Intel 845E Motherboard Roundup - August 2002

Final Words

Even after testing a total of eleven different 845E motherboards for weeks, it wasn't an easy task to pick just one motherboard as the best of the best. Most 845E motherboards were loaded with onboard features, and a lot of them had impressive overclocking options. In addition, prices for these motherboards were (or are going to be) very close to one another for the most part, and performance was virtually identical with every 845E board we tested (performance similarities with the same chipset aren't unusual though). Complicating matters further was the fact that very few 845E boards exhibited any stability issues that could differentiate it from the other 845E boards.

Eventually though, we made the tough decision of giving the Editors Choice Gold Award to the Gigabyte 8IEXP motherboard. We think the 8IEXP offers the best combination of features, performance, build quality, and price out of the eleven 845E motherboards we tested.

We gave silver honors to the ASUS P4B533-E motherboard. This motherboard was neck and neck with the Gigabyte 8IEXP's features and performance, however we liked Gigabyte's DualBIOS setup and their EasyTune4 overclocking software for Windows XP. In addition, the average price of the ASUS P4B533-E was just a bit too much compared to the Gigabyte 8IEXP.