ECS 945GCD-M(1.0) Intel Atom 330 Intel 945GC Micro ATX Motherboard / CPU Combo

Pros: *PCIe x16 *Gigabit LAN *Supports Overclocking

Cons: *32-bit memory controller (does not fully support 4GB of RAM even with 64-bit OS)...we're going to need a different chipset! *With a PCIe X16 graphics card installed, the PCIe x1 slot is pretty unusable.

Overall Review: This is the 3rd Atom 330 board I've owned, and it is my favorite. It's the same size as the JetWay JATOM-GM1-330-LF. I've put an EVGA Geforce GT 220 into this board and am running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. I also have 4GB Kingston 667 RAM and a 120GB 2.5" Western Digital Scorpio drive. I'm hoping to build a compact HTPC with this motherboard. I've overclocked the CPU in the BIOS to 1.92Ghz without a problem (haven't tried higher yet). My windows experience index is 3.2 with the processor being the bottleneck. Other Experience Index scores... * Processor 3.2 * Memory(RAM) 4.3 * Graphics 5.4 * Gaming Graphics 6.2 * Primary Hard Disk 4.5 Kudos to all Newegg customers that write reviews. They are always helpful! This is my first product review...thought I'd chip in for once.

Pros: WOW - Great boaard, great price! Sooo quiet that you can't even tell its on unless you look at the video screen. This board provides me with a very low power server system with an actual Gig-E connection that really does transfer at 80+MBps (thats Bytes not bits). I transfer 5 gig files in less than a minute. The OS see's four cores (2 cores + 2 HT) and uses them well. The PCIe x16 slot works well for my HiPoint RAID 4320 and does not interfere with the on board video at all. The board is small and leaves quite a bit of room in the case for cables and airflow. You will still want to make sure that you have a fan pulling air across the main heatsink though. Simple to overclock with voltage and speed adjustments in the BIOS. I've not tried it since stability is important to me, but for those of you who want to play...

Cons: I was hoping to use an old power supply for this. Its not really a con but take note. You must use a power supply that has a 24 pin connector and a 4 pin CPU connector as well. PS with 20 pin connectors will not work.

Overall Review: I'm using my system as a file server and media streamer. It works extremely well in this capacity and never maxes out the CPU. - 2 Gig Corsair DDR2-800 - Highpoint 4320 Raid (in the PCIex 16 slot) w/2TB Raid-6 - Hauppauge TV card in the PCI slot I would recommend that users not try to turn this into a gaming rig. I imagine that it would work if you added a high speed video card, but its really not designed for that. Its niche is very low power systems for servers, web browsing, VoIP, etc. I may buy another one just to use as a VoIP always-on system. Just think, you could purchase that $19.95 a year phone device and plug it into one of these for less than the cost of three months of regular phone service. I may give that a shot. Bottom line - Go for it. You can't go wrong with this board.

Pros: compact design. good features. when working its great.

Cons: terrible customer service.

Overall Review: what big business has good customer service? worked for 2 months without a problem. when i did fail contacted customer support and got a response quickly. they sent the usual corperate response that did not help solve my problem. replied to response and waited 36 hrs. no response. sent email requesting rma on motherboard have not heard anything in 2 days now. how do you warranty on a product if the manufacture is not willing to honor it?

Pros: Good little board, runs well.

Cons: I've built two PC's with this board for family now. They're sound little boards which work well for the average PC user. The problem I run into every time how ever is even with cases that are meant to be compatible with MICRO ATX motherboard sizes, I've found almost always the front panel wiring of the cases can almost never reach the ports. I've tried several cases with these boards and always run into this problem. I wouldn't buy this board again because running into this problem constantly has become frustrating when your only options are soldering in more wiring or finding extenders.

Pros: Minimal power use. Better than an ITX for my purposes. Easy set-up. Works right out of the box.

Cons: Took a second reboot after plying in the BIOS for it to boot to the DVD Writer - that killed a 5 Egg review. A good BIOS will remember my settings the first time. Only 3 SATA Ports - a couple of more instead of the PATA port would be nicer, but I already knew that.

Overall Review: I used this to replace my power-hungry Pentium-D 820 as a server, as well as a GPU Folding@Home host. With an older Adaptec 1210S SATA card, I was able to connect all of my drives (250Gb and 4 2Tb). The Atom Dual-Core is nice, because with all of that - before adding my 9600GSO card - it only drew 184 watts - vs. the 342 of the PD 820. I was very pleasantly surprised by the Atom's performance so far. And this was my first ECS motherboard - I've heard mixed thoughts on them - and am so far satisfied with it. I plan on building a couple more of these low-watt systems for friends as they need them, and I'll certainly keep this board in mind.

Pros: Good inexpensive low-power board for an HTPC or home server. The Micro ATX form factor with its Atom 330 plus multiple expansion slots is useful and almost unique in the market.

Cons: The CPU heat sink fins are oriented vertically, making a typical cooling design (ATX case, one fan in front and one fan in the rear flowing horizontally) less efficient. Also, no ECC memory support. I suppose we can all dream...

Overall Review: I am primarily writing this to let everyone know that the board does support the ATI Radeon 5xxx cards after a recently released BIOS update. I was just packing this board up for return after it wouldn't detect my HD5450 card when I found that they had released an update to solve this issue. After the full BIOS update, it booted right up displaying video over the ATI's HDMI output. As a final note, for those of you running 64-bit Windows, you'll have to download the 64-bit version of the AM Flash utility to upload the BIOS image.

Pros: Till now it is working very stable, I am happy caz this board w/ CPU only have a heatsink on it, without a fan, it is very quiet. Also the board is small enough to fit in those beautiful mini size computer cases.

Cons: Not much on hardware, but the MIR is pretty bad. I purchased this with ECS Geforce 8400GS video card supposed to get $18 on MB and $10 on VC, but after sent all required documents, it is about 10 weeks now, I got no email confirmation, don't know where to check status, and I visited ECS official site, there is no customer service information for MIRs. Who should I contact?

Overall Review: Deal is okay w/o MIR, but with MIR this combo is among best in similar product, if you get the MIR.

Pros: Built my own Windows Home Server using this board. It replaced an Intel Dual Core that I had. I wanted to use a board/processor with a lower power draw. It runs headless in my basement, and I connect to the video share from computers through-out the house. My primary TV is connected to a P3-800Mhz PC, and I stream all videos from this Home Server. I did play a 7Gb HD Video file with NO lag or stuttering.

Cons: None.

Overall Review: I have an Internal 4 Disk - 1.5 TB RAID 5 Array (Using High Point RAID Card.) I have an External 4 Disk - 3 TB RAID 5 Array (SANS Digital) Everything is connected via Gigabit, and I have not noticed any decrease in performance (for what I am doing) over the Dual-Core PC.