Gigabyte EP45-DS3R Review

Introduction:

There is an abundance of consumers who don’t need all of the flashy accessories and features that come with a number of high-end motherboards these days. It definitely seems like overkill, doesn’t it? Some users don't need the motherboard with insane overclocking features or excessive cooling. Gigabyte has answered this call with the all new Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R motherboard. Not only does it feature the newer Intel P45 chipset, it also has almost all of Gigabyte's standard features, including the Dynamic Energy Saver feature. With the price hovering around one hundred and thirty dollars, this motherboard carries a mid-range price point but what will the performance be like? Will the performance be worth more than what the motherboard costs? Let's see how it does when compared against some higher end P45 motherboards. Join me as I thoroughly examine the Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3R standard ATX motherboard.

Gigabyte has become one of my favorite motherboard manufacturers for many reasons. Firstly, the company always includes an abundance of accessories that come in handy quite often. Also, the amount of features that it packs into each motherboard is just amazing. The new technologies that Gigabyte implements never seem to stop with each new motherboard the company releases. This Gigabyte EP45-DS3R shouldn't be any different than I expect in terms of accessories and features.

Closer Look:

The Gigabyte EP45-DS3R comes packaged in a very simple green and white box with its features displayed brightly on both the front and back sides of the box. On either side of the box, you'll find the name of the motherboard as well as the serial number for it.

Upon opening the box, you'll be presented with the accessories lying on top of the box . These accessories included a user's manual, a hardware installation guide, a driver CD, stickers, rear I/O shield, four SATA cables, an IDE cable, floppy drive cable, eSATA bracket, IEEE 1394 (Firewire) bracket, eSATA power cable, and a power cable. Definitely a good bundle if you ask me!

Now that we've unpacked the accessories, it's about time we unpacked the motherboard!