Intel’s G45 Holds Lots of Promise

Intel had a big press conference yesterday to help launch their 4-series chipsets, all of which Rory talked about the other day. Nothing too exciting occurred here, mainly because we’ve already been well-informed on P45, as evidenced by the fact that we’ve already posted a review of an ASUS motherboard.

The truth is, P45 isn’t really that exciting. It’s based on a smaller process and uses less power, but that’s about it. G45 on the other hand is a far different story. It’s somewhat rare that I become interested in an mATX/SFF-bound chipset, but this one seems to have the right stuff.

The fact G45 does 1080p on the integrated hardware is nice, although that in itself is to be expected nowadays. Like P45, though, it also uses far less power. On stage they were playing a Blu-ray AVC movie (avg 30Mbps) on a mini-ITX board with G45, using an E7200, and the entire system was using only 53W.

AMD has done well with their 780G, but the power consumption is a lot higher there than on an Intel platform. Couple an efficient CPU, chipset and graphics together, and you have one fantastic multi-media machine that happens to be extremely quiet.

We’ll be taking a look at G45 in the very near future, but for now, feel free to check out our look at the latest chipsets so you can see all that’s new.

Intel’s Eric Mentzer holding G45 & MCH10

Intel’s next-generation chipset offerings in the mid-range and enterprise-level markets have arrived in the form of three mid-range offerings in Intel’s 4-Series of chipsets, including two with integrated graphics. In this article, we’ll lay out the differences, and help you understand your new options.

Source: Intel 4-Series Chipsets: G43, G45, P45