Review: ECS 945G-M3 motherboard

If you're looking to build a quick or home theatre PC in a compact case, the 945G-M3 motherboard from ECS is worth considering.

Built around Intel’s 945G and ICH7 chipsets, this microATX board will support Socket 775 CPU’s with 533, 800 and 1066MHz FSB speeds (including Pentium D).

Two Dimm slots provide support for up to 2GB of 400/533 or 667MHz DDR2 memory.

Despite the small form factor the board is actually well featured. You get integrated Intel GMA950 graphics, high-definition 7.1 audio, gigabit Lan along with four USB2 and four Serial ATA ports.

Due to its relatively small size, expansion slots are always going to be limited. You get one 16x PCI Express graphics slot, a single x1 PCI Express slot and two standard PCI slots.

Annoyingly, the x16 PCI Express slot has a catch so small that it's hard to access once you've slotted your graphics card into it.

Overall though, this is a well featured and reasonably cheap motherboard that would suit those looking to build a small form factor or home theatre PC.

The ECS 945G-M3 is currently available from PC Nextday .