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The G45 is very similar to the P45, with the addition of integrated graphics. These boards target essentially the same market, but G45 board will likely not be as targeted towards overclocking and may be a little cheaper. The major advantage of G45 will be for people who don't want any sort of 3D graphics on their desktop. While Intel continues to advance their graphics subsystem performance, the performance still just isn't there for any but the simplest of 3D tasks. These boards should really go into systems that focus on 2D operations like office applications, internet, and general communication packages. If you've got a 3-series motherboard today, the 4-series equivalent shouldn't be any faster in non-gaming/video decoding applications (although it will use less power thanks to the 65nm manufacturing process).

G45 being Intel's first 65nm IGP, it's also Intel's last IGP. After G45, there will be no more integrated graphics chipsets - Intel's graphics cores will simply be integrated onto the CPU package and eventually the CPU die itself. G45 is Intel's first chipset to include support for full hardware H.264/MPEG-2/VC-1 decode acceleration, including the entire H.264 decode pipeline (CABAC/CAVLAC entropy decoding included). This support puts Intel's integrated graphics on-par with the feature set of ATI/NVIDIA IGPs as well. It gets even better for home theater PC enthusiasts: G45 continues Intel's recent tradition of including support for 8-channel LPCM audio output over HDMI, a feature that has been around since the G965 days. nVidia supports 8-channel LPCM audio output over HDMI with its chipsets while AMD only offers 2-channel LPCM.

The first incarnation of G45 had horrible Blu-ray playback issues, it just didn't work. Since then Intel has gone through numerous driver revisions and we're finally at the point where, with the latest drivers (15.11.2.1554) that Blu-ray acceleration just works. It's supremely disappointing that it took Intel this long to fix these issues but they are at least finally taken care of. With a Celeron Dual Core E1200 processor, CPU utilization while playing a Blu-ray movie goes down tremendously, especially during H.264 playback. On faster CPUs the end result is even more manageable.

ASUS P5Q-EM

The P5Q-EM is a feature rich G45 board featuring an OC friendly BIOS, Gigabit LAN via the almost universal Realtek RTL8111C, IEEE 1394a support, full RAID support along with six SATA ports via the ICH10R, PATA support comes by way of the Marvell 6102, and HD audio via the Realtek ALC1200. While still not perfect, we were able to attain 455FSB with our Q9300 and 485FSB with the E8600 with aggressive timings and 4GB. We hit a 412FSB wall with the integrated graphics set, not bad at all actually.

Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H

Gigabyte decided to take an opposite turn when it came to deciding on the discreet graphics capability for this board. The x16 graphics slot is not run off the MCH that would have provided a true x16 PCIe 2.0 capable slot. Instead, Gigabyte placed an x16 connector on the board that actually runs off the ICH10R at x4 PCIe 1.1 speeds. The digital output is muxed across the x16 lane in the MCH, which prohibits the use of the X4500HD and a discrete GPU at the same time unless you run the dGPU off the Southbridge. Gigabyte also utilizes an excellent four-phase power delivery system along with very good solid capacitors throughout the board that resulted in superb stability throughout our four hundred hour testing regimen. We were able to reach the 407~412FSB range when overclocking with the X4500HD active.

SuperMicro C2SEA

The Super Micro C2SEA is a full size ATX board featuring the G45 chipset but with DDR3 memory support instead of the typical DDR2 configurations we see in this sector of the market. The BIOS is designed in this manner as the board will typically end up in white box systems for large corporate accounts or for those in the retail sector who value stability over pizazz. We have to say upfront, this board was extremely stable if nothing else. This is not a board for those that like to fine tune, overclock, or tinker with a BIOS. It is not sexy, there is no flash here, and the documentation is about as interesting as a tractor maintenance manual. However, it is a perfect board for those who want to set up a board once and then forget about it.

Intel DG45ID

This is a well laid out board for the most part. The board features a three-phase power delivery system that worked well with our test processors that included the dual-core E5200 up to the quad-core Q9300. Intel designed this board to be legacy free as it does not include IDE, floppy, parallel, or PS/2 ports. The BIOS offers very few selections for tuning the board. The automatic fan control system is useless to us but with the right CPU and chassis fans, we can live with it if required. The S3 resume and inductor problems are more troubling as they are not consistent. If we were to change one item on the board, it would be the ability to manipulate CPU voltages. The ability to slightly undervolt/overvolt CPUs is important to a cross-section of consumers that would be in the market for this board.

As a HTPC solution G45 promises to be the chipset we've all been waiting for, but falls short. Honestly the best combination for a HTPC would probably be an Intel P45 based motherboard (G45 would also work) with an AMD Radeon HD 4670 (or its upcoming, passively cooled successor). Power consumption is down since G35, but you're looking at a 8 - 11% reduction in total system power consumption by switching from G35 to G45 thanks to the smaller manufacturing process.

Izvor: AnandTech