Over the years we have had a couple of Intel Desktop boards in the lab, usually these are high-end parts that are designed for the enthusiast and are able to show off the performance of whatever Intel’s latest CPU is. Today we have something a little different. We have a G45 based Micro-ATX board that seems to us to only fit in the entry level or HTPC market. However, since we have been talking about AMD’s 780G chipset lately we thought it would be a good idea to give Intel its time in the spotlight. So today we present our findings on the Intel DG45ID G45 mainboard.
***Update 9/24/2008***
It seems I was incorrect in my statements about the UMA memory settings in the BIOS. According to Intel The DG45ID supports more than 256MB of memory with DVMT5.0 on series 4 chipsets. Also when running Vista the BIOS does not control the amount of memory allocated for Video use as it does with XP.
Product: Intel DG45ID
Author: Sean Kalinich
Reviewed on: August 15th 2008
Product cost: $114.99 (at Newegg.com)
Manufacturer: Intel
Spelling and Grammatical editor: Planetx64 Staff
{mospagebreak title=Packaging and Accessories}
Packaging and Accessories:
I cannot truly evaluate what the DG45ID’s packaging and the accessories that would ship with are like as the sample we received arrived in a plain brown cardboard box.
This is not to say that is what you will get if you pick one of these up, just that we did not receive a retail sample. Not to worry though, we can tell you what you should get when you buy a DG45ID.
{mospagebreak title=Specifications and Features}
Specifications and Features:
The DG45ID has the following specifications:
Form Factor Micro-ATX (9.60 inches by 9.60 inches [243.84 millimeters by 243.84 millimeters])
Processor Support for the following:
• Intel® Core™2 Quad processor in an LGA775 socket
• Intel® Core™2 Duo processor in an LGA775 socket
• Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core processor in an LGA775 socket
• Intel® Celeron® Dual-Core processor in an LGA775 socket
• Intel® Celeron® processor 400 Sequence in an LGA775 socket
Memory • Four 240-pin DDR2 SDRAM Dual Inline Memory Module (DIMM) sockets
• Support for DDR2 800 MHz or DDR2 667 MHz DIMMs
• Support for up to 8 GB of system memory using DDR2 800 MHz or DDR2 667 MHz DIMMs
Chipset Intel® G45 Express Chipset, consisting of:
• Intel® 82G45 Graphics and Memory Controller Hub (GMCH)
• Intel® 82801JR I/O Controller Hub (ICH10R)
Audio 8-channel (7.1) audio subsystem using the IDT* 92HD73E high definition audio codec and Dolby* Home Theater certification
Video Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD (Intel® GMA X4500HD) onboard graphics subsystem.
Legacy I/O Control Legacy I/O controller for serial port header and Consumer Infrared (CIR)
Peripheral Interfaces
• Twelve USB 2.0 ports: six back panel connectors and six front panel headers
• Two IEEE-1394a interfaces: one back panel connector and one front-panel header
• Six Serial ATA (3 Gbps) interfaces, including one red-colored external Serial ATA (eSATA) interface on the back panel
• One serial port header (may require specialized chassis or cable for use)
LAN Support Gigabit (10/100/1000 Mbits/sec) LAN subsystem using the Intel® 82567LF
Gigabit Ethernet Controller
BIOS • Intel® BIOS (resident in the SPI Flash device)
• Support for Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI), Plug and Play, and SMBIOS
Instantly Available PC Technology
• Support for PCI* Local Bus Specification Revision 2.3
• Support for PCI Express* Revision 1.0a
• Suspend to RAM support
• Wake on PCI, RS-232, front panel, USB ports, LAN, and CIR
Expansion Capabilities
• One PCI Express 2.0 x16 bus add-in card connector
• Two PCI Express x1 bus add-in card connectors
• One PCI Conventional bus connector
Hardware Monitor Subsystem
• Intel® Quiet System Technology implemented through the Intel® Management
Engine (Intel® MEI) in ICH10R
• Voltage sense to detect out of range power supply voltages
• Thermal sense to detect out of range thermal values
• Three fan headers
The DG45ID has full support for lossless BluRay HD audio, DX10 support (on paper), as well as HDCP support. You also receive (for your money) DVI and HDMI ports for HD video out.
This is not what I would call a feature packed board but it is good for an HTPC or entry level system.
{mospagebreak title=Board Layout}
Board Layout:
The DG45ID is cramped, but then again what Micro-ATX board is not. Intel did provide a nice amount of clearance around the CPU to allow for a third party cooler to fit. But the layout and overall design is marred by a couple of glaring items. The first is the complete lack of PATA or floppy ports; while I can live without the floppy drive I am still not onboard with the removal of the PATA ports. The other issue is the large heatsink for the MCP; this does get in the way of things and does not seem to keep the MCP exceptionally cool. The I/O back plane has another couple of missing items. There is no D-Sub VGA connection nor are there any PS/2 ports. These items, while not huge issues, are still something to take note of.
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{mospagebreak title=BIOS}
BIOS:
The BIOS on the DG45ID is about what you would expect from an entry level or HTPC board. I was not happy with some of the defaults though. The default BIOS put the UMA memory usage at 128MB. This is really not enough for good HD playback and when left at this setting seemed to cause some glitches when run at 1080p resolution. The max memory that you can allocate is 256MB. This is half what you can set aside for most AMD 780GX chipsets.
***Update 9/24/2008***
It seems I was incorrect in my statements about the UMA memory settings in the BIOS. According to Intel The DG45ID supports more than 256MB of memory with DVMT5.0 on series 4 chipsets. Also when running Vista the BIOS does not control the amount of memory allocated for Video use as it does with XP.
{mospagebreak title=Performance}
Performance:
As this is not an enthusiast board I did not hammer on it like I would if it were a high end chipset. Instead I looked at the common things that might be done on an average HTPC or entry level board.
The system:
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale
Intel DG45ID
Kingston KHX9200D2K2/2G DDR2-1150 (running at 800MHz)
Western Digital RaptoX 150GB HDD
Sony SATA DVD-RW
Plextor Blu Ray Drive (in USB enclosure for Blu Ray playback)
Asus PE 9400 Combo TV tuner. (PCI-e x1)
CoolerMaster 850Watt PSU (RS-850-EMBA)
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate x64
CyberLink PowerDVD 8 Ultra (for Blu Ray playback)
Subsystem performance
Memory
The G45 limits memory speeds to 800MHz, there is no support for speeds above this. But despite that fact I was able to get good memory bandwidth results in both Sisoft’s Sandra and Everest.
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Drive Speed:
Drive speed was also fairly good but I did note that my 10k RPM raptor was only showing performance on par with 7200RPM drives on other boards.
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Audio:
The Audio on the DG45ID is provided by the IDT 92HD73E with full Dolby Home Theatre certification. I found the audio to be very full and clean. I only noted a couple of minor issues but these seemed to stem from additional audio processing done my Vista Media Center application.
Application Performance
PCMark Vantage:
Always a good base line test of a system, PCMark Vantage is supposed to test how well a system can handle Vista. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the numbers here. I was expecting lower.
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PCMark Vantage -x86 |
PCMark Vantage -x64 |
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HyperPi 0.99b:
I use HyperPi to show performance and stability between the CPU, RAM and HDD.
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The DG45ID actually did fairly well here also, it will not win any speed awards but it is still fast enough.
AutoGK 2.45 Transcoding:
Transcoding is a way of life now, if you are not “backing up” your DVDs or Old VHS to watch on your home systems you are moving them to your phone or other portable media player.
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The DG45ID shows great promise here even with only a dual core CPU and the slower 800MHz RAM.
{mospagebreak title=Performance II}
Gaming Performance:
3DMark Vantage:
While not truly a gaming test 3DMark Vantage does give a reasonable indication of how well you can expect your system to perform during Vista gaming.
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Bioshock:
Bioshock is a great game and features basic DX10 support making it a good test for the DX10 compatible DG45ID.
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Minimum |
Maximum |
Average |
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5 |
10 |
7.022 |
Frames per Second (higher is better)
Wow, all I can say is that my gaming experience with Bioshock was terrible. The game was like watching a very slow slideshow. Even with everything turned off it was unplayable. As for DX10 support, it might be there but the UMA GPU and limited shared memory do not have enough power to use it.
Portal:
Portal uses the same engine as HalfLife2 which is a very forgiving engine, it is also still a DX9 only game making it a good balance for testing the DG48ID.
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Minimum |
Maximum |
Average |
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0 |
63 |
34.902 |
Frames per Second (higher is better)
Portal was playable but the visual quality was awful. I would not recommend the DG45ID for gaming at all.
HTPC Performance:
Here is where the DG45ID does really shine. I had very good luck with HTPC performance. Blu Ray playback was smooth once I increased the UMA RAM to 256 while audio sounded full and clean.
There were some minor issues with Vista’s Media Center getting the Audio out of Sync after playing a Video file but that is not an issue with the board and seems limited to Vista and the way it process audio when in DVR Mode.
{mospagebreak title=Value}
Price/Warranty:
The DG45ID runs $114.99 from Newegg. This is $10 more than AMDs 780GX offering and does not have the same gaming performance or as many options (PATA controllers/ PS/2 ports) as the AMD offering does. Although I can say that the DG45ID does perform better in basic application testing and is considerably faster at video Transcoding I still feel the price is higher than it should be for this product.
All Intel Desktop boards have a three year warranty if purchased from an Intel Distributor and One year if purchased OEM.
{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Conclusion:
I was both impressed and disappointed with the DG45ID, although the basic application performance was great, I was still hoping for a better showing from the UMA GPU. To claim DX10 support I think manufacturers should have to show that it is capable of rending DX10 textures at acceptable resolutions. To me it is not enough just to throw that label on the box. This is not just a comment about Intel or the DG45ID, it is also about AMD and their 780GX, their DX10 performance is terrible, although they do have the option for Hybrid Crossfire to add extra power for gaming.
Also, given that this is an entry level or HTPC offering it stands to reason that people are not looking to spend a ton of money on a build. However, requiring SATA for your DVD/BluRay drives add money to the build. A quick look at Internet shows that your average PATA BRD (BluRay Disk) burner runs about $160 or so (Low end of $100 and topping out around $189) but the cost of the average SATA drive is Over $210 (with a low end of $139 and topping out at $250) that is a difference of $50 and might put some off of the board.
In the final analysis the DG45ID is priced way to high for the performance I saw. It might be able to play BluRay movies and show HDTV well but the cons far outweigh the small set of pros.