hell of a lot of volts and trying to find a sweet spot you are going to have much better control of volts than you would have in the past...phew....the best part is also that they have used this on all major components including CPU/RAM/NB..... Great Success > Borat

You are getting an extreme board straight out of the box. No need for volt modding or any screwing around >> just insulate and way you go. What am i talking about >> Gigabyte engineers have removed OVP and gave us extremely good power delivery in small increments. We've got plenty of voltage options to kill any of these components instantly which is usually good enough for ppl that usually volt mod the board hahahahahaha

Extra capacitors on the back of the board >> i like

VERY GOOD cooling out of the box on NB >> I really don't like messing around with NB all that much and i usually just use whatever cooling provided from board manufacturers. This board certainly has very good cooling. The waterblock included has 3/8" holes per my request

Power and reset buttons on the board (for 24/7 system also a reset button on the back of the board. There is also a debug LED >> i use a separate card and i find these inclusions will help troubleshooting which is what extreme cooling is all about

There are a few other things i like but everyone's already fallen asleep so let's move onto things i think need an improvement and some suggestions for future designs from initial impressions.

Bad battery placement. I raised this issue before and i was told by main engineer that battery placement was considered but lack of space on PCB with all these features they are including is forcing them to use this area for the battery >> now some will probably completely remove this heatsink for subzero so it won't matter but for others like me that will probably keep it there it may because a pain in the arse if there is a need to do a full cmos clear (I'll try to screw with the board and see if i can get away without usin the battery heheh >>> YOUNGPRO usually just takes the battery completely during benching hahahah so that's another thing you can do

This is more of a future improvement suggestion >> going digital PWM will improve clearance area and possible even better power delivery for extreme guys ......that will be a welcome feature for sure

PCI Express lanes >>> it's a real shame that this board is not a dual 16x PCI Express board so Xfire overclocking will take a small hit in points due to reduced bandwidth (i'm talking about marginal difference in scores on extreme overclocks....24/7 doesn't matter). How much of a hit it is? Well that needs to be tested (since i get no love from any ATI GFX card producers it won't be me doing that comparison heheheh.

Enjoy

p.s. this is the first time i've ever fired up my Photoshop elements so excuse my n00bness here
























I killed my beloved E8500 on the weekend (drops a nerd tear) so i went and picked up a new CPU from the store >> i asked the guy for any Q807 chips and he pulls out this mother for me