Here's some more news on this mini-itx board as it becomes available next week: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/a ... _line.html

The article does not mention system specs. Though the power consumption number is not as good as an AMD 780G based system's (my 780G mATX can do Blu-Ray @ 45-48W), but with tweaking like undervolting and/or using a more effiecient PSU I'm sure you can improve the G45's power consumption to levels comparable to the 780G's.

Thanks for the link

We've been posting about the DG45FC over in this thread. So far we've gotten specs, board layout, and a couple other tid bits on it. Should be out in a week or so for around 150USD.

Here are the system specs of the system Intel used to arrive at the 53W power consumption figure:



Source:
http://techgage.com/news/intels_g45_hol ... f_promise/




780G power consumption a lot higher than the G45??? I'm not sure on what basis these guys make their claim. From my experience the 780G power figures are on par with MoDT systems.

Here's a review of the board in German: http://www.car-pc.info/reviews/intel-dg45fc-review

I'm disappointed by the power consumption figures: 38W idle, 44W playing DVD. Maybe they can be improved with undervoltage tweaking if it is at all possible. Or with the use of a single core 35W 2GHz Celeron (I"m not sure if it's fast enough for Blu-Ray).

Here's a fun fact, Acronis True Image is now shipping with some Intel boards. One of which is the DG45FC.

I know it may not be that important if it's for a HTPC, but the German review uses an E8500 processor, which is faster than any AMD dual-core CPU. But, yeah, the wattage could have been a little lower. But I'm not sure if the DG45FC motherboard allows under/over-volting any component?

But for a workstation. 40-50 W is a VERY decent machine with an E8500 processeor, isn't it?

It doesn't seem so bad to me.
Replacing the E8500 with an E7200 will reduce the idle and load power consumptions significantly. (May be able to guess numbers compared to E8200 from http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di ... html#sect0)

Point taken for an Intel build.

I was just comparing the numbers to my AM2/780G mATX HTPC with a 3.5" drive. It idles at less than 29W and can play Blu-Ray at 45W. I expect a mini-ITX system to consume even less power.

I am very interested in seeing comparisons between the G45 and 780G. Ideally, I want to build another Blu-Ray capable HTPC using a small case similar to this. I'll go with an external USB Blu-Ray drive for now until slim Blu-Ray drive prices drop from their current astronomical levels.

On a slight different note: Why isn't there much buzz about the Nvidia 8200? I've seen a review comparing it to the 780G. There's even a mini-ITX version from Jetway. But I don't see people going gaga over it as a HTPC platform. Very curious.

Anybody any idea, how the PCI Express* x1 slot can be used on that board?

I mean, I have not seen any PCI Express* x1 riser-cards yet, and apart from that, the riser-card has to fit for the intended case, which means, normally you can only use a riser-card, that comes with the case.

This place has had a good selection of PCIe risers for a couple of years now... I like them because they don't mind single orders and the odd custom part, I got them to make me a PCIe x1 to x16 right angle connector ribbon riser.

Digging this thread back up, Mini-box is now stocking the board. I purchased it along with a pico-psu and replacement heatsink. Will post again when I get it with pics.

I hope it's not a mistake on their part as no one else has it in stock.

Edit:
Dell has changed their availability status from no stock to 3-5 weeks ETA. So the release date still looks like end of August/mid September.

Here is a slightly less glowing review of the G45 chipset. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2 ... 138,00.asp

I was holding out for this board but I kept hearing about video issues with the GPU so I went with the J&W mini board with the 35w 3800+ ee sff cpu.
Geeks.com had the J&W board for a few hours last week but they are all gone now. You can find them on eBay right now for about $15 more which is still pretty good if you want this board before geeks gets more in stock.

I guess we will have to wait and see how the G45 actually does when it ships but I have my doubts that it will beat the 780G. And as for the 780G using much more power than the G45, look at the source of that information. Straight from an Intel PR person. Once again, lets wait for the final shipping board to make a final verdict.

Too bad that "Review" is absolutely terrible and barely qualifies as one. There's no comparisons against other integrated at all and barely any benchmarks. Also the G45 chipset is new and the drivers definitely aren't up to snuff yet. I'm waiting for a legit review of a decent board with some actual power measurements before making any judgements. Extremetech generally disappoints on 90% of articles with a few actual decent ones hidden.

I just got a tracking number, so I'm pretty sure I'll be getting it this week. I'm getting my proc on a different date, so when I get everything together, I'll have some voltage readings and the like. Let me know what info you guys want and I'll try and get it.

If you are in the habit of using BIOS fan controls could you tell us how well they work? Controlling CPU/system in response to temperature at lowest settings. Does the CPU fan turn off at low temperatures?

I get the impression in [ this thread ] that 780G/790GX coupled with a Phenom (for some arcane reason) is the way to go (in regard to picture quality).

If you want your 8 channel LPCM and/or bitstreaming capability, it's probably G45 though. Either way should work for 720p, 1080i and 1080p material.

Could you check to see if the board has under volting, and overclocking abilities in the bios?.

I highly doubt we'll get that, but if this board does have undervolting, then it'll become a want board for me. I really want to undervolt a E7200 in this thing. Considering the processor is so cheap and 45nm, it'll be awesome for both speed and power consumption for almost any usage.

Otherwise the hope is that some of the other big makers will make some mini-itx g45's.

Here are some pictures I got from AVS.

What I'd like to see:

* if undervolting and underclocking are possible in BIOS. If not, whether software UV and UC are possible using CrystalCPUID
* lowest stable idle voltage and power consumption
* lowest possible clock, voltage and power consumption for smooth 1080i HDTV playback, and those figures for smooth Blu-Ray playback

Thanks.

Received it today. Don't have a processor to put in it though, so I'll have to wait for it to arrive

I ordered this board and a Celeron 440 to go with it. My decision to go with the 35W Celeron (a $50 bet) is to hedge against the possibility that undervolt and underclock are not possible in the BIOS or in software. I really wanted to squeeze this baby into a slim mini-ITX case powered by a 60W/80W brick (otherwise, what's the fun/challenge in building your own system? ). My primary use would be to play back 720p/1080i HDTV recordings. If the setup also works for Blu-Ray that would be icing on the cake.

Sorry to say but you have done the wrong choice. Why?

1. The Celeron is a 65nm CPU, the new one manufactured with 45nm process consume far less power.

2. Celeron CPU don't support EIST, that mean that your cpu consume max power constantly.

The best choice nowadays is the E7200 which consume 2Watt idle and max 20W full, or the upcoming cheaper E5200.

E7200:
http://www.hardware.fr/medias/photos_ne ... 023051.gif

Celeron 440 (old review):
http://www.matbe.com/images/biblio/art_ ... 057759.png

soa:

Thanks for pointing that out; I didn't realize the Celerons don't have EIST.

However, from the specs the Celeron 440 has an operating voltage of 1.0V – 1.3375V, which I assumed to mean it has some kind of power management. Maybe it doesn't drop the multiplier, but doesn't having a voltage range mean the vcore drops when the processor is idle?

In any case, the system will be used as a media extender, so most of the time it will be under some kind of load when it's up & running.

Also, are the E7200 power consumption numbers you quoted for real? I mean, if the processor really consumes 20W under full load, why does Intel advertise it as a 65W part?

It does sound surprisingly low but on looking at other data it doesn’t sound unbelievable. Xbitlabs show the difference between idle and load as being 29W. When you strip out the power supply inefficiencies and VRM losses that puts the actual CPU consumption at around 21W plus whatever it consumes at idle. Other reviews show an even lower difference between idle and load power consumption. There are bound to be differences due to all the variables involved but it does seem to suggest that the E7200 consumes around 20 – 25W at load at stock voltage which really surprises me. Then I checked and noticed that the Q9300 that I tested consumed around 45W more at load than idle at stock voltage after deducting power inefficiencies.

Intel doesn’t use TDP in a way that is very helpful in determining power consumption unlike AMD; it’s best to just read reviews to determine power consumption.

The last couple of posts have been very informative (and revealing) to someone like me who has been a long-time AMD user and has been out of touch with Intel CPU development since Intel abandoned the duallie enthusiast over five years ago. It sounds like Intel has AMD beat on the low-power consumption front.

Assuming the BIOS has undervolt/underclock control (perhaps from another G45 mini-itx mobo maker), can anyone care to speculate if you can run the E7200 passively if you lock the voltage and clock at the lowest voltage and max clock at that volltage using the stock heatsink (or perhaps with minimum cooling from case fan)? If this is doable then it opens up a lot of possibilities for a really silent small form factor HTPC using desktop components. You can get a silent PC that still has more horsepower than a mid-level AMD processor.

At the CPU level AMD just aren’t in the game when it comes to performance per watt; they are stronger in other areas though.

If you down-clock to 2GHz and under-volt then I think power consumption will be around 12W. You might be better off with the E5200 as that might shave off a watt or two as it has a smaller cache; 2MB.
It’s hard to say if the stock heatsink will be any good when used passively even when cooling only 12W. Intel’s heatsinks are often fairly flimsy so don’t expect too much from it. Unless you require SSE 4.1 I’d suggest going for the E5200 and investing the money saved on a replacement heatsink.

Make sure you do proper research before using an Intel IGP in a HTPC as they don’t have a good reputation; this is especially so since you mentioned Blu-ray playback.
Although Intel’s CPUs are currently very dominant when building a fully featured HTPC AMD’s platform has a lot to offer and is generally considered to be superior to the Intel platform.

Right.

First tests of the new G45 show that the HD hardware acceleration fonctionate well, but the quality is poor:

G45 achieves only 30% at the HQV test. (AMD and NVidia achieve 100% with drivers that aren't older than one year)
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2 ... 138,00.asp

The positive point is the low power consumption.
Another test show that the board consume only:
http://www.car-pc.info/reviews/intel-dg45fc-review
Bootphase 70W
Idle 38W
Full 70W
CD/DVD Load 49W
DVD 44W

And this with an Intel Core 2 Duo E8500.
If we take the picture I posted before http://www.hardware.fr/medias/photos_ne ... 023051.gif we we can see that a E8500 consumes 3W idle more than an E7200 and 10W at load.

That mean that we can expect an consumption about 35W at idle and 60W at full with this board combined with an E7200.
(With mine E7200 + Intel G33 chipset I have 48W at idle power consumption! The G45 is a big improvement)

Wow...the specs say it has 5 sata ports plus one esata.

I like. Especially because it seems Intel likes to put only four sata ports on their micro-atx boards.

Update: Whoops---looks like Dell's site was misleading...it's four sata ports, plus one external. It's so hard to find a good small board to do RAID 10 with these days. lol.