Layout and Design
The layout of the GIGABYTE EP45-DS5 mobo is actually fairly typical, and doesn’t divert from what we’ve seen on countless ATX motherboards before hand. The CPU socket and memory slots, are in a normal configuration. The major difference is that, like many enthusiast boards, this GIGABYTE model crams a lot of hardware into that standard ATX configuration.
The area around the CPU is one such area that has a fair degree of hardware surrounding it. There’s a decently sized set of heatsinks used to cool the VRM and Northbridge chip, and they’re tied together using a contiguous heatpipe. The 8-pin power connecter is nestled in just above the “GIGABYTE” logoed heatsink, which makes it a little difficult to reach when installed in a case. While on the topic of difficult to reach ports and connectors, I need to draw your attention to the top-most x1 PCI Express slot in the lower left of the picture. What you’re seeing is true; the Northbridge heatsink does indeed block the port, rendering you unable to use any x1 PCIe card that has some length to it.
Even with losing that top x1 PCIe slot, you still have quite a few options for expansion. The Gigabyte EP45-DS5 mobo features two more x1 PCIe slots for a total of three, as well as two x16 PCIe slots (which drop to x8 when used in Crossfire), and two standard PCI slots. Below the PCI slots there lies some standard ports, as well as some nice additions. There is of course the standard USB and FireWire headers, and there’s also a COM port should you need such a thing.
In-between all that is a rather nice addition by GIGABYTE; a set of switches soldered to the motherboard to turn on your system, reset, and clear the CMOS with one press of a button. This is excellent for enthusiasts, because if you royally screw up your system settings you can quite easily reset them. The switches even light up blue, allowing them to be easily found. Unfortunately there still is one gripe with the layout of the ports, and it’s associated with the SATA connectors.
The GIGABYTE EP45-DS5 mobo has a total of ten internal SATA connectors. The first six are coloured orange and supported by the ICH10R controller that is built into the Intel Southbridge. They support the SATA 3.0Gb/s and 1.5Gb/s standard, and can run in RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10. There are four more purple coloured SATA connectors the run on a separate Sil5723 controller. This is where you would plug in the included eSATA bracket, or just plug in more devices should you need to. This controller only supports RAID 0 and 1.
So where’s the problem you may ask? Well it’s with where and how the connectors are laid out. The six ports that are pointing straight up, if something is plugged into them, have a potential to block large video cards like the GeForce GTX 260, as well as smaller cards like the Radeon HD 4850. The connectors on the cable will stick up too high to clear the card. You’d think one could just use the right angle plug on the SATA cables, but Gigabyte recommends against it, and the way they have oriented the ports would prevent you from doing so anyhow.
All is not doom and gloom in the RAID department though. These ports are backed by a hardware RAID controller that auto configures itself without user intervention. Since this is a hardware solution, the RAID is transparent to the OS so drivers are not needed. This means that all you need is a minimum of two drives and you’ve got RAID. GIGABYTE has also implemented a feature in hardware that allows you to configure automatic backing up of your array so you don’t loose data in a hard drive failure. Currently these features are only found on some of the DQ6 series boards found on this side of the Pacific. They aren’t even present in the EXTREME series of boards. The downer with this is that the DQ6 series has an insane amount of ports on it that may contribute to higher pricing and scare some people off. The DS5 is a much more manageable package, while still sporting these premiere features. It makes me wish a little bit more that the EP45-DS5 was available in North America.