by Doors4ever
10/14/2008 | 03:39 PM
All people can be divided in optimists and pessimists. But even the latter ones still hope for the best deep down inside, although they are certain that things will get only worse. New processor and graphics card models (unless these are old chips with new marking on them) are usually better than their predecessors. They are faster, smaller, cheaper, cooler and more functional and sometimes have all of the above. Chipsets are the very base of any computer system, however, the situation with them is not so clear, although there is a number of very nice examples here, too. Without looking too far back, let’s recall a relatively recent launch of Intel P35 Express. It didn’t boast any significant advantages over the predecessor, Intel P965 Express chipset, and we in fact didn’t expect much. But then it turned out that the new chipset eliminated FSB Strap and we quickly forgot about the old one.
<%BANNER[article]%>The situation was a bit different before the Intel P45 Express launch. Its differences from the predecessor were evident – take for instance PCI Express 2.0 support and the new South Bridge. However, they were of no immediate benefit to the users. Finer manufacturing process suggested that it would have better overclocking potential, but the reality turned out pretty disappointing. None of the new mainboards we have tested so far could offer problem-free operation. In fact, it was not surprising: early mainboard models and raw BIS version soften do not reveal the potential of the chipset they use. However, in terms of overclocking the new solutions were not any better than the predecessors. Moreover, they even yielded to the previous-generation boards.
Little by little we got the feeling that somewhere at the development stage they lost that special feature that ensures fast and easy CPU overclocking. Luckily, the suspicion that the chipset was the one to blame for poor overclocking potential of the new mainboards turned out wrong. Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard is one of the top models in a very extensive Gigabyte lineup on Intel P45 Express. However, despite numerous onboard controllers and evident complexity of the electronic layout, it demonstrated remarkable overclocking potential.
Today we are going to talk about the advantages of this solution, will certainly point out a few drawbacks (as always), discuss the peculiarities of overclocking procedure and talk about the bundled software tools and new technologies.
Please, meet Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6!
Top mainboard models are rarely shipped in standard sized boxes that could suit for any model in the series. The manufacturer normally designs a specific package for the top solution. The box for Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 is also not an exception, but this time designers seem to have gone way too far:
In the center of the front panel of the decorative slip-box there is an embossed (!) logo of this season’s most popular mainboard technology – a set of power-saving technologies Gigabyte calls Dynamic Energy Saver Advanced. The back side of the box talks about numerous mainboard features, but you can get even more information if you open the top flip panel like a book:
However, glossy surface of the box glares in light and the light-reflecting dots on the box surface make things even worse. As a result, you can only read the manufacturer’s name and the mainboard model name that are written in large font. All the information in small print is absolutely unreadable. To be more exact, you have to find a special viewing angle for each part of the text, then you can actually read what’s written there.
The decorative box should first of all catch the customer’s eye, and then convince him or her to buy this particular product by telling about its numerous advantages. As for the eye-catching part, the box copes with it with an A+. However, since all this extensive information is barely readable, the box fails the second part of its task.
However, the main purpose of any package is to ensure reliable storage for its contents. And this is what the box of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard does very well. There is a very sturdy box of thick cardboard beneath the decorative slip-cover. The mainboard sits inside a clear plastic casing and all the accessories are stored in a separate two-sectional box.
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 comes bundled with the following accessories:
When engineers work on a high-tech multi-functional product like a mainboard, for instance, they often face a lot of uneasy choices. The things get even more complicated if we are talking about one of the top solutions like Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6, which is equipped with a lot of additional controllers. A quick glance at the board is not enough to tell if the layout is smart or not, if the PCB design is convenient or not. We will only be able to learn how good it is by taking the time to check out every detail. So, let’s proceed.
Despite the tradition, we are going to start our discussion of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard layout with its back panel. It is in fact pretty easy to confuse one board with another especially if they have been made by the same manufacturer, belong to the same product series and have a lot in common. However, you will most likely remember what back panel of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 looks like due to four RJ45 connectors implemented via four Realtek 8111C controllers integrated onto the board.
Besides that, there are keyboard and mouse connectors, 8 USB 2.0 ports, a coaxial and optical S/PDIF and six audio-jacks. The eight-Channel sound on Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 is implemented via Realtek ALC889A codec.
By the way, there is some additional controller on the board between PCI Express x16 graphics card slots that may have to do with four network cards, because it is extremely hot. It is topped with a heatsink connected to the chipset cooling system with a heatpipe. The layout scheme gives a hint: as we see the PCI Express lanes do not go straight to the chipset North or South Bridge, but to some switch. The chipset has limited number of available PCI Express lanes that why an additional controller was necessary.
Since we have already mentioned a heatsink, let’s continue with the chipset cooling system on Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard. BY the way, the same type of chipset cooling is used on Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS4 and GA-EP45-DS5 mainboards.
A couple of small stand-alone heatsinks at the front cover additional Serial ATA controllers. The chipset cooler starts with a flat heat-spreader on top of the controller between the PCI Express x16 slots. Flattened heatpipe leads from it to a not very tall heatsink on the chipset South Bridge. The second heatpipe starts here and leads to the base of a larger heatsink on the chipset North Bridge. Two more heatpipes originate from the middle of it. One of them leads to the heatsink over half of MOSFET transistors in the processor voltage regulator, while the other goes a little farther and ends in the heatsinks over the second half of transistors.
In my opinion, this is not the most correct design for the cooling system. The heatpipes doesn’t cool anything by itself. It simply transfers the heat from the place of origin to the spot where it could be best dissipated. In other words, ideally, one end of a heatpipe should be directly over the heat source, while the other end should go to the center of a cooling heatsink. However, as we see, this cooling system design leaves three main heatsinks (on the additional controller, chipset North and South Bridges) on their own without any support from the heatsinks in the processor voltage regulator circuitry.
Certainly, the first two heatsinks over the additional controller and chipset South Bridge cannot be large and tall, because they will be in the way of large graphics cards. Therefore, the heatpipe between them has to start and end in their base. But why does the second heatpipe starting at the South Bridge heatsink lead to the base of the North Bridge heatsink, and not to its center? And why do two other heatpipes start in the center of the North Bridge heatsink instead of transferring the heat away from its base?
Gigabyte mainboards use very aggressive CPU fan rotation speed management algorithm by default. If the CPU is not overclocked and is not running under heavy load, the fan doesn’t rotate at all most of the time and only in this case the heatsinks over MOSFET transistors start heating up. If the fan rotates, they are almost completely cold, because even a small airflow is enough to dissipate that little heat that they get. The three main heatsinks that need intensive cooling in the first place remain hot all the time in any work modes.
To be fair I have to say that even this not ideally designed cooling system still does its job right. We haven’t detected any system instability caused by overheating not in nominal mode or in overclocked mode. So, we are only trying to say that a better designed cooling system could work more efficiently and the high temperature of the main heatsinks wouldn’t give us any causes for concern.
As we continue talking about Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard design, we would like to draw your attention to the processor voltage regulator circuitry that is built with high-quality components and is split into 12 virtual phases, although this number may vary dynamically depending on the operational workload. As a result, we see faster switching of operational modes, lower heating, longer life span and higher power-efficiency especially with 45nm CPUs. By the way, the chipset North Bridge and memory use two-phase voltage regulators.
Power connectors as well as FDD connector are very conveniently located. There is enough free space around the processor socket, although it may be challenging to install some large processor coolers into a spot surrounded by heatsinks and heatpipes from three sides.
The upper part of the PCB has pretty light-weight layout. Now let’s move over to the lower part of the PCB with maximum components density. Gigabyte engineers used all available and at first glance even unavailable space:
As you know, Intel P45 Express chipset provided PCI Express 2.0 support. Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 has two PCI Express x16 slots. If there is only one graphics card installed into the system, it will work at full speed. In case both slots are taken, they switch to PCI Express x8 mode. Note that the second slot only looks like a fully-fledged PCI Express x16. In fact, half of the pins are not used, i.e. it is a PCI Express x8 slot designed in the PCI Express x16 form-factor. It is a pretty logical solution considering that the second slot can work at x8 speed at the fastest. However, they used the free space right below the slot, closer to the clip, for an additional IEEE1394 controller – Texas Instruments TSB43AB23. I think you can see it much better on the schematic components layout:
You can see another example of how originally the developers solved the problem with finding space for extra components: one of the four Realtek 8111C controllers is located beneath the battery! We can only admire Gigabyte engineers’ skill and professionalism that allowed them to fit in not only two PCI Express x16 slots, but also one PCI Express x1 slot, two PCI Express x4 slots, two PCI slots and a bunch of additional controllers.
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 has 10 Serial ATA ports that are also very originally located. Connectors of six SATA ports provided by ICH10R South Bridge are yellow. Four SATA connectors implemented via two additional Silicon Image Sil5723 controllers are purple. Both chips are topped with a single heatsink that is why it is long and narrow in shape. They are also responsible for Smart Backup technology that we are going to talk about later on.
There is a square heatsink on top of Gigabyte SATA2 chip that provides support for two Parallel ATA channels that is no longer available in Intel chipsets. Like on a few other mainboards, the IDE connector is located in the lower right corner, although it is not the best spot for it.
As for the definite advantages, we have to point out the color-coded front panel connectors and the markings right inside the USB, IEEE1394 and COM ports. There are Power On, Clear CMOS and Reset buttons along the lower side of the PCB. The buttons are pretty big, they are spaced out quite significantly and are highlighted blue when the system is on, so you will never mix them up unlike the same buttons on other manufacturers’ mainboards.
Since we mentioned the lighting, we have to say that Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard has a lot of LED indicators. However, they are not annoying at all, because they do not blink and do not stay on all together at the same time. We have already mentioned the buttons: only the markings on them light up blue. Moreover, there is a string of 12 LEDs in the upper right corner of the board: they indicate the number of active phases in the processor voltage regulator circuitry. You can disable this indication if you wish. There are four multi-color ACPI LED diodes a little lower next to the 24x power connector. They light up one by one and indicate the mainboard operational mode: if the system is off but receives power, if the system is up and running, if it is in standby mode, etc.
I was very concerned when I heard about the diagnostic LEDs located near the CPU, memory, expansion slots, IDE and SATA ports. I imagined a mainboard shining like a Christmas tree, however, these LEDs turned out diagnostic indeed. They served as a POST indicator, but in a simpler and a more illustrative way. They are off if everything is fine. If there is a problem, the corresponding diode will light up and even without a manual you will understand what has happened.
So, what haven’t we mentioned yet? Drawbacks? Besides not the best location for the IDE connector we could also point out the availability of only four fan connectors instead of six that you would expect from a mainboard of this rank. We could also complain about the graphics card that will make it difficult to replace the memory modules. These drawbacks have most likely been caused by free space deficit. However, taking into account the complexity of the PCB layout and the creative approach to solving space shortage problem, we have to admit that Gigabyte engineers did a terrific job. Moreover, all the little things pointed out above, are in fact very insignificant drawbacks. True, the design of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 is not ideal, but it definitely deserves an A+ from us. I doubt anyone could have done something better here.
In conclusion, we would like to sum up all the details on mainboard specifications and functionality in the Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 spec table below:
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 mainboard that we have already reviewed before, was the first Gigabyte board on Intel P45 Express chipset. You may be surprised, but it turned out that the BIOS functionality of the junior model in the lineup are practically the same as those of one of the top models. Of course, we can’t say they are absolutely identical. The boards are physically different that is why the BIOS of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard has a few options that GA-EP45-DS3 could have never had. For example, the options dealing with numerous additional controllers. However, most of the functions names and descriptions are overall the same. Moreover, the increments and supported value ranges are also similar, and in some cases the junior model boasts even broader capacities than the top one.
As you remember, Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 made a pretty good impression, however, we mentioned that its BIOS was way too complex for a simple board like that. I believe we owe Gigabyte an apology for misinterpreting the situation. Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 BIOS wasn’t purposefully complicated by adding extra functions. Gigabyte developers simply didn’t want to limit the BIOS functionality of their junior model and left it the way it is for top models in the lineup. I don’t think we should complain about it…
In our Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 review we have discussed all the details about the interesting BIOS Setup functions. So, this time we will not dwell on them again and just take a general look at the functionality of the Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 BIOS.
We were once again very pleased to see that MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) section with almost all important overclocking related functions is the first in the list. The section itself is very big and contains a lot of parameters, however, it has been structured in a very convenient and logical manner. Numerous parameters are grouped into categories, assigned to different sub-menus, feature contextual descriptions and other information, so it is very easy to work with this section.
Robust Graphics Booster parameter allows to overclock a graphics card automatically and can be set to Auto, Fast or Turbo. CPU Clock Ratio parameter sets the clock frequency multiplier, Fine CPU Clock Ratio parameter will allow setting fractional processor frequency multipliers for 45nm CPUs. The informational parameter called CPU Frequency will display the resulting CPU speed.
By setting CPU Host Clock Control to Enabled, we can get the desired FSB frequency by adjusting CPU Host Frequency parameter in the interval from 100MHz to 1200MHz. PCI Express Frequency parameter allows adjusting the PCI-E bus frequency in the interval from 90 to 150MHz with 1MHz increment. C.I.A.2 parameter helps overclock the CPU automatically under heavy workload and can be set to Cruise, Sports, Racing, Turbo and Full Thrust.
The options for fine chipset configuring are singled out to a separate page called Advanced Clock Control.
DRAM Performance Control group deals with the memory subsystem. Performance Enhance is set to Turbo by default. You can try and change it to Extreme, but if you want to achieve maximum frequencies during overclocking, you should start by setting it to Standard. ЕIf your system is equipped with memory modules supporting Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P.) technology, i.e. containing overclocker settings profiles in their SPD, you can enabled them with the help of a corresponding parameter.
(G)MCH Frequency Latch parameter sets the bus frequency: 200, 266, 333 or 400MHz. The list of available memory dividers will depends on this setting. If it is set to Auto, then System Memory Multiplier (SPD) will display all existing multipliers at the same time.
The letter behind the multiplier stands for the bus frequency this multiplier refers to. There are corresponding hints that will remind you what they stand for:
The informational parameter called Memory Frequency will display the resulting value.
It is very convenient that you can see the current settings for the main memory timings, but unfortunately, we noticed that they don’t always correspond to the real values. Namely, when we overclocked the processor by increasing the FSB frequency, the board set memory timings to 5-7-7-25, though the BIOS still read 5-5-5-14.
All additional timings are available on the Advanced Timing Control page:
Some timings can be set individually for each memory channel. Moreover, you can also set the Performance Level using Static tRead Value parameter.
Mother Board Voltage Control group is split into several sub-categories referring to processor, chipset and memory. It is very convenient that the first column reminds us of the standard parameter values, but we wish there have also been the actual voltages set by the board. During overclocking the board will automatically increase processor Vcore, Vchipset and Vmem set to Auto. If you want to leave the default voltage intact independent of the overclocking, set it to Normal.
Too high values are highlighted pink, while dangerously high values – blinking red. However, it is only true for the memory voltage settings.
If you take a look at the supported voltage intervals and increments, you will see that Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard can send too high voltage not only to the memory subsystem:
The only settings missing from the MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) section are those dealing with processor technologies: they have been moved to Advanced BIOS Features.
I doubt that you have ever seen an extensive Integrated Peripherals section like that. Of course, it increased primarily because of the parameters for four network controllers of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard.
PC Health Status is the only section where you see how the functionality of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 mainboard has been limited compared with its elder sister. Unlike their predecessors on Intel P35 Express or even older chipsets, both EP45 boards cannot recognize what type of processor fan was connected to them: a three-or four-pin one. However, Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 has CPU Smart Fan Mode parameter that allows to manually set the rotation speed adjustment algorithm. That is why this board is capable of adjusting the rotation speed of three-pin processor fans, while Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 can’t do the same. It is actually a little strange that so many parameters, even not the most essential ones, are the same by both mainboards, while trying to “save” at the expense of such a small but very useful trifle.
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard is equipped with a TPM module (Trusted Platform Module), therefore, there is a new section in its BIOS called Security Chip Configuration. You can enable or disable this module here:
It is the last section in the list, however, the BIOS functionality is not over yet. We can’t help mentioning built-in Q-Flash utility that can be accessed from the BIOS by pressing F8 or during system boot-up by pressing End. We would also like to point out an extremely convenient opportunity to save a complete settings profile by simply pressing F11 and to provide it with a detailed description. The desired profile can be later loaded by pressing F12.
Overall, BIOS of all Gigabyte mainboards and particularly Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 is very functional. However, there are a few evident drawbacks as well as ways to improve, which we have already mentioned a few times before. For example, it would be more convenient if the parameters dealing with processor technologies could be moved from Advanced BIOS Features section to MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) section. It would also be nice to have current voltage settings displayed here, too, or at least in the PC Health Status section. And of course, many overclockers have long been suffering from a typical peculiarity of all Gigabyte mainboards: their ability to suddenly reset the BIOS settings and continue booting the OS with all defaults without even notifying the user. Only if you get to the MB Intelligent Tweaker (M.I.T.) section you will get informed about it. Thank god that at least it doesn’t reset the already adjusted parameters to their nominal values.
In fact, it is overclocker’s fault. Nothing happens by itself. The installed parameters may have turned out not the most optimal ones, the system may have got a little over-overclocked. And even though the system may have booted just fine a few times, the problem surfaced sooner or later and the board had to reset all parameters. We understand that we need to continue searching for the more optimal settings, but why not stop and inform us about the problem on boot-up?
In fact, looks like they have been doing something about it already. For example, we discovered that unless we entered the BIOS and restored the necessary settings after clearing CMOS, the board would display the following:
Once the time elapses, the board will automatically load the last known good configuration. However, the user can manually select one of the previously saved profiles or access the BIOS to adjust the parameters. Very simple, but truly genius. It is way better than stop and wait for the user’s permission to continue like most other mainboards do. If Gigabyte manages to have their boards do the same thing after over-overclocking, their solutions will be a few steps ahead of all their competitors just like that. In the meanwhile, Gigabyte mainboards do the worst possible thing: reset all the settings and continue booting the OS…
In conclusion I can only add that despite a few issues we have already pointed out about the BIOS of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard, it has all the necessary theoretical functionality for successful CPU overclocking. Now it is time for us to see how successful it will actually turn out in reality.
We ran our tests in an open testbed configured as follows:
It occurred to me only now that since Gigabyte mainboards on Intel P45 Express chipset have BIOS Setup with very similar functionality, the overclocking potential of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 may be also similar to that of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3, which is not very good. At first we checked the board’s stability with Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor in its nominal mode. We noticed no problems whatsoever. The board did in fact set the memory frequency at 1066MHz and the timings corresponded to the BIOS settings, too: 5-5-5-14-2T. Performance Level in this case was equal to 6 and the board increased the memory voltage 2.1V by itself. I assume it has reads it off the extended EPP profile. Excellent result for the nominal mode.
Then we prepared for CPU overclocking experiments that should reveal the overclocking potential of this board. We lowered the processor clock frequency multiplier to the minimal possible value of x6. We changed the default Turbo setting of the Performance Level parameter for the memory to Standard and set 1:1 divider to the FSB speed. Without changing anything else with all the other settings at the nominal values we set the FSB frequency to 500MHz and tried to boot. The attempt was a success, the board loaded the operating system. At 520MHz, however, we had to stop: the board would only boot at best.
Well, time has come for us to check out the settings the mainboard uses for automatic overclocking. Unfortunately, monitoring capabilities of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard do not allow us to see all the parameters we are interested in. PC Health Status section only shows us the processor core and memory voltages, that is why we turned to Gigabyte’s brand name EasyTune 6 utility for help. I was about to say “had to turn for help”, but frankly speaking this utility in its current condition is a rare and maybe even the only manufacturer’s utility out there that is easy and convenient to use. We have already discussed it in detail in our Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 review.
It turned out that the board sets very high CPU Termination and CPU PLL voltages, while the chipset North Bridge voltage increased only to 1.4V, which is not enough in this case. We increase MCH Core to 1.46V and the mainboard starts moving up the overclocking pedestal with triumph. Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 easily copes with 520, 525, 530 and 540MHz FSB frequencies without any effort. It stalls for a second at 550MHz, but we increase the North Bridge voltage to 1.48V and even this frequency gets passed with flying colors.
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 evidently copes very well with high FSB frequencies. However, the CPU in this case was working with the minimal x6 multiplier and its resulting frequency barely exceeded 3.0GHz. Will we be able to overclock it to its maximum of 4.1GHz for this particular sample with the same high FSB frequencies? Our calculations suggested that we could achieve 4.1GHz by setting the FSB at 547MHz and using x7.5 clock frequency multiplier. So, we adjusted all the necessary settings in the BIOS, the system loaded Windows and right after we started Intel Burn test we got the notorious blue screen of death.
The reasons for that were immediately clear: hurrying to succeed, we set the right multiplier, increased the voltages but forgot to lower the FSB to 547MHz, which is way beyond the capabilities of our test CPU.
However, even with the correct parameters we couldn’t achieve stability at 4.1GHz frequency. And again, we were in too much hurry, we didn’t even check if the board can ensure processor stability at such higher frequencies altogether. So, we increase the multiplier to the maximum of x9, set the FSB frequency at 455MHz. In this case, the memory or bus frequencies cannot possibly be too high to hinder overclocking, however, we still cannot pass stability tests. Then we reduce the FSB frequency just by 5MHz, i.e. from 455MHz to 450MHz. Very little, indeed, but it turns out more than enough for successful pass in all stability tests. The resulting CPU frequency in this case is 4.05GHz (450x9).
Now that we know how far the board can overclock this processor let’s calculate what bus frequency we have to set for a CPU with x7.5 multiplier so that we could hit 4.05GHz frequency. It appears to be 540MHz (540x7.5=4050). So, once the correct parameters are set, the board passes all tests just fine!
We have to say that this Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 processor sample has been used in our lab since the beginning of this year. We have tested over a dozen of mainboards of various types from different manufacturers since then. But we had to lower the processor frequency multiplier to x7.5 only once, when we tested MSI X48 Platinum mainboard. And now it is the second time, due to excellent overclocking potential of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6. However, besides this indisputable advantage, MSI mainboard turned out to have a number of frustrating issues, unlike our today’s main hero - Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6.
Even at this early stage we can say that Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 deserves the highest score for its remarkable success during Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 overclocking. However, overclocking this CPU is not enough. To achieve high resulting performance, the memory should also work stably and efficiently. As you remember, we had some concerns about it since the mainboard would set 5-7-7-25 timings instead of 5-5-5-14 timings in automatic mode.
Luckily, these concerns didn’t prove right. Further testing revealed that the mainboard reacts adequately to changes of the memory subsystem operational modes. At first we changed Performance Enhance parameter from Standard to Turbo. The board did well, although the timings changed from 5-7-7-25 only to 5-7-7-24. Then we manually set the timings to 5-5-5-15. It corresponds better to the abilities of our Corsair Dominator TWIN2X2048-9136C5D memory modules working at 1080MHz frequency. And again the system remained stable at 450MHz FSB with the CPU overclocked to 4.05GHz. The board increased its Performance Level setting to 11 in this case. We decided to see what happens if we lower it to 10, and the board once again proved confidently stable!
Well, at this point we have every right to state that Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 overclocks processors and memory outstandingly. However, so far we have only used a dual-core processor, while as we know, it is quad-core CPUs that cause most problems during overclocking. So, let’s proceed.
Most mainboards usually stall at around 450MHz FSB during quad-core processors overclocking. Many boards cannot hit even this frequency, even though they can do much better with dual-core CPUs. The record during Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 has long been held by abit IP35 Pro mainboard that managed to overclock our test CPU to 475MHz FSB. No other mainboard we have tested so far could get even close to that frequency. We even believed that this is the maximum for our CPU sample. However, this summer ZOTAC nForce 790i-Supreme came into the picture and managed to raise the stability bar to 490MHz FSB and after a little effort on our part to the phenomenal 495MHz FSB. Let’s see how well Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 will do here.
The tests showed that the board can load the operating system with the CPU overclocked to 450MHz FSB, 470MHz FSB and even 490MHz FSB. However, at 500MHz FSB we couldn’t achieve stability for a while, and once we did, we couldn’t repeat the same success again. We failed at 495MHz FSB as well, however at 490MHz the repeated test was passed fine.
So, what can we say? We have seen quite a few mainboards that can overclock dual-core processors and memory pretty well. We know a few solutions that can overclock quad-core CPUs better than the others. But we haven’t yet come across a mainboard that would have such a great balance of features like Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6.
You may have noticed that Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 is bundled not with a CD disk but with a DVD disk. As a result, the manufacturer managed to include not only the whole bunch of drivers for the chipset, network cards, SATA controllers, USB and CD-ROM, but also a lot of additional applications and utilities:
Besides the above listed third-party software items, the DVD disk also contains a few Gigabyte’s own brand name utilities:
It is very convenient to work with this disk. The autorun analyzes your OS status and offers to install the entire set of drivers and utilities at once. You can settle for custom install of selected applications, look through the brief description of their functionality and check for updates.
The only small inconvenience is that some utilities are offered for Xpress Install together with the drivers that is why they are located in the corresponding part of the disk and not among other utilities. As a result, we couldn’t at first find Dynamic Energy Saver among other utilities and mistakenly believed that it was not on the disk (you can see it on the screenshot above: the first in the list).
Of course, if we decided to discuss all this software and utilities in detail, we would have needed to write a separate review, and maybe not even one. Therefore, we are not going to dwell on any third-party applications here, even though there are a few very useful ones, that are definitely worth checking out. In fact, you can always find the detailed description of the functionality on the developer sites. Now that we decided to focus only in Gigabyte’s brand name utilities, we will have to cover much fewer titles.
For example, Gigabyte EasyTune 6 is a really great tool. It allows monitoring system parameters, even overclocking from Windows. It would be especially useful for overclockers, because it shows what voltages the mainboard sets during overclocking.
We have already discussed this utility in detail in our Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 mainboard review, so we are not going to repeat it here.
DES (Dynamic Energy Saver) is responsible for power-saving technologies on Gigabyte mainboards. We have also discussed its functionality in our Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 mainboard review. However, this time they offered us a new revision called Gigabyte Dynamic Energy Saver Advanced. We downloaded the latest version B8.0905.1 from Gigabyte’s official web-site.
We have seen no noticeable differences from the previous “not-advanced” version, except the “Advanced” word. Now, however, the utility can also work during CPU overclocking. During CPU overclocking by raising the processor Vcore the CPU power consumption increases significantly, there is no way to select any power-saving modes, but the utility still works.
By the way, you don’t need to have this utility running in order to save some power. Just adjust the necessary settings and close the application. In this case the selected power-saving mode will remain enabled and you will use the power more efficiently.
Finally, there are a few utilities that are not worth dwelling on. Among them we should mention Gigabyte Xpress Recovery2. It is not in the list of Gigabyte’s brand name utilities, too, but it will launch from the DVD disk if you press F9 on boot-up. Surprisingly, there is a second version of this program already 9incompatible with the first one, by the way), which means they keep working on it. I wonder who actually uses this tool?
Theoretically, it is an extremely useful tool. It allows you to save a compressed image of the operating system and restore it if necessary in its initial condition. However, there are too many limitations that nullify all its advantages. First of all, this utility supports only FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS file systems. Although it is based on a Linux core itself. Moreover, it doesn’t support hard disk drives in RAID arrays or AHCI mode. The utility saves this image in the end of the physical drive, so you have to leave free unlabeled space when partitioning your HDD. How much space do we need? No one knows, it all depends on the OS and the space it takes on your disk. And if there is not enough space left, you will have to partition your drive all over again and reinstall the operating system.
I believe we have listed enough inconveniences for someone to give up this tool. However, I was most of all shocked with the system requirements this tool sets that were mentioned in the mainboard manual. First it has to be an Intel platform. Does it mean this utility will not work with AMD processors or NVIDIA chipsets? So, Gigabyte Xpress Recovery2 seems to have only two advantages left: it comes free with Gigabyte mainboards and you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to.
So, we decided not to proceed with the description of evident functionality of all remaining programs and utilities and focus on a few brand name technologies of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard that we haven’t yet discussed and that are pretty interesting.
In the beginning of this article when we talked about the functionality of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard, we mentioned 10 Serial ATA ports that it has. I believe we don’t have to tell you how many hard drives you can connect to it. The answer is evident: 10. And it is in fact correct, although we will only be able to use 8 of them. In order to explain why it happens like this we have to take a closer look at additional Silicon Image Sil5723 chips. They are not common RAID controllers that add extra Serial ATA ports, but multiplicators, splitters. They turn one of the existing SATA ports into two.
Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard is equipped with an additional Gigabyte SATA2 controller. Judging by its functionality, it seems to be a widely spread and very well familiar JMicron JMB363 chip that provides support for two Serial ATA ports and one Parallel ATA port. At the same time, two Silicon Image Sil5723 controllers turn two SATA ports into four. There is nothing bad about it. How fast does your HDD work with data? - 45MB/s, 60MB/s? Maybe 90MB/s? Even if it runs at 133MB/s there will be enough bandwidth for two HDDs like that and even some left.
Why did they need these Silicon Image Sil5723 chips in the first place? Why not install a couple of “real” SATA RAID controllers instead of them? There are several reasons for that. First, every additional controller takes on one PCI Express lane, which are never enough anyway, and here we just double the number of ports for free. By the way, the pricing may also matter in this case. Moreover, it is very easy to use HDDs connected to Silicon Image Sil5723 controller, because no drivers are required. Besides, these controllers have very interesting features. For example, they allow cascading the HDDs:
Hard drives connected to Silicon Image Sil5723 can work in BIG mode, i.e. be seen by the system as one large HDD. They can work in FAST mode, which is similar to RAID0, when all the info is written on and read from two HDDs simultaneously, which provides significant performance increase. However, if one of the hard drives fails, the data will be lost on both of them. This is when SAFE mode can help. It is similar to RAID1 (mirroring), i.e. the data is duplicated on two hard drives, so if one of them fails, you can always pull the data from another one. The speed is the same as in case of one hard drive, the reliability is pretty high, but you lose about half of the available storage capacity. The next two modes can help resolve this dilemma. SAFE33 allows allocating only one third of the hard drive capacity for mirroring purposes with the remaining space combined in BIG mode. SAFE50 is similar to SAFE33, with only half of the capacity allocated for mirroring.
Unfortunately, there is barely anything left from this remarkable functionality, since Smart Backup technology on Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard has Silicon Image Sil5723 working only in one single mode: SAFE. You have to connect the HDD to the first port of the two for each controller. Nothing terrible will happen if you connect the HDD to the second port, the system will simply not see it. If you connect both HDDs at the same time, the system will automatically copy the data from the first HDD to the second one. Be careful, as any data you might have had on the second HDD will be lost! This is the essence of Smart Backup technology: automatic data backup without any user involvement.
You can install Gigabyte Smart Backup utility that is completely analogous to SteelVine Manager from Silicon Image. It will allow monitoring the HDD performance, but you will not be able to change their configuration mode.
Smart Backup requires to reboot the board one more time during system startup. At first you will see “Initializing storage policy, please wait” message for 10 seconds. After that the board will reboot and you will see a new message saying “Wait Smart Backup Hard Drives ready” and only after that the standard POST procedure will kick in. Of course, Gigabyte Smart Backup technology does perform its function very well. It is a pity though that they had to give up the extensive functionality of Silicon Image Sil5723 controllers for the sake of this simplicity.
Many contemporary mainboards allow installing TPM (Trusted Platform Module). However, it is optional and we haven’t yet come across a mainboard with this module before. So, let’s use this opportunity and take a closer look at its functionality and features.
The manual says that you have to enable this module into the BIOS for successful initialization. Then you have to install Infineon TPM driver, which is also a must, no doubt about that. After that they suggest that you install Gigabyte Ultra TPM Utility, which may seem unnecessary, but let’s see.
The first step didn’t cause any problems: we enabled this module in the BIOS. The second step also went on smoothly, although we thought that there was a mistake with the size of the driver – over 200MB! However, the list of installed software proved it was no mistake. Infineon Security Platform software suite includes the following:
Just look at this list! I started configuring this program, made screenshots, but gave up less than 30% down the road. First it is way too overwhelming; second, only sysadmins of large enterprises may really be interested in this level of detail, and they should already know all these things anyway. First you have to set the main password, then user passwords, consider password resetting options, select the appropriate functions… It is hardly doable for a regular user…
Then I finally installed Gigabyte Ultra TPM Utility and saw why it is handy. It kind of sits over the Infineon Security Platform and simplifies the whole configuration process summing it up in two major steps. First you have to come up with a password:
This only step starts and finishes platform initialization.
Then you have to select the letter for your “secret” PSD (Personal Secure Drive), name it, choose a logical disk where it will be located and set the capacity for it.
I left all these at defaults and that was all! Configuration complete!
However, I shouldn’t in fact trusted the default settings too much. The utility reserved the first available letter for my secret drive – F. However, once I connected a flash-drive to my system, I got an error message:
You can quickly fix this problem in Infineon configuration utility, however, it would be better to pick a letter closer to the end of the alphabet right from the start.
So, what did we get in the end? Click the Infineon icon in the system tray, type in the password and you get access to your secret disk with not much on it yet.
However, you can start adding your secret data there right away.
The secret drive looks like a regular drive:
The disk manager doesn’t see it though, because in reality it is an encrypted file of the size we set for our secret drive. It is located in that logical HDD partition that we set for it.
When we no longer need access to our secret data, we click the Infineon icon in the tray and disconnect our secret drive. If the drive is still in use at the time we will get a warning:
Simple, isn’t it? Yes, it is! But a little boring to my taste… But even in this case Gigabyte Ultra TPM utility will help. Instead of entering your password every time (you can save it, but then there will be nothing secret about the whole thing anymore), the utility will offer you to save a key onto a USB flash drive. And not just one key, but at least two. It may have something to do with the data security. Flash drives can often break. If it happens and there won’t be any backup copy anywhere, the data stored on your secret drive will be lost for good: the encryption algorithms they use a very reliable.
Once you have selected the flash drives to save your keys on, enter your password:
And you are done!
Now it is even easier and much more fun to use this secret drive. It even adds some James Bond feel to the whole thing. Just connect one of the flash drives to the PC and your secret drive will be automatically activated.
You remove the flash drive and walk away from the system, and the drive is no longer available. Very fun.
It doesn’t affect the contents of your USB Flash Drives. There will only appear two small additional files. However, it is important to remember: if it used to be a boot-up flash drive, it will no longer be able to function as such. I have to admit that I wasted quite a few nerve cells trying to figure out why my home system would hand during POST when I tried to boot from a flash drive that has never caused any problems. When I connected this flash drive to Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6, the system would pass POST flawlessly, but then it would keep asking for some kind of password…
Looks like Gigabyte Ultra TPM Utility does something else when saving the key to a flash drive. Luckily, once you understand what the problem is, it can be very easily fixed. After creating the key save the two news files in some TMP folder, format the flash drive, make it a boot-up device again and then move the files back to it. As a result, it will be able to provide access to your secret drive without losing its boot-up functionality.
The important thing is that the keys are created individually for each of the two flash drives, so don’t mix them up when copying the keys. That is why you can let anyone use your flash drive with the key. Even if they copy it to a different flash drive, they will not be able to access your secret drive.
We can think of numerous useful applications for this secret drive. However, if you feel that this simplified configuration doesn’t give you everything you need, you can always switch from Gigabyte Ultra TPM Utility back to the full configuration of Infineon Security Platform.
Even Gigabyte representatives admit that their Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard is not ideal. The board itself as well as the BIOS Setup and the brand name software are not free from a few issues. We have pointed them all out in our today’s review. However, all of them are not very serious and get completely forgotten in the light of phenomenal overclocking potential of Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6. We haven’t yet seen a mainboard that would overclock dual- as well as quad-core processors so easily and impressively as Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6. In fact, these results are not final yet. We are going to continue working with this board and will certainly keep updating you regarding its progress in our lab on a long-term basis.
Mainboard is a very complex high-tech solution. There are many reasons why one model may perform differently from another same model. Of course, you may think that we were just lucky with a particular mainboard sample and some other Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 may not be able to show the same impressive results. However, we will hardly test another Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 sample in the near future. You will have to agree that far not everyone will actually use all four network cards. Besides, the price of this top solution is pretty high, too. Therefore, it is even more interesting to check out a few other models from unprecedentedly large lineup of Gigabyte solutions on Intel P45 Express. In the beginning of our Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3 review we have mentioned all of them already. Particularly promising is Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS5. However, if you don’t need to connect a lot of hard drives and are not interested in Smart Backup technology, then check out Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS4. We will do our best to test them as well and share the results very soon.
Our today’s review showed very clearly that Gigabyte’s investments in improving the quality and functionality of their solutions over the past years have paid back in full. Having passed all the milestones on the way to the leadership pedestal Gigabyte now has to make the final step to becoming an indisputable leader in the mainboard market. So, they should definitely keep up the good pace they’ve taken so far. Of course, past achievements do count, but they will not last them forever. From the functionality standpoint more and more Gigabyte mainboards win in side by side comparisons. As for Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6, it will remain a worthy part of our collection. Not as a useless decorative overclocking toy, but as a highly efficient solution for achieving maximum performance.
We here at Xbit Labs decided to award Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 mainboard with the Editor’s Choice title as the best overclocking platform:
