Gigabyte EP45-UD3P

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by Rob Williams on October 30, 2008 in Motherboards

Looking to build a new machine on a budget? Then look no further than choosing Gigabyte’s EP45-UD3P as your choice for motherboard. It may not offer a lot in the area of bling, but it includes a solid design, lots of connectivity (including 8 USB and S-ATA), fantastic overclocking potential and best of all, it comes in at an average price of $115.

Page 2 – Checking Out the BIOS

Due to the stark similarities of the EP45-UD3P’s BIOS to the EP45-EXTREME, which we reviewed last week, this page is a direct copy/paste. Three options in total are different, but none would be touched by most people and none are overclocking-related.

I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest fan of the BIOS’ used on Gigabyte’s boards, but this one wasn’t too bad to work with. I do feel it was a little bit clunkier than it needed to be – something I really don’t think about when using a BIOS from ASUS. I’d love to see Gigabyte further improve their BIOS’ in the future, both for ease-of-use and slow page refreshing.

That complaint aside, the board offers a slew of tweaking options that will make the enthusiast happier than a peach… if a peach could somehow be happy. The simplest options to stick to include the clock ratio, host frequency, memory multiplier and then select voltages. These options are scattered all over, so you’ll have to scroll up and down constantly.

The voltage selection here is top-notch… better than any other motherboard I’ve ever seen. In some ways it’s a little overkill, but if you have the skills needed to properly handle all these, then you’ll feel right at home. I personally stuck with the CPU, MCH and DRAM primary voltages, which served me well in our overclocking tests, as we’ll tackle later.

I’ll let the rest of the images speak for themselves, since there’s nothing truly new here.

As I hoped, the EP45-UD3P’s BIOS certainly delivered. Though it’s a little clunky, it offers an intense amount of tweaking-ability, and that’s sure to be appreciated by any overclocker.

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Rob Williams

Rob founded Techgage in 2005 to be an 'Advocate of the consumer', focusing on fair reviews and keeping people apprised of news in the tech world. Catering to both enthusiasts and businesses alike; from desktop gaming to professional workstations, and all the supporting software.

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