With the Elitegroup, they are as much the same as every company that specializes on proving users like us better bang for buck on newly released prodcuts, take the P45 chipset for example. a newer mainstream chipset for the LGA 775 socket platform and last remaing platform for the old Intel Core. yet it still able to go the miles when the upcoming Nelahem chipsets come into play.
The “form factor”
The P45 is a new story for the Intel giant, having the chips code name EagleLake, giving the name of the board; it will take the spot light of the P35 and make the new P45 as its rightful place. Yes the ting is expensive with the other major manufacturers like the ASUS P5Q3 deluxe with WIFI will cost you about $450 (It is in the August issue). And it will not when it comes in the market, at the same price as an ordinary P35, while their difference is in the Crossfire enable with the P45, and some boards supporting the new DDR3 memory, when you benchmark with the older P35, there about fractional difference between them. But the P45 star contrast with the P35 is its Full support on the new Yolkfield CPUs that support 1600MHz and 1005 support on the latest CPU’s.
Elitegroup in the other hand left the high market of ASUS and Gigabyte, and sell the P45 into the lower market for budget idiots like me. With the P45T-A it is a mix of ATX form factor, with the usual Quad phase PWM, but the older electrolytic capacitors, explains the price. They try to cut back on the really useful stuff like the full solid capacitors for stability and a longer lifespan. Other than that they have 6 SATA ports in the bottom great if its 90degrees to the side for the long graphics cards, with the 24pin power connectors and the unusual 4 pin connector in the unreachable place in the board, two PCI express X16 for the support for crossfire and two PCI express 1x. And on the back are the six USB ports and the four are so close together that is impossible for the bulky USB device.
While the thing flies slower than most P45 boards, this thing with the E8400 and ATI radeon 4850, corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 can keep up with the prime tests and the Sisoftware by putting the benchmark lower than its OEM counterpart, which is disappointing for the P45 family. And cannot finish one of my stress test with an over clocked E8400, the only thing I have is a good blue screen effect.
It is a great board in the lowest price that I can think of a board, $150, maybe a $100, but never over the $180 mark, with a poor choice only for the short term.