Gigabyte GA-EP43-S3L

Gigabyte motherboards are a regular fixture on the PC Pro A List, and the GA-EP43-S3L shows exactly why. Despite a price that falls toward the low end of this month's group, it's one of the most versatile boards here.

For simplicity, let's start with what this board doesn't do. With only one PCI Express x16 slot, there's no scope for multi-GPU gaming. And there's no onboard GPU, so you'll need to invest in a discrete graphics card if you want to see anything at all.

Storage options are a little restricted too: although you get six SATA channels there's no RAID support, and no eSATA. If you're the sort who likes to get close to the metal, you'll also be disappointed by the absence of handy onboard controls and displays.

But once you get past those few limitations it's good news all the way. The backplate is equipped with a comfortable eight USB ports, with headers to connect a further four. There's room to bring across legacy peripherals from an older system too, with two PS/2 ports plus connectors for parallel and serial devices.

The board's four RAM slots will accept DDR2 DIMMs of up to 4GB each, at speeds from 667MHz right up to an overclocked 1,366MHz modules.

And that isn't the only concession to speed demons: as usual with Gigabyte, you can adjust all the important internal speeds and voltages, either from the integrated BIOS menu or within Windows. If you run into difficulties, the BIOS can always be re-flashed from an onboard backup - the most secure recovery system we've seen.

The need for a graphics card inevitably pushes up the GA-EP43-S3L's power demands, but with a Nvidia GeForce 8500 GT installed our basic system still idled at just 82W. That's about as low as you'll get without integrated graphics.

If the GA-EP43-S3L's slightly sparse storage options are a problem for you, glance over to the Asus P5Q or Gigabyte's own GA-EP45-UD3R - similar boards, but with added RAID and eSATA goodness, not to mention FireWire.

But the GA-EP43-S3L is distinctly cheaper than either of those boards, so unless you need a high-end feature set it's this month's most tempting option.

Author: Darien Graham-Smith