ECS G45T-M2 Motherboard

(3.5 star rating) Written by: William Ford

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A few weeks ago we had the honor of reviewing the ECS P43T-A2 motherboard and today we are going to take a look at the latest ECS offering, the G45T-M2 motherboard. The latest motherboard is targeted toward the HTPC (Home Theater PC) crowd. It supports nearly all of the latest LGA775 based Intel processors, DVI output and a built-in Intel GMA X4500HD graphics chip. Read on as we evaluate the G45T-M2.

Design

The ECS G45T-M2 motherboard comes packaged with two SATA cables, I/O back plate, DVI-to-HDMI adapter, hardware installation guide, manual booklet and a driver CD containing the motherboard's drivers and utility software. Make note that the motherboard does not come with any stand-off screws for mounting the board in a case; so if your case does not provide them you will need to make a trip to the hardware store to get some. Installation will require at least four but six or eight are recommended, especially if you plan on using a monster sized CPU cooler like we are.

The G45T-M2 supports all LGA775 Intel processors including the Core 2 Quad. It supports DDR2 memory up to 16GB with dual channel configuration. It also supports gigabit LAN, 8 channel surround HD audio and PCI-Express graphics using a Generation 2 16X PCI-e slot. The board does not support SLI graphics, so if you are looking for a dual video card setup you will need to look for another motherboard.

Features

• CPU compatibility: Intel 95W CPUs from Celeron to Core 2 Quad
• FSB: 1333/1066/800 MHz
• North Bridge: Intel® Eaglelake G45
• South Bridge: Intel® ICH104 x 240-pin DDR2 DIMM sockets (up to 16GB)
• Supports DDR2 1066/800/667 MHz
• Voltages (1.8/1.85/1.9/1.95/2.0)
• 1 PCI Express X16 slot
• 1 PCI Express X1 slot
• 2 PCI slot
• Support by Intel® ICH10  
• 6 x Serial ATAII 3.0Gb/s connections
• Realtek ALC888 8-channel HD Audio codec
• Compliant with HD audio specification
• Realtek 8111C GigaLAN Controller
• 4 x USB 2.0 ports
• 1 x parallel port (lpt1)
• 1 x VGA port
• 1 x DVI port
• 1 x Audio port / 8CH / 6 jacks
• 1 x LAN RJ45 connector
• PS/2 Keyboard
• PS/2 Mouse1 x 24-pin + 4-pin ATX power connectors
• 1 x FDD connector
• 6 x Serial ATA II connectors
• 4 x USB 2.0 headers (supports additional 8 USB ports)
• 1 x front panel switch/LED header
• 1 x front panel audio header
• 1 x SPDIF out header
• 1 x CD-in header
• CPUfan/PWRfan connectors
• 1 x Clear CMOS header
• 1 x Com 1 header
• AMI Bios with 8Mb SPI ROM 
• Supports Plug and Play, ACPI, DMI, STR(S3), & STD(S4)
• Micro ATX, 244mm x 244mm

Retail box	Box contents	Overhead View

Setup and Installation

For this review we are building a completely new system from the ground up starting with a Pentium Core 2 Quad Q6600 and 4 GB of PC2-3200 DDR2 800MHz SDRAM. After installing all the components and drives we installed Windows Vista Ultimate x64 for our operating system. Windows Vista installed without incident and even loaded most of the drivers for the entire system. The entire build from scratch to activating Windows took about an hour and a half. Let it be said that Windows Vista x64 runs very stable on this board.

It should be mentioned also that the hardware installation guide is not representative of the motherboard, it is only a reference guide and not an installation manual for this particular motherboard. Basically, don't bother with the hardware installation guide just refer to the manual and you won't have any confusion.

If you look at the specifications you will notice that there are no ATA or IDE connections on this motherboard. That means that all the hard drives and CD/DVD devices installed in this system must be internal SATA or external. We installed a 500GB Hitachi SATA 3Gb/s hard drive and a LITEON SATA DVD-RW. In contrast to the ECS P43T-A2, which has an ATA133 controller but no floppy controller and no parallel port, the ECS G45T-M2 motherboard has a floppy controller and a parallel port but no ATA controller. With the six onboard SATA II connections you have plenty of room for hard drives and optical drives, so you don't really need the legacy connections anyway.