ITX Motherboard
The 945GCT-D is 7.9” x 6.7” (20 cm x 17 cm), which is slightly longer than a traditional 6.7” x 6.7” (17 cm x 17 cm) mini-ITX board. The additional length is necessary to accommodate the second memory slot, the PCI Express x1 slot, and some audio connections that other ITX boards do not have.
| Component | Details |
|---|---|
| Video | 1x VGA |
| Drives | 2x SATA300, 1x IDE ATA100 |
| USB | 2x USB 2.0 (IO Cover) 4x USB 2.0 (Onboard) |
| Serial | 1x COM |
| PS2 | Mouse, Keyboard |
| Plug-in Cards | 1x PCI 33, 1x PCIe x1 |
| Network | 1x 100 Mbit (Atheros L2 Fast) |
| Audio | VIA VT1708B (5.1 Channel) |
| Fan Connections | 2x 3-pin |
| Dimensions | 20 cm x 17 cm |
| ATX | 24-pin ATX |
The board does not have connections for a floppy drive or parallel port.
Graphics core - Intel GMA950
There is only one VGA connection available for screen output. Working with a screen resolution of 1280x1024 is possible, but compared to a traditional graphics card, it is a little blurred. At 1920x1200, the screen is washed-out and it is no longer practical to try to use on a daily basis. The 945G chip set with the GMA950 graphics core is a little outdated as well. Technically speaking, a DVI-D interface is available through the core logic, but ECS has not provided one on this board.
The GMA950 graphics core supports the Vista Aero interface and provides DirectX 9 support. It is not suitable for gaming, though. And under Vista, the windows are a little slow to redraw when they are moved. The onboard graphics core can be assigned 8 MB, 64 MB or 128 MB of memory.