Question 1

What is the power wattage needs  for this processor?  Can a 450 watt power supply handle this board.

Accepted Answer

Yes, with plenty of spare power.
The cpu is rated at like 15W. 
In fact, you could probably get away with  a 100W supply!

Have fun. Its a nice low power board. Just be aware that it is a bit picky about the ram you use. If it won't POST after assembly, try different ram in it.
I gave the non working ram to a friend so I can't tell you what ram to avoid, sorry. (It worked fine in his system, so I know it just was an incompatible stick, not a bad stick)

Question 2

Is there any way to upgrade the processor on this thing?

Accepted Answer

the short answer is no. that being said, anything is possible if you found a better processor with the same pin structure. the cost of buying and installing the processor would be prohibitive

Question 3

Since it says it is Windows 8, is it 64 bit as well? Can it fit in my Dell Inspiron 518 case? Along with my Geforce GTX 650 GPU? My final question is this better than the default motherboard that comes with the Dell Inspiron 518 and better than my Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.49GHz? These are a lot of questions but I need them answered. Thanks in advance to any responses I get!

Accepted Answer

Yes it's X86-64 compatible, and it could probably fit in your tower (assuming you can get the screws to line up, but for size reference I crammed this inside a SNES with around 1.4" to spare for cables). However, with the hardware you list for the Inspiron 518, this would be a major step down, as it's slower than any modern Celeron or Sempron CPU (the bottom of the barrel). Your Core 2 Quad is likely at least 2.5-3x the speed of this board/APU combo in single threaded applications, much higher in multi-threaded appliactions.

If you want a compact media center with (very) limited gaming ability, this is a solid board, but as an upgrade solution, embedded boards are about the worst way to go. You would need a modern FX series CPU or something from the recent Core i3/i5 lines to see significant performance gains over your Core 2 quad. I'm not sure why you feel the need to upgrade, but if you are interested in a real bump, you're going to need a whole new setup (Dell uses towers that are cut for certain boards, they don't have a removeable RF plate, so unless you're willing and able to cut the tower, you're going to need one), save for the video card.

Try looking at newegg's super combo deals with a motherboard/cpu/tower/memory setup. You should be able to scavenge the hard drive and optical from the Dell, but I'm not certain you're someone I would recommend for a full upgrade, that Core 2 Quad has some life in it yet and the GTX 650 should get you pretty good detail/resolutions at playable framerates. Perhaps you should invest in some RAM and a solid state drive? Still, check out the super combos if you're interested in a proper upgrade, it'll give you a good idea of what to expect in terms of price, and it's one of the cheaper ways to build a system.

Hope that covers it for you.

Question 4

Does this have a 3 pin connector for a case fan?

Accepted Answer

It has a four pin connector for system fan. Can't tell you how it works as I mounted the whole board inside my tv lcd screen case  with no fan and it has worked perfectly for 2 days now without cutting it off.

Question 5

One more thing, I know this is a lot, is it a quad core processor or is better than one or at least than the one I have that I put in my other question?

Accepted Answer

It's a dual core CPU designed to run low power applications, so it's actually a significant downgrade from your current system.

Question 6

I am hearing that this board is picky about what ram you use. Does anyone have any recommendations, or is there a list of guaranteed compatible ram?

Accepted Answer

YES! Go to Gigabyte's support and they have a list of memory that is tested & OK. www gigabyte com

This is a nice board and I used Kingston memory.

Question 7

Does this motherboard come with a CPU?

Accepted Answer

Yes, but it runs at 1.6GHz.

Question 8

Can this board support 3TB drives using freenas?

Accepted Answer

I have it working with 4TB drives on nightly builds of FreeNAS 10 and works fine.

Question 9

Is this one UEFI BIOS compatible or am i mistaken?

Accepted Answer

http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4461#sp

Question 10

I purchased a La Cube housing box with a built in Rosewill 250 watt power supply.  All the connectors are compatible and I can't see an issue with any of the connections.  However, the CPU fan will only spin for about 2 seconds and then loses power.

Does anyone know of compatibility issues with this power supply and mother board?

Accepted Answer

That is the cool and quite setting in the bios, if the processor is not hot no fan is needed.

Questions & Answers