Intel DG45FC: Loaded LGA775 Mini-ITX Board

Want to talk about one of the articles in SPCR? Here's the forum for you.
croddie
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Post by croddie » Sat Sep 20, 2008 10:04 am

The market for people wanting a tiny computer with high end graphics is very small. (It is hard enough to build a quiet and tiny computer with integrated graphics.) This product does not target this market. It doesn't target the market of people using legacy hardware either. It targets a market wanting decent graphics and general performance, who have modern hardware, and who
want something small and power efficient.

seemingly.random
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Post by seemingly.random » Sat Sep 20, 2008 9:42 pm

Noticed a couple of mistakes in the review:
<page 4> Measurement and Analysis Tools

... If the video (and/or audio) skips or freezes, we conclude the board's IGP (in conjunction with the processor) is <in?>adequate to decompress the clip properly.
<page 8> FINAL THOUGHTS

Overall we are impressed with the G45 chipset. While the X4500 IGP represents only an incremental increase in both 2D and 3D performance over the G45 <G35?>
I just received the DG45ID - the matx version. It's going to replace a flaky matx gigabyte g965 (w/e6600). The main reason I selected it over the other g45 offerings is that intel had the temerity to discontinue ide, floppy and ps/2 support. I've been waiting for this for quite a while. There are also two pci-x1 instead of the usual two pci slots. It's good to know in advance about the lack of speedFan support and the funky bios fan control. Hopefully these problems will be resolved.

Saw a recommendation in a newegg review for a very nice, high-end itx case - http://usa.chenbro.com/corporatesite/pr ... ?serno=100

bgiddins
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Core 2 Quad support?

Post by bgiddins » Tue Sep 23, 2008 2:24 am

Any anecdotal experience as to whether this board will actually run a Core 2 Quad (e.g. one of the 45nm ones)? Quads aren't officially supported for this board by Intel, but...

smilingcrow
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Post by smilingcrow » Fri Sep 26, 2008 7:11 am

It would have been interesting to see under-volting data using RMClock. Intel’s 45nm CPUs don’t under-volt as significantly as the 65nm ones so the lack of BIOS under-volting is less of an issue.
BIOS under-volting is more useful if you’re under-clocking as the 45nm dual-cores seem to start at ~2.5GHz and at that speed the voltage doesn’t seem to be stable much lower than is available with software.
It’s quick to test RMClock with the entry level 45nm dual-cores as they are typically stable at the lowest available VCore so you only have to test stability using one setting.
MikeC wrote:While these results are profound, we won't be changing our Intel motherboard test bed to include the E7200 as getting the absolute lowest system power consumption isn't our main testing goal. A slower processor is ideal for judging an IGP's video playback efficiency — if the E7200 ran at around 2GHz, we would not hesitate to change our methods.
2.5GHz is becoming the new entry point for Intel dual-cores although there are still older chips around that are slower and cheaper.
The E5200 is worth considering as even though it runs at 2.5GHz you can easily restrict it to 2GHz by limiting the maximum multiplier to 10 using RMClock if you want to test at a lower clock speed. Although whether you test video playback with the clock speed at 2 or 2.5GHz seems largely irrelevant as the CPU load percentage in conjunction with the clock speed should tell you how much processor power is being used.
MikeC wrote:So while we won't be changing our test bed, this little experiment gives us something to keep in mind: AMD is not the undisputed king of CPU power efficiency any longer.
And hasn’t been for almost two and a half years now. :!:

elpibe10
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Post by elpibe10 » Sun Jan 04, 2009 7:47 pm

Hi, I have this mobo and CPU-Z reports the processor (an E7300) at 2.66GHz (& voltage at 1.2xV) all the time even when idling.

On my other Asus mobos (P5Q-EM, P5K-Deluxe, P6T-Deluxe, etc.), the speed of the CPU will decrease to 6X multiplier when system is idling.

So is there anyway I can confirm if this mobo does in fact reduce the speed (& voltage) of the processor when it is idling ?

Thanks in advance.

jessekopelman
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Location: USA

Post by jessekopelman » Mon Jan 05, 2009 3:29 am

elpibe10 wrote:Hi, I have this mobo and CPU-Z reports the processor (an E7300) at 2.66GHz (& voltage at 1.2xV) all the time even when idling.

On my other Asus mobos (P5Q-EM, P5K-Deluxe, P6T-Deluxe, etc.), the speed of the CPU will decrease to 6X multiplier when system is idling.

So is there anyway I can confirm if this mobo does in fact reduce the speed (& voltage) of the processor when it is idling ?

Thanks in advance.
Have you enabled Windows Power Management? Have you enabled EIST support in BIOS? You need both of these to get the idle frequency and voltage reduction.

lutorm
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Post by lutorm » Sun Jan 25, 2009 4:01 pm

I thought this thing about the differing power consumptions of the various 775 CPUs was very interesting. Does anyone know of a survey where the idle and load powers of the different models are measured? Like, for example, if the LGA775 Celerons use less power than that Wolfdale? They have lower TDP, but since the Wolfdale doesn't seem to come near its TDP that's not necessarily an indicator.

MoJo
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Post by MoJo » Mon Jan 26, 2009 12:19 pm

elpibe10 wrote:Hi, I have this mobo and CPU-Z reports the processor (an E7300) at 2.66GHz (& voltage at 1.2xV) all the time even when idling.
In Windows make sure the power management profile is set to "minimal power management". If that does not work, make sure that IEST/SpeedStep is enabled in the BIOS (also check Enhanced C1E).

maf718
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Post by maf718 » Mon Jan 26, 2009 7:15 pm

lutorm wrote:I thought this thing about the differing power consumptions of the various 775 CPUs was very interesting. Does anyone know of a survey where the idle and load powers of the different models are measured? Like, for example, if the LGA775 Celerons use less power than that Wolfdale? They have lower TDP, but since the Wolfdale doesn't seem to come near its TDP that's not necessarily an indicator.
About the best comparisons of this nature I have seen are at x-bit labs:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di ... html#sect0
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di ... html#sect0
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di ... html#sect0

Unfortunately the three tests I linked were all done on different motherboards, so are not directly comparable. However the E8200 was used in all the tests and can be used as a common reference point. The E1200 Celeron uses less power than the E8200 Wolfdale, and it seems about the same as an E7200, and marginally more than an E5200.

(I don't know how the single core Celerons fit into this picture, or even if you were considering them)

swivelguy2
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Post by swivelguy2 » Mon Aug 10, 2009 8:09 am

Because the 24-pin connector is right up against the RAM slots, can anyone verify that a Pico PSU fits with both DIMMs installed? It looks like it might not.

Linnaeus Tripe
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Post by Linnaeus Tripe » Mon Aug 10, 2009 11:15 am

I will confirm that a Pico PSU will fit, but it is tight against the second memory module. It seems to work fine, though.

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