Motherboards with integrated graphics offer entry-level buyers a great way to build a system today, with the possibility of upgrading to a discrete graphics card when financial limitations are no longer a major issue. Based on the same technology as its P45 Express device, Intel’s G45 Express northbridge offers the same theoretical performance that its non-integrated counterpart provides. The only notable difference is that the G45 supports onboard graphics, while the P45 supports CrossFire.

Intel charges extra for its latest graphics engine, touting media-centric features such as advanced support for HD video content and full HDMI compliance. Thus, the ECS G45T-M2 is the only G45 product we could obtain for under $100.

Super-value seekers hoping to find integrated graphics and the latest PCIe standard in a full-ATX form factor will be disappointed to see that such motherboards have been priced into the costlier mainstream market, but the smaller micro-ATX size hasn’t kept ECS from building at least some expansion room into its G45T-M2. The motherboard’s four expansion slots are only two less than the average full-ATX competitor, and buyers still get six Serial ATA ports and support for up to four memory modules.

While ECS markets its G45 products towards media centers, a full 16 PCIe 2.0 lanes could make the G45T-M2 a great low-cost choice for compact gaming systems. Two of the SATA ports can be blocked off by long double-width cards, but compact systems are unlikely to have room for more than four SATA drives anyway. From a more value-oriented perspective, budget buyers are unlikely to use expensive cards such as the Radeon HD 4870 X2.

Good layout choices include a 24-pin ATX/EPS power connector at the G45T-M2’s front edge, the PCIe 2.0 x16 expansion slot in the uppermost slot position, and a floppy connector directly behind the floppy bays of most mid-tower and mini-tower cases. Slot positioning is especially critical for low-profile cases that use riser cards, and we can’t dismiss good floppy header placement until the use of Windows XP has diminished much further.

With such a clean layout on a small board, one might wonder what’s missing from the G45T-M2. Other than the bottom slots that would normally be found on a larger board, the only obvious omission is an Ultra ATA controller. There’s simply no reason to use Ultra ATA in new builds, with terabyte-capacity SATA drives priced under $100 and SATA DVD burners available for under $20, but anyone using the G45T-M2 to upgrade an older system might be disappointed.

Size has little to do with our complaints, which include an ATX12V connector located at the opposite corner of the CPU socket, a front-panel audio connector pushed under the bottom PCI slot, and a reduction in CPU power regulation to three phases. The ATX12V cable must be routed around the CPU cooler when using traditional cases or around the graphics card—assuming one is installed—in cases that have the power supply under the motherboard’s bottom edge. Similarly, the audio cable of tower cases that have top-panel ports must also be routed over any installed expansion cards or under the motherboard. Most competitors offer four-phase power regulators, while only ECS uses three-phase power regulation.

The G45T-M2 provides most of the features one would expect from a full-sized motherboard in a compact package. Buyers who need an onboard graphics solution will be pleased to find both VGA and HDCP-compliant DVI outputs with an HDMI adapter, and anyone whose display doesn’t support HDMI audio can instead get up to 7.1 surround audio from the full set of analog jacks.

Rated at 97:1 decibels signal-to-noise ratio, the ALC888 audio codec accesses Intel’s ICH10 integrated HD audio feature.

Realtek’s RTL8111C PCIe audio controller uses a high-bandwidth interface to approach optimal Gigabit Ethernet performance.