Intel DG45ID MotherBoard

Intel broke new ground when it launched the GMA X3000 graphics core in the G965 chipset as it was the first Intel graphics core to use Unified Shaders. The next big step was the GMA X3500 core in the G35 chipset which supports Shader Model 4.0 and DirectX 10.0 however you couldn’t really claim that the graphics were up to the job of playing games. Today we’re looking at a pre-release sample of the Intel DG45ID with G45 chipset that uses the GMA X4500HD graphics core and once again Intel has come up with something new.


G45 has had the same 65nm die shrink as the mainstream P45 chipset and Intel has used the space that has been freed up to increase the Unified Shader count from eight to ten. The clock speed of the core has been reduced from 667MHz in the G35 to 533MHz so the amount of graphics power has remained constant (10x533=8x667) but we would expect that the power consumption has been reduced.


You’ll have noticed the HD suffix that Intel has added to the GMA X4500 model code as Intel has worked on the High Definition support in this chipset. Intel has supported hardware decoding of H.264, VC1 and MPEG2 since the introduction of the GMA X3000 core and it maintained the list of features in GMA X3500. With GMA X4500HD it has enhanced support for H.264 HW by adding Motion Compensation and Inverse Transform which were already present and correct for VC1 and MPEG2. The new core also gains Variable Length Decode support for all three codecs and some post processing features such as Non-Linear Anamorphic Scaling that are, frankly, incomprehensible to your reviewer.


We get things back on track as we scroll down the list of features when we reach the ports and connectors. Until G45 came along Intel supported HDMI with SDVO or Serial Digital Out connection which is a revision of PCI Express. With the latest graphics core HDMI support is integrated and DisplayPort is added but the really interesting thing is that the DG45ID motherboard has dual digital outputs in the shape of an HDMI port and a DVI-I connector.


As far as we can see there is no change in monitor support from G35 to G45 as they both support dual independent displays with resolutions up to 2,048 x 1,536 so both GPUs can handle 1,920 x 1,080 HD. In the past we’ve only ever seen one digital port and one analogue connection on an Intel motherboard.

If you plug in a PCIe graphics card the DVI-I port is disabled so you shouldn’t get carried away with the idea of running four displays on one PC.


This is a thoroughly modern motherboard that doesn’t have any legacy support whatsoever. The graphics outputs are digital, there are no PS/2 ports for mouse or keyboard, the only storage connectors are SATA and eSATA so it’s finally time to ditch your IDE DVD writer with the horrid ribbon cable. The only problem we have with the layout is that Intel has used open chokes around the CPU socket and the capacitors appear to be the old style paper-and-electrolyte design. This suggests that the DG45ID might not have the same long life that you would expect from a recent model from the likes of Asus, Gigabyte or MSI.


Intel has managed to comfortably fit all of the features onto the motherboard despite the fact it is MicroATX. You’d only want the extra room that is provided by the ATX form factor if you intended to install a host of expansion cards and frankly we’re struggling to see how you’d even use the slots that Intel has provided.