Because this is a small micro atx board I did'nt expect much in the way of features. This board was designed to go into a media PC and at a price point of around $100 (Can) you can't expect too much.  But it's always interesting to see what you get for very little money, inexpensive does'nt always mean cheap. Lets take a look.

	945G-M3
FSB Speeds	FSB 200-510 in 1 MHz increments
PCI-E Speeds	Auto,
CPU Multiplier	manual says you can set this but I could not find this setting where the manual refers to it in the Frequency control Panel
Memory Frequency	Auto, 400, 533, 667
DIMM Voltage	No control
PCI-E Voltage	No control
FSB Voltage	Normal to +0.3 in 0.1V increments
MCH Voltage	N/A
CPU Voltage	no control
Voltage Monitoring	CPU, DDR, 3.3V, 12V, 5V
Temperature Monitoring	CPU, System
Fan Monitoring	CPU Fan, System Fan

This board was simply not designed to overclock or "tweak", there are no voltage adjustment settings and the bios screens are very sparse to say the least.  This does not surprise me however based on the market this board is aimed at.

Look at all the options !!

Pictured above is the screen that the manual says you should be able to set the CPU clock ratio...do you see it?

 

One thing that's unmistakable is it's size, it's small, being a micro ATX board it measures 9-1/2" x 9-1/2". These boards can go into a small case that can sit near your stereo reciever or DVD player and not look out of place.  Also of note, there are no fans on the 945G north bridge or ICH7-DH south bridge, this will lead to less noise which is desireable when you plan on placing this in a living space as opposed to an office or den.  Coupled with a wise choice of components you could have a near silent system. 

While installing the video card onto this board I noticed what could be a major problem if you had a longer video card with some large cooling hardware on it. 

The battery holder is vertically mounted as you see in the above photo so please be aware of this possible issue.

The power connector is both compatable with 20 and 24 pin power supply connectors.  The manual makes it very clear however that if you use a 20 pin connector you should have a minimum of a 300W power supply and the voltage supplied should be rock solid otherwise you could have system stability and boot up issues.

One little thing that drives a number of people up the wall who regularly put together systems is that lack of colour coding on the front panel header, It's a small thing I know but when it's there we don't have to strain our eyes to look it up on the silk screening of the board or in the manual.  It's a small thing but it's appreciated.  Another small thing I noticed was the lack of a small power led alerting you that there is power to the board.  This can be useful.

On the backplane of the motherboard there are the standard affair of I/O ports. 7.1 surround sound.   Four USB 2.0 connectors, PS2 keyboard and mouse, parallel port, serial port and VGA video. The gigabit ethernet is of course backwards compatable with a 10/100 network.

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