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DFI LanParty DK X48-T2RS

DFI has moved the midrange boards to a whole new level with the Dark Series by giving you all the options of the UT/LT Series boards with only a few minor alterations. One of these changes is by using analog power regulators. The UT/LT boards use digital power regulator that costs more to make. The X48 chipset is able to use DDR2 and DDR3. It is also able to give motherboards two full 16x PCI-E 2.0 slots for video cards. This allows the X48 to be Crossfire ready from the get go. The area around the processor socket is very busy with the new heatpipe system. Under these copper heatpipes, sits the 4 phase power for the board. While the new heatpipe orientation is designed to help motherboard cooling the area seems crowed as a result.

Asus P5E64 WS Evolution

Without knowing anything about the capabilities, the aesthetics alone could be enough to grab your attention. The black PCB equipped with blue, white, and black features provides a unique look that is quite appealing. The P5E64 WS Evolution is marketed as a workstation motherboard, but by looking at all of the information at the links above it is clear that is somewhat of a hybrid. It may have all of the horsepower for workstation duty, but it seems to be more than adequately equipped to appeal to enthusiasts and gamers. To the right of the LGA 775 processor socket we find four DDR3 memory slots that support high speed, ECC and non-ECC modules in dual channel mode. For expansion cards there are a total of four PCI Express x16 slots, one PCI Express x4 slot, and two PCI slots.

The board supports XMP memory profiles, so overclocking the memory could be quite easy with the appropriate modules and a processor that could keep up. The two issues I encountered were frustrating, but in the long run they don't seem like major problems because they might go unnoticed by most users. The first issue was that in order to take advantage of EPU, you must set the BIOS to run in auto mode. You can tweak some settings once in Windows thanks to AI Suite, but significant overclocking and optimizing is ruled out.

ECS X48T-A

ECS a while ago started this new series in their product line-up of mainboard, The "Black Series"; feature packed mainboards, nice design, black PCB and decent overclocking options. QoolTech II cooler is proclaimed to be a heat-pipe based cooler. The heatpipe and notice it is actually fastened into the copper blocks with some sort of composite glue. So while the heatpipe looks nice it serves absolve no function whatsoever. And though the board is beautiful looking and has all the baseline features I'm afraid any enthusiast end-user will see this product as an above average run of the mill mainboard.

G45 Update

Brezenski talked a bit about review ExtremeTech did of an Intel DG45ID motherboard, which also found that Blu-ray acceleration didn't work. Even after an update to the review, the Intel system was still only able to score 30 out a possible 100 on the HD HQV test performed. Brezenski says that his sources -- presumably within Intel -- have told him that the low HD HQV test scores were the result of a software player issue. Brezenski says that properly configured advanced de-interlacing would raise scores 20 points higher, and while he admits those scores are still not perfect, he says they are workable. Brezenski hopes driver tweaks will help improve performance even more in the future.

Using Arcsoft Total Media Player, Blu-ray acceleration is clearly working, as indicated by CPU utilization lower than 20% on all Blu-ray materials. The big issue with G45 according to Brezenski is that stuttering every 15 seconds of Blu-ray playback at 24 Hz is still an issue. Perhaps the biggest issue of all -- especially considering G45 was expected to be an excellent HTPC chipset -- is that G45 is still unable to send 7.1 surround sound through a receiver. Considering the vast majority of home theater enthusiasts -- possibly the most likely to use the G45 chipset -- will have AV receivers in their home theaters, this one issue will be a deal killer for the majority of home theater enthusiasts.

Izvor: NinjaLane, DailyTech, BigBruin i Guru3D