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Intel D945GCLF2 Essential Series Mini-ITX DDR2 667 Intel Graphics Integrated Atom Processor Desktop Board - Retail
Studio : Intel
by Intel
Brand : Intel
Model : BOXD945GCLF2
Publisher : Intel
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
EAN : 0675900943636
UPC : 675900943636
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 6 reviews)
List Price : $99.99
Our Price : $81.96
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Mini-ITX /micro-ATX compatible (6.75 inches by 6.75 inches)
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Integrated dual-core Intel Atom processor 330 with a 533 MHz system bus
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One 240-pin DDR2 SDRAM Dual Inline Memory Module (DIMM) sockets
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Intel 945GC Express Chipset and Intel I/O Controller Hub 7 (ICH7)
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Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 & S-video output support
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Product Description |
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Essential Series. Single pack mini ITX / uATX compatible form factor desktop board with soldered down Intel Atom Processor 330. The Intel Desktop Board D945GCLF2 with 945GC + ICH7 chipset supports 533 MHz System Bus DDR2 667 MHz SDRAM Memory Integrated10/100 Network Connection PCI connector up to 6 Hi-Speed USB 2.0 ports (4 back ports) 2+2 channel HD Audio PATA and two SATA ports. |
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A small board for a small computer. |
First, let me state an obvious thing: this board is not for everyone. It is a small, low-power computer mainboard built, designed and made (although not in that order) to use precisely as that, a small computer.
It measures exactly 17 by 17 centimetres, five centimetres tall. It has an Atom processor running at 1.6 GHz, enough power to run various flavours of Linux and Windows XP, but you don't want to run Vista on it. Why would you want to run Vista at all, I wonder? Well, that's another entirely different question.
It is a very limited board. It has a single memory slot, up to 2 gigs of DDR2 memory, shared with the video chip, which has both a VGA port and a s-video port, so you can plug it to a tv. It also has a single PCI slot, so you can install, let's say, a wireless network internal card or an i/o card. But it has 8 USB ports, so you can plug a lot of stuff. It has a serial and a parallel port, a keyboard and mouse port, both ps/2 style, an ethernet port (1 gbps) and integrated audio ports that sounds good enough. It has two Serial-ATA ports and an EIDE port, no floppy port (who use floppy drives today?) so you can safely plug a couple hard drives and a couple dvd burners.
This is an underpowered board, no doubt about it. But as today's underpowered machines are yesterday power computers, I'd say this baby was like a workhorse computer in 2003, or a server in 2000. It has enough power to decode most HD formats, at least those I've tested. You cad surf the net, play games that doesn't demand a supercomputer to load the splash screen and do general computing chores and tasks, all that using barely 35 watts, including one laptop hdd and one laptop dvd drive, but not the monitor.
Why would you like --or want-- to purchase this baby, then? Two words: embedded computer. I'm building a small machine, so small it fits in an old Nintendo Entertainment System case. Why would I want to do that, you may wonder? Well, first of all, I doubt that a burglar will want my old, battered, ugly NES and instead focus on my shiny Blu-Ray player, that in reality is just a dvd with a shiny sticker. And last but not least, can you imagine your friends' faces when instead of launching Opera in your Wii you fire up Firefox or Chrome in your NES? It's a priceless moment, believe me. |
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I am having a lot of fun with this board--no buyers remorse here! |
You may need a couple of extra cables and such to build a machine with this board but once you get your computer up and running you will most likely be impressed by what you put together for under 200 bucks. I think I actually built a machine for about 210.00 including a used case and PSU w/o monitor.
My setup has 2 GB of Ram (the max amount), 60 GB SATA Hard Disk. Also, I used a 20 pin PSU to 24 pin Motherboard converter cable as the pins did not match up when trying to plug the stock 20 pin connector into the motherboard--the instructions say this is possible. I use it mainly as a media server and for watching movies through s-video output to my TV set.
Here are a few really nice bits I found out about the D945GCLF2 board after I got it home:
It has a vga and s-video output (no DVI) which can be used in dual display configuration. If you have a TV with an s-video input this can come in handy.
Each of the Atom 330's cores have hyperthreading which amounts to 4 logical processors detected by your operating system--the atom 330
along with it's 945 GPU make the computer run snappy.
Unlike some of the reviews of this board state, it can be used for more than just web browsing. No, you can't play Call of Duty but many 3d games that are a couple of years old run very well. I tried Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness and Oni (which is way old) and they both ran flawlessly.
Ubuntu with Compiz looks stunning.
I put the good stuff first because I really don't have any problems with my computer but here are some glitches I had to work around:
The s-video output has a vertical scrolling issue when the computer
first turns on but clears up when your OS loads. I still can't read the grub boot menu from my TV set. The VGA output has no issues, however. This s-video flicker problem could be solved by a bios update from intel (if we ever get one) in the future.
The board comes with a driver disk for windows so installing 2000/xp/vista is easy. Installing Ubuntu proved to be less than stupidly easy
(it often is stupidly easy these days). The main problem I had was with getting the dual display working with s-video and getting the OS to recognize the two Hyper Threading cores in the atom 330. I solved the
multi core problem by installing Ubuntu 64 bit. Ask a Linux wizard why the 64 bit distro is different in that regard, all I know is that it now recognizes 4 logical processors and I am satisfied with the result.
All and all This machine is pure fun: It's cheap, its small, and it works
better than it should. |
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Good, but small |
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I got this because my motherboard was fried and I felt like upgrading since I had to replace it anyway. My computer's noticeably faster and it can handle Sims 2 far better than it could with my old one. This product was also surprisingly small. For me this was bad as it meant I had to rearrange things internally to make sure it all fit. As my tower is so much bigger, too, I can no longer use my front USB ports as they don't reach. However, if you're still in the planning stage you may be able to use this size to your advantage to build a smaller, more portable desktop. |
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decent unit except for northbridge fan |
I bought this board and overall I am a fan of it's size, specs and power usage. However, the unit has a built-in fan cooling fan for the northbridge (the CPU is passively cooled by heatsink only). My first thought was that the fan looks cheap and might fail after long term use. I was wrong about the scope...it started stuttering, whining and buzzing occasionally within a few days, and after about two weeks was doing so almost constantly. Another site has a review from someone else with a similar issue. After talking with Intel that cannot just send me a replacement fan, they must replace the entire board...and I must send them the board first and wait for them to send me a replacement. Next I talked to Americancivilwar and a very surly customer service person told me they would set up a replacement unit to be sent out and email me about it with 1/2 hour. No email about the replacement by the next day, although I did have an email asking if the issue had been handled well by customer service. I called them again and apparently no replacement order was ever created. This customer service person was very nice and I feel truly wanted to help. But for some reason neither he nor his supervisor could create a replacement shipment for this item in their system. Ultimately they told me that the only recourse was to issue me a refund, send me a return postage label to return the item, and have me re-buy it.
Item concept and specs: 4 stars
Item performance: 2 stars due to failure of fan within two weeks
Americancivilwar customer service: 1 star for making me call twice and not having a system that allowed them to ship a replacement |
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Low power computing, but not slow! |
Usually low power cpu's are considered to be slow. But the ATOM 330 debunks all the myths.
I am running VISTA very smoothly on this board. Both cores are recognized and shows up as 4 graphs in task manager (due to hyperthreading on each core).
All my applications load up very quickly and it is generally acceptably fast.
Of course, this board is not recommended for any sort of games other than simple ones. But for a simple browsing computer and/or a word processing computer, this board can't be beat.
One word of advice, do not buy anything lower than 1 stick of 2 GB RAM. |
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