From now on, amazing performance becomes available on affordable motherboards. In addition to the development of high-end overclocking motherboards that set world record in performance, the LANParty team has recently committed to a research program called "top performance at affordable prices", allowing more consumers to enjoy low-price yet high-performance motherboards.

The BI P45-T2(R)S Elite family is the first wave of the "top performance at affordable prices" series. High-end hardware layouts, excellent BIOS design, and ex-factory overclocking stress test are totally migrated to the product. With the price under USD $110, it can surprisingly challenge $150-level products in terms of performance.

Shuttle Inc., the market leader in the mini-PC segment and the manufacturer of Multi-Form-Factor solutions, today announced the availability of a new, extra powerful Mini-PC barebone with the Intel P45 Express chipset. The model opens up new vistas for highly demanding users looking for compact PC systems with impressive performance stats. The XPC Barebone SP45H7 takes full advantage of the Intel P45 Express chipset at the core of its compact aluminium chassis (32.5 x 20.8 x 18.9 cm). It can handle quad-core Intel Core 2 processors with 1600 MHz FSB as well as 16 GB of DDR2 RAM. The PCI Express 2.0 slot accepts current dual slot graphics cards, making top 3D performance a reality.

The launch of Core i7 processors may have kicked off in great fanfare, given that the industry has been preparing rigorously for its launch since the turn of Q2 2008, but sources at motherboard vendors tell DigiTimes that it might be as long as Q3 2009, by the time sales and shipments really pickup. Intel on its part, has already claimed to have shipped over 100,000 Core i7 units. The odd thing about Core i7's launch is its timing. It comes at a time when Intel's desktop processors are successful in the market, and that Intel didn't stall its related technology development to pave the way for it.

Foxconn marks its enthusiast and gamer grade motherboards under the Quantum-Force banner. These motherboards are targeted towards overclockers and gamers. Having made a motherboard based on the Nehalem-supportive Blood Rage, the company hasn't made a stop. They've come up with a new motherboard based on the Intel P45 chipset, known as 'Avenger'.

Foxconn claims to have made several changes to the basic design of a motherboard, by pushing the northbridge closer to the DDR2 memory slots (reportedly to cut latencies), and the inclusion of a supplementary PCI-Express switch, to provide dual PCI-Express x16 connections for ATI Crossfire: something not possible with P45 motherboards. The switch chip is made by PLX, and is similar to the one used by AMD on its flagship Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphics card.

DFI motherboard has been served as the pronoun for highest efficiency with its top efficiency and efficiency contributing to the first choice for super frequency manufacturers. Besides the excellent performance, DFI main board boasts of the other two main properties including product stability and long lifespan.

Many players pay more attention to the stability than super frequency performance. In order to satisfy the demand of "stability" from the customers, DFI specially puts Blood Iron series meaning strong as iron into market for providing more options to consumers besides super frequency.

The Intel P45 chipset has had a fair bit of success in the markets these days. ASUS has a whole range of motherboards based on the P43 and P45 chipsets to cater to all price-bands ranging from US $100 to $250. P45 itself however, comes at a time when a section of the industry is gearing up for the upcoming range of processors from Intel, based on the newer LGA-1366 socket, which would be followed later by the LGA-1160 socket. ASUS plans to give its range of P45 chipset based motherboard some model-specific price cuts that channel vendors determine. ASUS commented that it decided to reduce prices in order to meet demand for P45-based motherboard among students.

It is also noted that other first-tier motherboard vendors wouldn't be able to follow suit with price-cuts due to the impact it could have on their revenues. So a price-cut from ASUS alone could put ASUS in a comfortable position since they could be the only ones selling their products at attractive prices, and so, make up for the revenue lost on the price-cuts while preparing its market for the next line of products in the months to come.

Gigabyte has given all its DDR2-supportive motherboards based on the Intel P45 and P43 chipsets a BIOS upgrade with which they now support assured overlocking headroom till DDR2 1333+ for the P45 series and DDR2 1200+ for the P43 series, with the "+" denoting it could go higher. DDR2 1333 and DDR2 1200 memory would be natively supported by the motherboards. The following motherboards benefit from the BIOS update.

Gigabyte Intel P45 Motherboards:
GA-EP45-DQ6
GA-EP45-DS5
GA-EP45-DS4P
GA-EP45-DS4
GA-EP45-DS3P
GA-EP45-DS3L

MSI, a leading manufacturer of motherboard products, unveils its latest "P45-D8 Memory Lover" motherboard which is equipped with eight memory slots. When users want to upgrade the motherboard, they can use the current DDR2 memory to save money as well, also retain the future escalation of the DDR3 memory flexibility. When the price of DDR3 memory declines, users can utilize this to increase the performance.

The new MSI P45-8D Memory Lover motherboard is powered by the latest Intel P45 Express chipset. It supports the Intel Core 2 Extreme / Quad and other multi-core processors with an FSB up to 1600MHz. The main feature of P45-8D Memory Lover is the superb memory expansion flexibility. It has a total of eight memory slots which users can expand to 16GB by using four DDR2 memory or 8GB by using four DDR3 memory.

Catering to gamers who want to enjoy the ultimate in gaming experiences, ASUS, world leader in motherboard production, has released the new ASUS ROG Maximus II Formula series motherboard. Equipped with an Intel P45 chipset and supporting DDRII memory, this cutting-edge piece of hardware provides exceptional gaming performances to suit gamers of today.

As the name suggests, the GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DQ6 is based on Intel's new P45 chipset. What makes this board special is that it supports four Gigabit Ethernet ports, with an optional teaming feature. While this feature is only of limited use for desktop users, it becomes interesting when building a powerful office or LAN party server. Also included is a TPM chip which is becoming more and more useful in the business world, and might even make it onto gaming PCs for the use of game copy protection.

I'll be very brief on this one. If you're wondering if DFI is going to announce an Intel P45 powered board, than the answer is yes. Below, there is the first picture of the DFI LP DK P45-T2RS motherboard, and a chart where you can find all the information you need to know and even more.

From all the motherboard manufacturers who'll introduce Intel P45 based motherboards this year, MSI is without a doubt the one that will give whatever it takes to impress us the most. Today the company unveiled some new features that will be found on their forthcoming Platinum P45 motherboards: "Besides following just the Intel specs MSI has implemented MSI DrMOS on its P45 mainboards: a bundle of smart hardware and software features. Amongst others, MSI DrMOS' RapidBoost delivers you extra tools in the BIOS to enhance the overclocking possibilities of MSI P45 mainboards such as: Memory-Z, Multi-step OC Booster, Extreme voltages, extended HELP function ClockGen Tuner and Advanced Memory timings." Working sample of the P45 Platinum motherboard is expected at this year's Computex show.

Some of you waiting for Intel P45 might consider this article rather interesting. After spending some time talking in depth to a couple of MSI's P45 engineers and Tony Leach from OCZ Technology, the guys over at bit-tech.net reported that Intel P45 motherboards will be more complex for overclocking than current mainstream motherboards. With Intel P45 you'll need to spend extra time learning how to fine tweak settings like GTL Reference Voltages, CPU VTT and its relation to GTLs, Clock Skews, CPU PLL Voltages typically available only in current high-end X48 chipsets.

Overclocking Intel's P45 is said to be more complex than it has been on previous boards - you're going to need to do a lot of specialist fine tuning. After spending time today talking in depth to a couple of MSI's P45 engineers and considerably more to Tony Leach from OCZ Technology, who spends a lot of time QAing BIOSes for companies like Asus, DFI and MSI, it looks like overclocking is going to become an increasingly more complicated art with the release of Intel's P45 chipset, as it mirrors many of the tweaks the current high-end X48 chipset offers.

Continue reading the full story here and let us know what you think.

Although Intel's P45 chipset is set to be here in almost a month, there's plenty to see already. ECS also confirmed two new motherboards are on their way to show skills with other Intel X48 and P45 products. First mainboard has model name X48T-A and uses X48+ICH9R chipset configuration, while the second model is dubbed P45T-A and will work iwth the latest ICH10R southbridge. The implementation of heat-pipe cooling here is called QooTechII and solid capacitors are also a must have for high end products where ECS does not shine so much. Maybe this will change soon? Overall these two fellows are promising to become a good choice for people without deep pockets.

Intel P45 motherboard from GIGABYTE is also joining on our front page today with the EP45 Extreme model. The board comes with some new cooling that GIGABYTE calls Hybrid Silent Pipe. It expeditiously removes the heat from the PWM, northbridge and southbridge area and also allows for optional watercooling to be installed. The rest of the fancy stuff involve Dynamic Power LED indicator with dynamic 6-Gear switching, diagnostic DEBUG LEDs, on-board power,reset,clear CMOS buttons, and something new called ACPI LED. It helps monitor the different system states S0, S1, S3, S4/S5 with leds on board. I almost forget to notice that this is a DDR2 motherboard.

The guys over at HKEPC managed to get hold of an engineering sample MSI P45 Diamond motherboard (Intel P45) that looks in no way inferior to current ASUS R.O.G. and Foxconn MARS products. The Micro Star P45 DIAMOND (MS-7516) has all the features needed to be named high-end motherboard. This early ES sample features large heatpipe chipset cooling that can be transformed into water block if needed. On-board power, reset and clear CMOS buttons are also included. A clear CMOS button is also presented on the back of the motherboard. Check out the rest of the pictures over at HKEPC.

The guys over at NordicHardware have posted a quick review of the ASUS P5Q3 Deluxe motherboard which you might consider interesting. Based on the still unreleased Intel P45 chipset, ASUS P5Q3 Deluxe is the top version of ASUS' future line-up that will include motherboards like P5Q-E, P5QC, P5Q PRO and P5Q. Start reading the full review here.

Today we have one of the first functional P45 motherboards in the world. We took it into the lab and ran some tests to see how it stands up to the predecessors, and what makes it worthy of the Deluxe suffix. Beside the raw benchmarks, we've also done some quick overclocking tests and take a peek at ASUS' new Memory OC Charge technology.

Almost a month ahead of the Intel P45 release, Foxconn has showed the Quantum Force "Avenger" motherboard based on the Intel P45 chipset that is complete and ready to please many overclockers. The overall looks of the board is not quite what you've expected it to look like. The P45 northbridge is now between the CPU and memory area, and there're plenty of red DIP switches, dual BIOS chips, 8-Phase Digital PWM and 2-Phase PWM for memory power regulation and Dual PCI-E x16 Gen. 2.0 slots that make this motherboard one of a kind. There're even measurement points above the memory slots for convenient and accurate voltage reading in case you're using multimeter. The northbridge heatpipe cooling can also be used for mounting a fan that will cool both the chipset and the memory slots. Be sure to check up on this link here for more information and pictures.

The title says it all, what's included in this post are pictures of the first Intel P45 powered GIGABYTE motherboards, the GA-P45-DS5 and GA-EP45-DS3P. Intel P45 promises better support for quad-core and 45nm processors and is also built on a 65nm process instead of the 90nm used in previous Intel chipsets. Although these motherboards look identical to their Intel P35/X38 predecessors and does not boast any radical changes in the PCB design and heat-pipe cooling, there're several new features that need to be mentioned. Both motherboards now support on-board power, reset and clear CMOS buttons that are almost identical to those used on the ASUS R.O.G. series motherboards. The GA-P45-DS5 also features ten SATA ports - four of which are from a Silicon Image chip.bit-tech.net, XFastest Forum

Intel is delaying the launch schedule of its P45 chipset from originally in May to mid-June, DigiTimes is reporting. The delay of the chipset is due to problems over compatibility between the chipset's PCI Express x16 port and graphics cards. Intel has notified its board partners that the problem should be solved two to four weeks behind the original launch schedule, with mass availability expected soon after that. Intel will now announce the P45 chipset during Computex 2008, however, actual motherboard shipments will not begin until mid-June.

MSI's cooling solution for its upcoming Intel P45-powered motherboard, the P45D3 Platinum, is now out in the open. Set to cool the new mainstream LGA775 chipset the Cinco Pipe is Circu Pipe's successor. The whole cooling system is made out of copper, and features five heatpipes all along the CPU area, northbridge and southbridge. Aside from the chipset cooling, the P45D3 Platinum has four DDR3 slots, two PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots with support for CrossFire, six SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, integrated HD audio and just about everything you can dream of. The P45D3 Platinum will be released in Q2.

Intel plans to release own-brand P45 and G45 motherboards in the second quarter of 2008 with Foxconn to be the OEM partner. Although shipments of Intel's motherboards are still far behind first-tier brands, the company is not giving up pushing its own-brand business to maintain leadership in design, development and marketing. The codename of Intel's P45 motherboard is Skyberg (DP45SG). The product will support 45nm-based 1333MHz FSB Core 2 Extreme, quad-core and dual-core CPUs. The G45 motherboards, codenamed Icedale (DG45ID) and Fly Creek (DG45FC), will feature support for HDMI, DisplayPort and DVI. Both will support 1333MHz FSB quad-core and dual-core processors. The major difference between Icedale and Fly Creek is that the former will support up to four DIMMs per memory channel while the latter only two.