Gigabyte EP45-DS3L & EP45T-DS3R

GA-EP45T-DS3R Motherboard Layout:

While both the Gigabyte EP45-DS3L and EP45T-DS3R are based around the Intel P45 Chipset, the features for each model are quite different. The EP45T-DS3R is slated to be the high-end version while the EP45-DS3L doesn't have quite as many features. To get started, the EP45-DS3L only has one PCI Express x16 slot and therefore no ATI CrossFireX support, 4-gear Dynamic Energy Saver compared to 6-gear DES, and DDR2 as opposed to DDR3 memory. We are beginning our look at the motherboard layout though with the Gigabyte EP45T-DS3R. The EP45T-DS3R has four DDR3 slots that supports up to 16GB of memory and speeds up to DDR3-1600MHz or DDR3-1900MHz when using an overclock mode. These DDR3 memory slots are positioned in the upper right hand corner of the motherboard and next to it is the 24-pin ATX and FDD connectors.

In the lower right hand corner of the EP45T-DS3R are the ICH10R Southbridge, one IDE connector, six Serial ATA 2.0 connectors, two USB 2.0 headers, and three 4-pin fan headers. The ICH10R is cooled by a small passive heatsink. The ICH10/ICH10R provides up to 12 USB 2.0 ports, 6 PCI Express x1 lanes, Intel Integrated Gigabit LAN, Intel Extreme Tuning Support, Intel High Definition Audio, six Serial ATA 2.0 ports, and the "R" version provides Intel Matrix Storage Technology, Intel Quiet System Technology, and Intel Turbo Memory with User Pinning.

The expansion slots on the Gigabyte EP45T-DS3R include two PCI Express x16, three PCI Express x1, and two PCI slots. The two PCI Express x16 slots are PCI-E 2.0 compliant and do support ATI CrossFireX Technology. Two of the PCI Express x1 slots separate these two PCI Express x16 slots, in order to provide sufficient room for large (and warm) graphics cards.

The Gigabyte cooler covering the Intel P45 Express is quite a large heatsink in comparison to some of the other recent Intel motherboards we have reviewed, but it's all passively cooled.

While the P45 heatsink is quite large, it shouldn't obstruct the installation of any aftermarket CPU heatsinks. The LGA-775 socket area is free of any items that would conflict with large heatsinks or water-blocks. In the upper left hand corner of the socket area though is the 8-pin ATX power connection. The Gigabyte EP45T-DS3R supports Intel Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium, and Celeron processors. This Intel support extends to their most recent 45nm processors as well.

The I/O connectors on the back panel include two PS/2, one coaxial S/PDIF output, one optical S/PDIF output, eight USB 2.0, two IEEE-1394a Firewire, two Gigabit Ethernet, and six audio ports. Some of the other ASICs on the EP45T-DS3R motherboard include a Realtek ALC889A HD audio codec, dual Realtek 8111C network controllers, JMicron 368 IDE, ITE IT8718 Super I/O, and Texas Instruments TSB43AB23 IEEE-1394a Firewire.