Until this year integrated graphics were still a major problem lacking in ability to play 3D games or decode H.264 content. AMD changed all of that though with the 780G and 790GX and Nvidia also raised the bar on integrated graphics with the GeForce 8200 and 8300 if not quite as high as AMD was able to. Intel's integrated graphics has been notorious at best and a major problem for the game development community given how popular their integrated graphics are. Intel though has a new chipset which looks to quell some of these problems in the G45, their follow up to the G35. We'll be looking at a board based on this new G45 chipset, Gigabyte's GA-EG45M-DS2H.

The major new features of the G45 are the X4500HD graphics media accelerator which is DX10 capable, supports decoding of HD content, PCIe 2.0, 1.33GHz front-side bus, and support for DDR2 though the board we'll be looking at uses DDR2. The chipset is also built off a 65nm manufacturing process which should reduce heat and power consumption and a new southbridge is featured, the ICH10.

The Gigabyte board features all the video output connectors you could need presently with both VGA, DVI, and HDMI output all on the board. Other back panel connectors include six USB 2.0 ports, an eSATA port, Firewire port, Gigabit Ethernet, optical S/PDIF output, and 6 analog audio jacks.

Internal connectors include 5 SATA ports, floppy disk connector, IDE connector, 3 USB 2.0 headers, a firewire header, serial port header, two PCI slots, one PCI-Express 16x slot, and a single PCI-Express 1x slot. 4 DDR2 slots are also on board so quite a nice set for a MicroATX board and more than enough for most people's needs.

Gigabyte also boasts their own unique features for their take on Intel's G45 chipset. The board features their dynamic energy saver technology and 4-gear switching to save power when idle or when as much CPU power is not needed. This is backed up by more efficient and durable components for overclocking with all solid capacitors, ferrite core choke design, and low RDS MOSFETs on RDS. Their dual BIOS feature is here as usual saving you when if a BIOS flash goes poorly, is damaged, or from a virus. The board also features Green Ethernet technology which adjusts power consumption automatically depending on the LAN cable lengths for up to a 10% power savings.

The accessories are a little sparse with no extension bracket but they do include the manual, driver disk, SATA cables, a floppy cable and an IDE cable.

Let's move onto the BIOS.