Product Reviews

Intel's new X48 Express chipset is the first we've seen that supports a 1,600MHz FSB speed out of the box. Gigabyte pairs it with an ICH9R Southbridge on its new GA-X48-DS4 motherboard.

The chipset supports up to 8GB of the latest 1,200MHz memory, which is also known as PC2-9600. Sensibly, this is DDR2 memory rather than DDR3, which is expensive and has a negligible performance benefit. With dual 16x PCI-E slots supporting ATI graphics cards in CrossFire mode, this motherboard is clearly aimed at enthusiasts and gamers.

At £137, the GA-X48-DS4 isn't cheap, but you get a lot for your money. For a start, it has dual Gigabit Ethernet interfaces that can combine to act as a single network connection with twice the bandwidth. There are also six SATA/300 ports supporting RAID 0, 1, 5 and 1+0, offering plenty of flexibility for storage. There's only one PATA connector, although it supports up to two devices.

It's reassuring to see a motherboard with dual BIOS chips, which provide protection in case one becomes corrupted or is damaged. There's also a wide range of rear ports, including eight USB2, two FireWire (one six-pin and

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one four-pin), optical and coaxial S/PDIF outputs plus eight-channel audio.

Fan-less copper heatsinks cover the Northbridge and Southbridge, so the GA-X48-DS4 won't contribute to your PC's noise output. Layout is generally good; the two graphics card slots are widely spaced and there are two PCI slots beneath them. Our only gripe is that the top graphics slot is very close to the memory slots, which will probably prevent the use of memory coolers.

However, the GA-X48-DS4 makes up for this by incorporating Gigabyte's new Dynamic Energy Saving (DES) technology, which reduces power consumption. We tested this using our usual Core 2 Duo E6300 and Radeon X1950 Pro graphics card. Without DES, the PC used 102W when idle and 125W when running our benchmarks. With DES, power consumption dropped to 98W and 116W respectively. Overall, you won't notice any difference to your electricity bill, but it's a step in the right direction. You can keep an eye on any savings you make with the bundled Windows utility. Disappointingly, we found that the PC still drew 9W when Windows was shut down, somewhat negating the savings it made when switched on.

Such 'green' features are unlikely to sway gamers who are building a powerful PC, as performance is their top priority. To this end, the GA-X48-DS4's BIOS provides a comprehensive range of overclocking options. You can adjust voltages for all the main components, and there's support for 0.5x multiplier increases, which is handy if you plan to install an Extreme Edition processor with an unlocked multiplier.

The GA-X48-DS4 isn't for those who want a cost-effective Intel motherboard. If you want to build a top-end PC with the latest components, however, it's a great choice.