Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6 Motherboard Review

Included Software

In this section, we will take a closer look at the two main software utilities that Gigabyte has packaged with the EP45-DQ6, namely EasyTune6 and DES Advanced.

EasyTune6

EasyTune is a system management utility that displays system clock speeds, voltages, temperatures, and fan rotation…but more importantly it allows users to overclock from within Windows. Now anyone familiar with past EasyTune iterations knows that although this utility has always contained a fair bit of functionality, its usability left a little (or a lot!) to be desired. Well thankfully Gigabyte went back to the drawing board, and created a brand new EasyTune version from scratch. The result? A whole lot of Ass-Kickery (that’s good!), and here’s why…


Once you click on Advanced Mode, EasyTune6 reveals its true inner beauty…unprecedented Windows-based overclocking options…and they actually all work! Not only can you adjust the front side bus, the processor multiplier, the memory multiplier, and the PCI-E frequency, but they have actually provided us noble enthusiasts with almost every single voltage option that is found in the BIOS. Hooray!

Now let’s restate something important...all the on-the-fly voltage tweaking options actually work! This is (regrettably) an achievement of epic proportions for a manufacturer-provided piece of software. Aside from when we attempted an impossible clock speed/voltage combination, not once did the software cause a blue screen or system freeze when we intelligently adjusted settings.


The Graphics tab allows you to manipulate your graphics card’s core/memory/shader clock speeds, but we still recommend RivaTuner for VGA tweaking since it is so much more capable.

The Smart tab gives you access to the CPU Intelligent Accelerator (C.I.A) 2 and Smart Fan functions. The CPU Intelligent Accelerator was designed to automatically overclock the CPU according to system load and user-selected level. However, in our experiences, C.I.A.2 proved to be anything but intelligent. The Cruise setting increased the front side bus from 333Mhz to 360Mhz under full load, and the Sports setting upped it even further to 373Mhz. However, all the levels above ‘Sports’ caused instant lock-ups or BSODs. From what we noticed in the Tuner tab, voltages were not being increased along with the FSB, so that would definitely explain why the system would fail past a certain FSB threshold. This might be an inconvenience for novice users, but seasoned overclockers will never use this function anyways,

Lastly, we have HW Monitor which is easily the saddest tab of the whole bunch. Why provide us with a plethora of voltage tweaking options and then give us a pathetic three voltage readings?! I sincerely do not understand the (undoubtedly long) thought process that went into selecting those three voltage readings, while excluding vNB, vTT or PLL. Also, since the +5V rail is there how infinitesimally difficult would it have been to include Mr.+5V’s two little friends +3.3V and +12V? Having said that, this issue is hardware-related (lack of on-board sensors), so we can’t really fault the software itself.

Despite finishing on a few sour notes, we do sincerely like EasyTune6. It was consistently one of the first pieces of software we installed after a fresh Windows installation. If EasyTune keeps improving it will definitely become another worthwhile reason to buy a Gigabyte motherboard.

DES Advanced

Now let's have a look at the DES Advanced energy saving solution, which is arguably Gigabyte’s most highly-touted feature.


After first installing the Dynamic Energy Saver (DES) software, we are greeted with a powered down control panel. This means all DES functions are turned off and disabled. Only when we click on the large DES logo to the right does the panel come to life and power saving begin.


The software is pretty straight forward; we have our power savings meter in the top portion providing us with information about how much power we have saved. We can see the meter total that we can easily reset and the total amount based on the first installation of DES. Just below is the graphic that tells us how many phases of the PWM are actually running. In the image above, all 12 phases are running strong.

Below that are the Dynamic Voltage and Dynamic Frequency gauges. With CE1 and the other power saving features of today’s Intel processors, these features aren't really needed as the board already drops CPU frequency and vCORE at idle states.


In this last photo, we can see the CPU throttling and the power phases drop down to only 4 in use. We also have the on-board LEDs show us how many phases are in use. These LEDs can be turned on and off through the control panel with the little green light to the right under the main DES on/off switch.


Now that we have gone through all the trouble of explaining how it works, the big question is does it work? In order to test this out we enabled all the Intel energy saving features in the BIOS, then let the system idle for 1 hour and measured the KW/h of energy used through our UPM EM100 power meter. We repeated the same procedure for 1 hour of Prime 95 Blend load. We then installed the DES software, set it to maximum energy saving, turned the Dynamic Frequency on, and repeated the tests. Here are the results:


These results prove that DES definitely does work, and in fact works quite well. While the power savings at idle were minimal, under full load the power consumption of the DES-enabled system reached a maximum of 148W, whereas the default system peaked at 153W. This might seem like an insignificant decrease, but remember that our test only lasted one hour. Over several weeks and months the energy and monetary savings would definitely start to add up, especially for those who run intensive programs like Folding @ Home 24/7.

Last, but of particular importance to the enthusiast crowd, is the fact that DES can be used with an overclocked system, which is something that competing energy saving technologies do not support. Two thumbs up for Gigabyte!