The IGP Chronicles Part 1: Intel's G45 & Motherboard Roundup
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Gary Key on September 24, 2008 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
ASUS P5Q-EM
Our first board up is the ASUS P5Q-EM, which is a worthy successor to the G35 based P5E-VM HDMI. In addition to being the first board that we discuss today, it also happens to be our favorite “all around” board. All four of our boards perform almost identically when it comes to high-definition playback and they all score similarly in our IG based tests. However, if you want a uATX board for your SFF gaming system or plan on overclocking then the ASUS board is a logical choice. Of course, our uATX P45 based DFI P45-T2RS Jr might disagree, but that is a discussion for another time.
In the meantime, 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. Think of the ALC1200 as being the same chipset used by Gigabyte this past year, the ALC889a. However, ASUS does not provide DTS Live and Dolby Home Theater capabilities that Gigabyte does although we understand ASUS is working with DTS on an upgrade. However, one of the main attributes for purchasing a G45 based board is for the multi-channel LPCM output capabilities.
ASUS also provides their Express Gate technology that allows you to access the internet or utilize the most popular IM programs without booting into the OS. Also featured is their EPU-4 engine that provides additional power savings by detecting load conditions and adjusting power in real time. We will have a dedicated look at ASUS' EPU, DES from Gigabyte, and DrMOS from MSI shortly. In the meantime, we were able to save a few watts at various times over the traditional C1E/Speedstep BIOS settings. Fan control and monitoring is good with the capability to set fan speeds based upon thermal conditions in the BIOS or Windows.
In our opinion, ASUS provided an excellent layout considering the space limitations on a Micro ATX board. If the board is utilized in a SFF gaming system, the user is still left with a free PCIe x1 and PCI slot when using a dual slot video card. The heatsink designs did not interfere with a variety of peripherals that we installed including several popular CPU fan/heatsinks and video cards. We have noticed the G45 MCH running a little hot at times but the heatsink design from ASUS was more than capable during testing. We are still waiting for the official death of the floppy drive (and soon the IDE port but we still see value in IDE for a little longer) so the area where these connectors are located can be reclaimed.
ASUS utilizes an excellent four-phase power delivery system along with decent solid capacitors throughout the board that resulted in very stable operation with everything from a Q9650 down to a heavily overclocked E2180. The inclusion of a PS/2 combo port for either a keyboard or mouse is a nice touch for now as we see most suppliers dropping PS/2 support shortly. Other niceties included output support for VGA, HDMI, or DVI-D along with a Firewire port on the IO panel. Overall, the layout is clean, unobtrusive, and will work well for a vast majority of owners.
Pros/Cons
We have to be honest here, up until BIOS 0402, we were not that enamored with this board from an enthusiast's viewpoint. Sure, the basic functionality was there and all peripherals worked fine for a HTPC setup, but the board was not living up to its BIOS options. While this is not important for the vast majority of users looking at IG boards, it is important for users who will use this board as a crossover for a performance oriented SFF system. Our problems ranged from lack of support for the E8600 and Q8200 processors to 8GB compatibility under Vista 64. Additional problems were incurred when overclocking the system as we consistently hit a wall around 415FSB with a 4GB configuration and VCore tended to undervolt severely when set above 1.45V, although with the newer EO steppings you should not have a need for volts that high. Fortunately, most of our performance problems have been solved including overlcocking with memory ratios other than 1:1.
While still not perfect, we were able to attain 455FSB with our Q9300 and 485FSB with the E8600 with aggressive timings, a discreet video card, and 4GB. We are not going to show in-depth overclocking results in today's article since it is oriented towards the chipset introduction with intended use for an office or media application platform. However, if you need an uATX board that offers very good overclocking performance for mainstream users, this board will not disappoint with a discreet video card. We hit a 412FSB wall with the integrated graphics set, not bad at all actually. While video performance is not improved, it is a good way to improve encoding performance with a lower speed processor.
Moving on to more important items for most of us, except for driver, strict EDID adherances, and BD playback problems that are the responsibility of Intel, this board performed admirably throughout IG testing. In our particular setups, we did not have any real problems except for 8GB compatibility under Vista 64 up until BIOS 0402. That said, we think ASUS made a mistake not including an eSATA port on the IO panel. We are also not fans of VGA output or continuing with floppy drive support in this market segment. Both choices would likely be viable options for certain business environments, but we do not see their usefulness in this particular target market. The board worked perfectly when resuming from an S3 state and consistently outperformed the other boards in time to desktop measurements.
While we like the combo PS/2 mouse/keyboard port since it is better than none (yes, we still like the PS/2 keyboard port when overclocking or changing BIOS settings), users with certain wireless keyboard/mouse setups will have to think about upgrading. In fact, PS/2 port availability is something we openly debate, some openly love their inclusion, and some of us just wish we would finally get rid of the legacy ports. We would not have minded a coaxial SPDIF port or IR capability either. Overall, the feature set is impressive for a uATX board and if we only had one wish, it would be adding an eSATA port to the rear IO panel. To reiterate our opinion about this board, if you need a uATX board with versatility then we think this is the board for you.
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Imperor - Sunday, September 28, 2008 - link
Impressive how many people just rant on about the review being inadequate when they obviously didn't even read the start of it! If they did that they'd know that reviews of AMD and nVidia boards are coming up and that all will be compared eventually!I get the feeling that the people talking about "Intel fanbois" tend to have the same kind of appreciation of another brand...
Stating the obvious isn't being partial. It just so happens that AMD don't even come close to competing with Intel in the CPU department! Sure AMD might be cheaper, but there are cheap Intels out there as well. The whole platform tends to get a bit more expensive when you go with Intel but you get what you pay for. I'm perfectly happy with my G35+E2140. Does everything a computer is supposed to do but gaming. I'm not a gamer, so that is a non-issue for me.
Very tempted to go mini-ITX with 1,5TB HDD. Tiny box and lots of diskspace!
Found a nice case for it as well, Morex Venus 668. Not that I know anything about it really but it'll hold up to 3 HDDs and a full size ODD and probably house decent cooling for the CPU while still being tiny (~8"x9"x13").
robg1701 - Saturday, September 27, 2008 - link
Do any of the boards support Dual-Link DVI?Im getting a bit sick of having to include a video card in otherwise low power boxes in order to drive my 30" monitor :)
deruberhanyok - Friday, September 26, 2008 - link
[quote]We struggled with G45 for much of the early weeks of its release, but the platform wasn't problem-free enough for a launch-day review.[/quote]You weren't serious here, were you? That basically says "The chipset had problems so we didn't want to write a review talking about them."
piesquared - Friday, September 26, 2008 - link
Does this sight have an ounce of integrity left? I seriously doubt it. Nothing but Intel pandering left here. You "reviewers" have the gaul to do a review of this attempt at an IGP, yet fail to show any review of either an AMD IGP if it proves how inverior G45 is. Are you seriously implying that people are so stupid that they aren't capable of seeing through this BS? I remember something about a SB750 promise somewhere around 2 months ago that never materialized, then a 790gx promise that never materialized, then another 790gx roundup, that not only never materialized, but the DFI preview article seems to have actually vanished, then the AMD IGP part II looks to be delayed or something, probably vanished due to Intel's poor performance.I am really really starting to wonder if AT was purchased by Intel. All evidence points to it. If not, then call a spade a spade and don't make promises you can't keep. I'm sure you think none of this matters because you're so popular that people will read no matter what you write here. I wouldn't be so confident if I were AT.
TA152H - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
I can tell you guys are really working on gaining that female readership. As everyone knows, women really go for that low-class, vulgar language.Also, who would want to get rid of PS/2 ports? Whoever on your staff wants this, better have something more than they hate anything legacy. Where's the logic in adding two extra USB ports so you can remove the PS/2 ports? It's not like it's more flexible, really, because you pretty much always need the keyboard and mouse. When's the last time you were in the situation where you said "Oh, I won't be needing my mouse and keyboard today, and I'm so strapped for USB ports, it's a good thing I can use the ones I normally use for the keyboard and mouse for something else". Doubtful you've ever said it, and if you have, you have issues deeper than I am capable of dealing with.
It's not like the keyboard or mouse work better in the USB port, or that it's somehow superior in this configuration. In fact, the PS/2 ports were made specifically for this, and are perfectly adequate for it. Didn't you guys know that USB has more overhead than the PS/2 ports? I guess not. So, you worry about fractions of a percent going from motherboard to motherboard with the same chipset, but you prefer to use a USB mouse and keyboard? I just do not understand that. USB was a nice invention of Intel to suck up CPU power so you'd need a faster processor. It's a pity this has been forgotten.
Sure, let's the replace the efficient with the inefficient, so we can say we're done with the legacy ports and we can all feel like we've moved forward. Yes, that's real progress we want. Good grief.
CSMR - Friday, September 26, 2008 - link
Yeah I had to get a quad core so I can dedicate one core to the USB mouse and one to the USB keyboard. Now I can type ultra fast and the mouse really zips around the screen.MrFoo1 - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
Non-integrated graphics cards are discrete, not discreet.discreet = modest/prudent/unnoticeable
discrete = constituting a separate entity
dev0lution - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
I really dislike the trend of recent reviews that go off on tangents about the state of the market, or particular vendor performance gripes and then the rest of the review doesn't even touch on relevant benchmarks or features to back up these rants. If you're going to complain about IGP performance from AMD or NVIDIA, you might want to back that up with at least ONE board being included in the comparison charts. Who cares if Intel G45 gets bad frame rates against itself (across the board to boot). Why not show how 3 IGP chipsets from the major vendors stack up against each other in something mainstream like Spore? If it's a G45 only review, how about you save the side comments for a true IGP roundup? Sorry, but if you have the time to post a "(p)review" that brings up competitive aspects with no benchmarks to balance out those comments, it's basically single-vendor propaganda - nothing in the conclusions deal with whether a IGP in the same price range from another vendor would fill the void that G45 clearly does not fill.Since when does issues at the release date mean you can't post the review? "We struggled with G45 for much of the early weeks of its release, but the platform wasn't problem-free enough for a launch-day review." - Ummm, might want to include that as disclosure in all your other post-launch day reviews!?! Or do other vendors get brownie points for being problem-free when you can actually buy the product?
Unfortunately, the inconsistency across multiple reviews make it somewhat difficult to compare competing products from multiple vendors because the methodology varies between single chipset and competitive benchmarks, even when you can separate the irrelevant introductory comments and bias from the particular author from the rest of the review.
More authors obviously does not equal consistency or more relevant reviews..
yyrkoon - Thursday, September 25, 2008 - link
Looking forward to your review of this board(if I understood you correctly), as I have been keeping an eye on this board for a while now. Perfect for an all around general use board(minus gaming of course), but would have been really REALLY nice if that 1x PCIe slot were a 16x PCIe with atleast 8x bandwidth. Hell I think i would settle with 4xPCIe speeds, just to have the ability to use an AMD/ATI 3650/3670 in this system. I think Jetway has a similar board with a 16x PCIe slot, slightly less features, at the cost of like $350 usd . . .Now if someone reputable (meaning someone who can actually make a solid board from the START *cough*ABIT*cough*) using the Core 2 mobile CPU, SO-DIMMs, etc, AT A REASONABLE PRICE . . . I think I might be in power consumption heaven. Running my desktop 'beast' tends to drain the battery banks dry ; )
iwodo - Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - link
I wonder if Anand could answer a few questions we have in our mind.Why with a generation Die Shrink we only get 2 extra Shader instead of like 4 - 6? Where did all the extra available die space went?
With the New Radeon HD 4x series, people have consistent result they can get single digit CPU usage when viewing 1080P H.264 with a E7xxx Series CPU, or slightly more then 15% when using an old Celeron. This is 2 - 3 times better then G45!!!! Even 780G is a lot better then G45 as well. So why such a HUGE difference in performance of so called Hardware Accelerated Decoding?