Intel introduced the G45 chipset this week and we had an opportunity to finally see it in action during an Intel sponsored event. From a home theater and media center vantange point we expect this chipset to do quite well. Our first impressions were terrific as we finally witnessed an Intel chipset provide hardware acceleration for VC1 and H.264 formats via a native HDMI interface.

The GMA X4500 also provides resolutions up to 2560x1600 along with DisplayPort capabilities. The drivers are still under development so we do not know if gaming performance is improved over the G35. However, we know for a fact that all other areas pertaining to display output quality to general desktop performance are improved over the G35. We expect to see boards in late July from all of the major suppliers and will bring you a first look shortly. In the meantime, here are a few screenshots from boards we noticed during our travels today.


Foxconn's top G45 board is the Concerto featuring DDR3, ICH10R Southbridge, and several features they will introduce shortly in their revamped product series that will focus on features for both the enthusiast and digital home user.


MSI's top G45 board is the G45 Platinum featuring their new DrMOS technology and an obvious flair for heatsink design that most people either loved or disliked. MSI also has several other G45 boards planned including a mini-ITX version featuring MODT technology that we will preview shortly.

Gigabyte took a more traditional approach to board design and will be introducing the GA-EG45M-DS2H next month. This board features the ICH10R Southbridge, Realtek ALC889 HD Codec with Dolby Home Theater certification, a TPM hardware chip, and a BIOS that is geared towards the enthusiast when compared to other mATX boards.

We also looked at boards from ASUS, Jetway, J&W, ECS, and others listed in our gallery.

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  • BansheeX - Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - link

    Note to boardmakers: you can remove the IDE, Floppy, and Serial ports already. The 3% of people who need these on a brand new system can get adapters. Seriously.
  • Mr Perfect - Tuesday, June 10, 2008 - link

    Amen. Can we add parallel and PS2 to the list as well? I had these ports on my 486, it's time to move on..

    The only problem might be with the floppy connector. Windows XP always seems to want it's RAID drivers from floppy disks. And only true floppies at that, not USB ones.
  • BlueAcolyte - Friday, June 6, 2008 - link

    Yea, those would be two big PCI-E slots on the Foxconn. Or we're both crazy... hehe.
  • FireTech - Friday, June 6, 2008 - link

    I just want to know if Intel have a serious answer to the ATI 780G or nV 8200/8300 chipsets and is it worth waiting for over those options?
    G35 obviously wasn't.
  • FireTech - Saturday, June 7, 2008 - link

    Gary, any sign of the 790GX/SB750 boards at Computex as it looks like they may now be G45s 'opposition' give the availability dates?
  • squeezee - Monday, June 9, 2008 - link

    Actually DFI is showing off a 790GX/SB750 mATX board (790GX-M2RS) along with their P45 mATX board (P45-T2RS), Both supporting Crossfire.
  • Staples - Friday, June 6, 2008 - link

    It is funny but this has been at the top of my most interested list for months now. The G35 is absolutely terrible and can't even decode video as far as I am concerned. It does just as well as NVIDIA cards did up until the second generation of their 8000 series cards. NVIDIA advertised it but in reality, the card did 25% of the decoding at most. Now their cards and AMD's cards decode video 100%. The G35 advertises it but it does not real=ly decode anything.

    Another thing that makes me interested is this constant NVIDIA taunting. Why would NVIDIA do this? To tip Intel on how to best ruin NVIDIA's business or is it because NVIDIA fears something? Also, it seems that a lot more motherboards are coming out using the G45 than ones that used the G35. Few boards used the G35 and all of the ones that did were micro ATX and were budget boards (with old southbridges). Even if this video makes a big splast, I know it will be aweful compared to any descrete graphics card but if it can finally do video decoding 100% and is at least 200% faster than the G35, I will say that it is a big improvement over any other Intel video processor.
  • GTaudiophile - Friday, June 6, 2008 - link

    So, does the G45+ASUS XONAR soundcard mean the ultimate HTPC is coming to fruition? I could see building an HTPC around these pieces, along with a Blu-Ray drive and a 1TB harddisk or two. The big question is still the TV-Tuner. I know some exist that can handle OTA HD signals, but what happened to a CableCard 2.0 product? I still don't foresee HD cable on the HTPC for a while.

  • djc208 - Friday, June 6, 2008 - link

    I've gotten involved in HTPCs a few years ago and I really like the concept and all this new HD capable hardware is a benefit for sure but for my home theater I've gotten away from wanting to mess with a computer in my entertainment center.

    I'm a bit of a fanboy but the new SageTV HD extender http://www.sagetv.com/hd_extender.html">http://www.sagetv.com/hd_extender.html and a stand-alone BD drive or PS3 would work better in my opinion anyway. The system requirements for the server to do the recording/streaming are minimal so you can recycle older hardware for the server and place it somewhere out of the way. And the extender just works, no driver or setup issues, no boot-up times, no fans or HDs to go bad, and you can install one on every TV in the house to access your media.

    I'm all for the capability on my computers but for my entertainment center I'd rather it just worked, and unfortunately the HTPCs I've played with were just never as polished as a stand-alone device.

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