The P45, a member of the Eaglelake-family, is Intel's latest weapon in their chipset arsenal and it is designed to support their upcoming processors. These upcoming processors are designed to utilize a 1600MHz FSB (Front Side Bus), where as current processors use an 800MHz, 1066MHz and 1333MHz FSB. Furthermore this new chipset also includes support for the DDR3 memory standard, while also supporting the latest DDR2 memory standards.

When it comes to features the P45 is actually the most fully packed chipset Intel has on offer, and this is primarily due to the inclusion of the ICH10R south bridge. The P45 actually supports a wider range of official memory frequencies than any other Intel chipset, along with a broader range of system buses. The second generation Intel Matrix Storage Technology2 is also found on this new chipset, supporting a total of six SATAII ports.

So the Intel P45 certainly delivers when it comes to features and the chipset appears to be reasonably affordable when compared to previous high-end products. Performance wise the P45 chipset stands up to the more high-end X48 very well, offering almost identical performance. In fact most users will find very little incentive to spend more on an X48 motherboard when there are already so many great P45 examples out there!

One such example from Gigabyte is the new EP45-DS4R, which is an impressive looking motherboard, and as usual it looks as though Gigabyte has really gone all out on this one. The theme once again is “Ultra Durable 2”, which means it includes features such as Low RDS(on) MOSFETs, Ferrite Core Chokes and All-Solid Capacitors. These are all features that should help the EP45-DS4R stand the test of time and could also help with overclocking performance.

While these are important features that add to the board’s quality, there is much more to the Gigabyte EP45-DS4R that needs to be explored. There is nothing boring about this motherboard, from the cooling design to the audio controller, the EP45-DS4R is an exciting product.