Intel 845 DDR Motherboard Roundup - December 2001

Intel D845BG

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Just as long as they have been a chipset manufacturer they have also been a motherboard manufacturer; Intel has updated their desktop motherboard line to include support for DDR SDRAM on an 845 platform. The D845BG is fairly simple but a very reliable platform from Intel.

As you can expect there are no overclocking features on the board, no onboard RAID, and no USB 2.0. The onboard AC'97 codec of choice is the Analog Devices AD1885 which is comparable to Avance Logic's ALC100 as it only features a 16-bit DAC and no SPDIF support. The signal to noise ratio is quite competitive to the ALC200 series however.

The most unique feature of the board is that it features 4 USB ports on the back of the board which can actually come in handy quite a bit as very few manufacturers include enough USB ports with their boards.

The board is a no-frill solution that would normally set itself apart from the competition by its rock solid stability but with so many Taiwanese offerings running just as stable as the D845BG it's going to be a tough sell for Intel this time. That speaks volumes about the quality of the 845 chipset in general, but it also means that Intel may have to actually start competing with the Taiwanese firms in terms of motherboard features when dealing with such stable products.

The D845BG, if outfitted with an onboard NIC, would make the perfect webserver board just based on Intel's history of stability but for most desktop uses we'd like to see some more features from Intel on the board.