February 9th, 2010
Gigabyte G41M-ES2H Intel LGA775 MAX-8GB DDR2 mATX PCIE16 3PCI
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Product Description
GIGABYTE GA-G41M-ES2H (rev. 1.0) Core 2 Quad/ Intel G41/ DVI/ A&V&GbE/ MATX Motherboard… More >>
Gigabyte G41M-ES2H Intel LGA775 MAX-8GB DDR2 mATX PCIE16 3PCI
February 9th, 2010 4:05 PM
I love this little motherboard. It is cheap, supports modern LGA775 CPUs and has all the essential peripherals for building a budget PC or home theater PC. It is rock solid stable with just enough overclocking and underclocking features. Most importantly, it has DVI and HDMI ports. This is VERY rare in this class of motherboard. I cannot understand why motherboard manufacturers skip these ports and put VGA connectors only. In most motherboards, you have to put in an external card to get a digital monitor signal which defeats the purpose of the on-board integrated G41 graphics.
While on the G41 subject, this chipset is great for DVD decoding, but forget Blu-ray. While it does MPEG2 and VC1, it does not do AVC/H.264 decoding which is a very common codec for Blu-rays. If you play Blu-rays, your CPU pegs at 100% and the video stutters. I suppose you could put in a quad-core, but again that defeats the purpose of a low-power (quiet) HTPC.
Another “feature” of the G41 chipset is that it uses the older ICH7 southbridge. What that means is that this uses the last Intel chipset to natively support IDE ports, floppy, etc. While you may not care about PATA (IDE), the only motherboards I’ve found with rock-solid emulation/mapping of SATA to PATA are ICH7 motherboards. This is important because a lot of system utilities, flash BIOS, imaging, recovery, utilities, etc., boot from CD-ROMs and need the old legacy port mapping. This motherboard flawlessly runs every OS and utility (from like the past 10 years) that I have thrown at it.
Finally, I had no problems with audio over HDMI to my Denon receiver as long as you don’t plan on running more than 5.1. None of the Intel chipsets will do this (and I don’t think even ATI or nVidia will either) except for just a handful of the very latest cards or the just-released i3, i5 CPUs with integrated GPU.
In short, this is a great little motherboard for any low-mid usage.
Rating: 5 / 5
February 9th, 2010 5:03 PM
This was bought along with 2GB (1GBx2) PC2-6400 PNY RAM, Intel E5300 2.6/2MB/800mhz, and a DVD drive for $200 to upgrade an old system that already had a SATA HD, power supply, case, and wireless keyboard/mouse already. Sticking w/ good ol’ Windows XP pro. Main purpose was to create a HTPC. Setup computer using HDMI only to a 42″ Olevia LCD TV. Everything booted on 1st try. Install DVD installed all drivers at once or you can select which software (including 90day norton internet security). The two included SATA cables are good quality w/ secure latching connectors.
Eventually I found the text looked jagged when using the HDMI interface on the Olevia TV which had an optimal WXGA resolution of 1366×768. I couldn’t adjust it that much on the TV. Also audio on movies sounded weird. Special effects sounded really good but dialog was extremely soft. Regular music and videos were very soft. I didn’t see any way to adjust audio on the HDMI port. When I used the analog (blue) 15pin VGA connector and RCA audio it displayed sharp text and audio was great. Played Hulu videos, HD youtube videos, and HD videos fine with lots of CPU to spare. Everything on the system is real quiet except the hard-drive during heavy use.
I also played Battlefield Heroes (free online cartoonish first person shooter that isn’t very graphic intensive) at 1366×768 at low and medium resolutions using the integrated video. Gameplay was okay. For better gaming I’d think about adding the nVidia GT220 which can be found for $80. I don’t know about getting a HDTV tuner yet.
I think this board is a good value for the money, especially if you are upgrading and old system. I’m giving it 4 stars because of soft audio and video “jaggies” using HDMI but I can suffice with the VGA input. Other’s might be sticklers on using just HDMI. Caveat Emptor…
Rating: 4 / 5