Pros: Very affordable, very good performer. Able to overclock the processor from 2.5 GHz to 3.6GHz, but stable at 3.4 GHz wtih 1.28vcore @ 54C max when loaded with good aftermarket cooling. Bus speed sits at 454 MHz and when loaded and x7.5 multiplier to hit 3.4 GHz stable with OCCT and video encoding.

Cons: The 4 MB L2 cache. The cache is very low even when compared to the Q9X00 and Q9X50 series with 6 and 12 MB respectively. The overclock helps offset the L2 deficit so that con can be forgiven. It still relies on the older FSB tech so it gets out paced very easily in applications that benefit from high memory bandwith especially when compared processors using a HT or QPI bus. To overcome these cons the processor must be overclocked to relatively high speeds which require more voltage, better cooling, higher quality RAM and motherboards.

Overall Review: System setup: Q8300 @ 3.4 GHz Scythe Mugen w/120mm Yate Loon + AS 5 thermal paste Gigabyte EP45-UD3 4 GB (2x2GB) Patriot EPP RAM @ 800 MHz XFX HD 5850 150GB WD RaptorX Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit All wrapped up in a nice quiet Antec P180B

Pros: Solid and stable board. Everything worked on it out of the box. Perfect for an HTPC. It's paired with a 9350e and doesn't slow down with any HD playback whether it's from the BD drive or h264 files. Utilization never reaches above 75% across all cores and when decoding is offloaded to GPU when using with Mplayer or any playback software that supports GPU acceleration, 1080p playback never reaches above 15%.

Cons: None really, this is my second Gigabyte board and haven't had any problems with either of them. I'd say their website is slow and more difficult to navigate then it should be when trying to get up to date drivers, but that's not really a con of the board itself.

Overall Review: The chipset doesn't support 7.1 LCPM sound, but it's not a big deal for me as I haven't got the audio hardware for that.