CPU3D.com

Looking at the results from our tests, the Gigabyte EP45 UD3 is quite a good performer. This is all thanks to the Intel P45 chipset, which is at the heart of the motherboard. Overall, it competed very well against all the higher-end P45 based motherboards on the market, including the Asus P5Q-E and the MSI P45 Platinum.

Being a mainstream board means that you won't get all the fancy features, such as dual PCIe slots for graphics, so therefore no Crossfire capability. Internal power-on, reset and clear CMOS switches are absent, and there's also no TMP or diagnostic LEDs. Apart from that ... the Gigabyte EP45 UD3 does offer a lot other features for the price.

Gigabyte's new features which include the Ultra Durable 3 and the DES Advance, seem to make this motherboard all the more worthy of a purchase. The board uses Japanese solid capacitors, Lower RDS(on) Mosfets, Ferrite Core chokes, as well as their new 2oz copper layer PCB design. So, does it actually work? Does it cool the motherboard and lower energy consumption? Well, see for yourself ... the results speaks for themselves.

But what about the "environmental" issue? Wouldn't a 2oz copper PCB design be bad for the environment? Well, to be honest ... it's a load of nonsense. Because a standard copper heatpipe chipset cooler found on most mainstream to higher-end motherboards would use more than 2oz of copper anyway. Besides, the Gigabyte EP45 UD3 does not feature a copper heatpipe chipset cooler, but instead an Aluminum chipset cooler.

Overclocking was surprisingly simple. Although we only tested it with our aging Q6600 processor, we still managed to overclock it to 3.2Ghz (8x400). As long as we are able to reach a minimum of 400Mhz of the FSB ... then I'm happy with the result. There have been reports that the Gigabyte EP45 UD3 is able to reach 600Mhz+ on the FSB using an Intel E8600 ... if that's true, then it's one hell of of an overclocking motherboard.

Final Words: One has to remember that the Gigabyte EP45 UD3 motherboard was designed and aimed at the mainstream market, so to see it doing so well is quite a surprise. What makes it even more appealing is the price ... costing around £100.00 ($170), it offers great features for a motherboard that won't break your bank.

Pros:
 - Good performance from Intel's P45 chipset
 - Very good overclocking performance for a mainstream board
 - Support DDR2 ram upto 1366Mhz +
 - MIT Overclocking BIOS 
 - Extremely good value for the price

Cons:
 - Only one PCIe (x16) slot, so therefore no Crossfire

We've given the Gigabyte GA-EP45 UD3 Motherboard our CPU3D "Value"  award.

OVERALL SCORE
8/10