Features We will now go over a few of the highlights of the GA-EP45T-Extreme that Gigabyte has decided to focus on. Some of the features on this board are more exciting than others but one thing is for certain, Gigabyte has brought their A-game to the table because there is a whole lot that this board is offering, and being the top of the Gigabyte line up at this time...it should. Dual Channel DDR3 1900 (O.C.)
 Gigabyte is obviously confident in the memory overclocking of this motherboard because they have gone as far to say that DDR3-1900 is officially supported by the GA-EP45T-Extreme (for specific qualified modules). The whispers from P45 users so far has been that the P45 chipset is having some serious issues with memory clocking so this type of claim was not expected. It should be interesting when we get to that point in the review to see how well the Gigabyte holds up when pushing memory clocks. | PCI-E 2.0 Graphic Interface
 We touched on the PCI-E 2.0 specifications that the P45 chipset possesses but what does that mean? Well, it means there is a whole lot more traffic lanes available on the PCI-E highway, a full 5Gbit/s, up from 2.5Gbit/s from PCI-E specifications. Again, this is all well and good but the Intel P45 chipset limits the total amount of lanes available so dual 16X PCI-E lanes are not possible. 8X/8X is all that users will be able to run on any P45 based motherboard. With the increase in traffic on those lanes, however, PCI-E 2.0 is a significant upgrade and in theory the equivalent to dual 16X PCI-E lanes. | ATI CrossFireX
 Having dual physical 16X PCI-E 2.0 lanes also means that CrossFireX is a capability and the GA-EP45T-Extreme is 100% ready to handle that task. Despite the lower bandwidth on the two PCI-E 16X slots compared to the X38/X48/(X58) chipsets, CrossFireX will still be able to provide some very impressive performance for multi-GPU setups. | Dolby Home Theater®
 The onboard sound of the GA-EP45T-Extreme is fully Dolby Home Theater licensed and while the onboard sound may not be able to match that of a high-end add in sound card, the GA-EP45T-Extreme will still be able to provide a home theater experience. Right out of the box, the onboard sound is ready and willing to power any 2 to 8 speaker setup for a solid listening experience without further investments required. | Ultra Durable 2
 Gigabyte has dubbed the Ultra Durable 2 components being used on the GA-EP45T-Extreme for their high efficiency and top build quality. The switch to low RDS(on) MOSFETs, ferrite core chokes, and solid capacitors is Gigabytes attempt to not only provide a more efficient power delivery to components; but also better performance and longer life. The components we will see on this board are going to be what will eventually filter down into lower end boards in the future. This is the beauty of looking at high-end motherboards, they are the proving ground for what works, and what doesn't. Much like Formula 1 is to so many automotive manufacturers, a place to showcase the latest and greatest technologies. | 2 Power Phases for Both NB and RAM
 In the high-end enthusiast market we have also seen the advancing of the power delivery design to critical components to accompany the use of higher quality hardware. Gigabyte is not about to fall behind in this area and has upgraded the North Bridge and vDIMM circuits to dual phase power solutions. Having two phases involved in the power delivery will not only help provide a smoother power supply but also increase the efficiency of the power circuits. The idea behind dual phase power supply for the NB and memory is that it will allow a smoother power delivery allowing for higher and more stable overclocks. Gigabyte is definitely committed to the enthusiast/overclocker and this is really starting to show in this GA-EP45T-Extreme with design features like this. | Hybrid-Silent Pipe
 The latest craze with high-end motherboards is to include water blocks built into the heat pipe circus that accompanies so many motherboards these days. Gigabyte is again, not going to be left out from this latest motherboard fad. We have seen a lot of problems with these types of solutions in the past from manufacturers like ASUS and will be taking a close look at what Gigabyte has offered here on the GA-EP45T-Extreme. If it works good, then great, but if it is a poor design prone to issues, then it isn't so much a feature as a drawback. | Hardware Overvoltage Control ICs
 So now that we have the excellent components, stable power delivery, and ample cooling abilities, how do we put all that power to use? Gigabyte has taken the necessary steps to allow that to happen with high-end ICs that will be able to regulate power delivery in smaller increments than ever before. They will also have the ability to provide higher voltages than we would normally find on mid-range motherboards. All of these power delivery features are really shaping this board up to be a great overclocker and we can't wait to get our heads buried in just what this board can do. | EasyTune6
 The last couple features we are looking at are of course related to overclocking. What high-end motherboard doesn't come with a software interface for overclocking and reporting? The only difference between the Gigabyte Easy-Tune 6 software and others is that it actually works well. According to some forum reports we have been reading, the Easy Tune 6 software Gigabyte bundles with the GA-EP45T-Extreme is a very well designed and capable overclocking software. Out interest is certainly peeked with that news and will be investigating these claims further in the software section. | LED Indicators
 Last, and certainly not least, is the inclusion of a few informative LEDs that are sprinkled amongst the other surface mount components on this motherboard. With the GA-EP45T-Extreme, we get onboard POST diagnosis LEDs, over voltage LEDs indicating the voltage level of the CPU/RAM/NB/SB, overclocking LEDs indicating how high our overclock is, and a pair of LEDs to inform us of the CPU and NB temperatures. It is funny, a recently reviewed ASUS board wouldn't even give us software readings of this information and here Gigabyte is putting LED indicators on the board for us. It should be interesting to see how bright we can get this board glowing during the overclocking. |
As we can see, the features that Gigabyte have packed into one ATX sized motherboard are quite impressive on paper, but how these features roll out in reality is a different story entirely. But that is what we are here to do today, test these features and see just how useful they are to us end-users. So now that we know what Gigabyte says this board offers, let’s take a look for ourselves. We start off with a look at the package and accessory bundle Gigabyte includes with the GA-EP45T-Extreme and then onto a fly over of the board itself to see if we can spot some of these impressive features we just discussed.
| 
