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This is probably one of the last socket 775 boards with Intel G41 chipset before a new generation motherboards with the H55 chipset combined with Core i3 or Intel Pentium Gxxxx series will take over.
Since socket 775 processors will reach their End Of Life, the decision to buy this board will depend on your budget and your plans to upgrade your sytem in future.
There's no doubt that this is a real budget board and combined with an Intel E5300 it will be about the same price as a H55 motherboard WITHOUT processor.
When you plan to upgrade your system in future with a faster CPU and perhaps a PCI express graphics card that is fast enough to be in need of PCI-Express 2.0 graphics we would certainly not recommend this board.
Overclocking was mediocre, this board hardly has any overclock settings, for example the vCore voltage can't be altered and the memory speed only has three options linked with the base clock.
We couldn't even reach the highest value(20%) with the overclock profile in the BIOS and had be content with 18.5%.
We like the color scheme and lay-out, the uATX Form Factor 9.6 inch x 7.8 inch ( 24.4 cm x 19.8 cm ) makes it a perfect board for a (small) HTPC case.
Our last remark concerns the memory, if you have to buy new DDR2 memory it's perhaps better to buy DDR3 memory wich is about the same price as DDR2 memory. Alltough the DDR3 board is perhaps $30/40.-
more expenxsive, the extras you'll get in overall performance are certainly worth it.
Pros:
- Low Price.
- HDMI.
- Optical Audio Out.
Cons:
- Mediocre overclocker.
- No DVI.
- No PCI express 2.0.
- HDMI interface will be 'turned off' after placing a Video Card in the PCI-Express X16 slot.
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