Intel’s D845GBV motherboard

The Intel D845GBV is an ATX motherboard for running the latest P4 and Celeron processors, which use a 400 MHz or 533 MHz FSB and use µPGA478 socket. It also has on-board audio (AC97) and video capabilities (Intel Extreme Graphics Controller). In fact, it is the first P4 board with integrated graphics. It also has an AGP connector that supports up to 4X AGP external graphics cards.

The motherboard, which uses the 845G chipset, supports DDR-RAM (unlike most other P4 boards that use RDRAM). DDR

is usually a cheaper option compared to RDRAM, and offers similar performance. Coming to the features of this motherboard, it has one serial and one parallel port. It supports six USB ports, out of which four are on the board itself. The other two can be accommodated using a USB adapter. There are six PCI slots, which give ample room for future expansion and 4x AGP slot. There are two IDE interfaces, with the capability to run at ATA-100. Up to 2 GB of memory can be installed in its two memory slots. 

We tested the motherboard using a 2.53 GHz P4 processor and the same configuration used in its review. We had no complaints with the motherboard except for one little quirk–the first memory slot is located very close to the AGP port and you have to remove the display card before installing/removing memory. All motherboards based on similar chipsets offer very similar performance as well and this motherboard didn’t offer anything exceptional either.

The Bottom Line: This motherboard makes a good deal for people going in for a P4/Celeron system. With its 533 MHz FSB support, it will be able to accommodate upcoming processors for some time. And its on-board video can also help in reducing the overall cost of the computer.

Anuj Jain at PCQ Labs