The Test-

Standard Test Bed - Intel Configuration
Processor Intel Core 2 Quad - Q9300
RAM Patriot PUS24G6400LLK - 4GB DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (DDR2-800)
G.Skill F2-8800CL5Q-8GBPI 4GB DDR2-1150 5-5-5-18 (DDR2-1066)
Corsair CM3X2G1600ZC9DHXNV 4GB DDR3 6-6-6-18 (DDR3-1333)
Hard Drive Western Digital Caviar SE16 640GB
System Platform Drivers Intel - 9.0.0.1011
Storage Drivers Intel - 8.5.0.1032
Video Drivers Intel - 15.11.2.1554
CPU Cooling Intel - Retail
Power Supply Corsair - HX-520W
Optical Drives Sony BDU-X10S, LG GGC-H20L
Case Thermaltake Bach Media Lab VB8000BNS, stock case fans
Motherboards ASUS P5E-VM HDMI (Intel G35) - BIOS 0604
ASUS P5Q-EM (G45) - BIOS 0402
Gigabyte GA-EG45M-DS2H (G45) - BIOS F3F
Super Micro Super-C2SEA (G45 DDR3) - BIOS R1.0a
Intel DG45ID (G45) - BIOS 079
Operating System Windows Vista 32-bit Ultimate (Benchmarks), Vista 64-bit Memory Compatibility Testing
.

Our test bed today features the Q9300 quad-core processor. This is a processor that we believe offers terrific performance with very good power consumption and thermals for the cost. We will have results in the next article with the E1200, E5200, E7200, and Q8200 processors to compare against several AMD processors in the same price and speed ranges. Our Patriot DDR2-800 Viper 4GB memory kit has served us well for the past few months and we highly recommend it. We chose Corsair for our XMS2 DDR3 4GB kit and the HX-520W power supply. Our favorite mid-range HD continues to be the Western Digital SE16 640GB that provides the near perfect balance of price, performance, and capacity.

General Performance-

We ran all of our tests with a Core 2 Quad Q9300, however the Mini ITX G45 board from Intel doesn't support quad-core processors so we included E5200 scores from Intel's own micro-ATX and mini-ITX boards for comparison.

You'll notice that these boards all perform about the same, which is to be expected these days with same-chipset performance. In Part 2 of this series we'll compare the equivalent AMD offerings along with several different processors, but if you're looking for an Intel platform you'll find that G45 boards are on equal performance footing.

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The World's First mini-ITX G45 Board Gaming Performance
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  • Olyros - Sunday, February 8, 2009 - link

    I noticed there's a mention in the article about searching for the perfect mini-itx case. The Nexus Psile case that I'm using for my Intel "DG45FC"-based computer is perfect for it I think. Especially if you are after stylish and quiet computers.
    Here are a couple of links for you to check it out if you want:
    www.psile.com
    http://www.3dgameman.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4...">http://www.3dgameman.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4...
  • lubama - Tuesday, October 14, 2008 - link

    Quote from "Intel's G45 Motherboard round up

    "However, at various times after the system has gone to sleep it will wake back up without intervention for a few seconds and then shuts down. Sometimes this a few minutes after entering sleep mode, other times it occurred an hour or so later. The board requires a full power cycle to come back to life and does not always resume to Vista, instead we receive the error that Vista has been incurred an error after entering the OS."

    Have you found a solution to this problem, seems like you are the only person, other than me, who is catching this issue. I have posted in numerous DG45ID forums and this exact issue is non-existent and haven't received any answers.
  • IntelUser2000 - Sunday, October 12, 2008 - link

    Anand, G965/G35/GM965 has 8 EUs(Execution Units), but each of the EUs contain 2 cores, meaning it has 16 cores. Each cores can also process 2 threads, meaning it has a maximum of 32 thread capability. From that, its not comparable to Nvidia, nor ATI so Intel have their own performance metric.

    For G45, I assume its 10 EUs, 20 cores. Intel papers mention 50 threads.
  • puddnhead - Wednesday, October 8, 2008 - link

    I second (thrid? fourth? fifth? 9th?) the call for the part 2 (what it's pretty obvious everyone is more interested in anyway, not this article).

    I wonder if you coudl at least give us an ETA of not the article itself? You know, if it's this week, this month, or ??? Thta doesn't seem too much to ask, I'm surprised you don't give that from the start.
  • computerfarmer - Friday, October 3, 2008 - link

    Looking forward to part_2.

    I hope they are sooner than the promised reviews from these articles.

    AMD SB750 arrives on the Foxconn A79A-S...
    Date: July 21st, 2008
    Author: Gary Key
    http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=47...">http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=47...

    AMD's SB750: Enabling Higher Phenom Overclocks?
    Date: July 23rd, 2008
    Topic: CPU & Chipset
    Manufacturer: AMD
    Author: Gary Key
    http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...

    AMD 790GX - The Introduction
    Date: August 6th, 2008
    Topic: CPU & Chipset
    Manufacturer: AMD
    Author: Gary Key
    http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...">http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?...
  • computerfarmer - Friday, October 3, 2008 - link

    When is PART_2 coming out?
  • duploxxx - Friday, October 3, 2008 - link

    Lots of talk of bringing a great roundup of chipsets...already for a few weeks now.

    Where does anand start? at the least interesting and the most garbage chipset for several years now.

    lets hope your global review is as good as people expect it to be.
    you started off already a bit better then you did in recent gpu reviews, you actually took a cpu that was rather common to be used, although a e7200 or Q8200 would be a much better fit for this kind of boards.

  • whosthere - Tuesday, September 30, 2008 - link

    I didn't see any specifics on the Game Settings. Could you please post them...
    Thanks
  • dutchroll - Monday, September 29, 2008 - link

    Yeah I was thinking much the same thing about the "fanboi" comments.

    Can they spell "hypocrite"? It really betrays your allegiance when you rant at Intel then go all wobbly and weak at the knees while mentioning AMD. AT are damned if they do, damned if they don't as far as reviewing either brand's offerings. They've already stated how good the 780G was. They've stated what bugs are in the G45. So what the heck is the problem?
  • piesquared - Wednesday, October 1, 2008 - link

    The problem is, they promised a SB750 review 2 months ago. The problem is they promised a DFI LP JR. review 1 month ago. The problem is they go well out of there way to avoid any comparison of Intel's ITD, and AMD's IGP. So what if they obscure and bury a line inside an Intel article that gives credit to AMD hardware. They fail to give credit where credit is due, and it is glaringly obvious. And it's even more obvious when this article pops up suddently when Intel has a new driver. They were waiting on Intel's promises of a new driver that would improve performance, and show it's hardware in a better light. Doesn't matter if you crap in a plastic or paper bag, it's still a bag of shit though. I'll make a wager that none of the upcomming "promised" reviews will have any side by side comparisons of Intel's IDT, to any other IGP. Unless of course AT stalls long enough to allow Intle more time to produce yet another driver.....

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