Intel D945GCLF2 Killer

Punky · 07-30-2009, 02:49 AM

I thought I'd share this with everyone. Like most of you the mini itx boards has been a long wanted upgrade for me, but from reading around the Intel D945GCLF2 is the cheapest but also the buggiest. I went and buy a D945GCLF2 anyway to see if i could make it work, it works, but the BIOS just takes too long to boot. So i ended up using it for our video surveillance system. Other boards like the zotac are too expensive for my taste, and not enough information about how good they are as a carpc available.

So i finally found one that met all of my requirements: dual core atom, cheap, mini itx, quiet. From searching on newegg, i found: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856119012
for 130 you get mobo, cpu, case, and psu! and best of all its a foxconn mobo which means that it has quickboot! Well after waiting for two weeks, it finally arrived, and it took me a whole day to replace it with my existing system.
Here are my thoughts about it:
- Boot is hella fast! around 17sec resumes!
- dual core atom is plenty fast
- low heat
- really quiet fan
- nice quality built
- no ion though, which i don't feel is necessary for car anyway.
- though the mobo is mini itx, the case is quite large, which takes a bit more space in the trunk than i would like.

bottom line: if you have the same requirements as me, get this instead of the intel version, even if you strip off the large case, its still very affordable.

nobb · 07-30-2009, 01:13 PM

O man that is nice, I cant believe I paid $200 for my Jetway board a while back. Performance wise, does anyone know how a dual core 330 atom compares to a single core 2.0 ghz Via C7?

Can you clarify what you mean by Foxconn's quickboot? How is that different from any other manufacturer that also has the quickboot setting in the bios?

Punky · 07-30-2009, 03:07 PM

i don't think they're much different, its just foxconn always has quickboot in every motherboard, that's what i'm trying to say. Just using it for centrafuse and gps, I don't see much of performance difference between my 2.4 P4 and this dual core atom. I bought this board was because it has sata, so i can finally upgrade to SSD.

insaneramman · 07-30-2009, 07:20 PM

Looks like a good find. Any chance you could post some detailed measurements on the case. Would love to upgrade to this set-up. My set-up has serious size limits.

Punky · 07-30-2009, 08:24 PM

This is the entire system dimension: 282mm*95mm*315mm（with bezel）
The board itself is a mini itx board though, so if you take out the case and get a much smaller system.

nst6563 · 07-31-2009, 10:55 PM

that's not a bad deal at all with the psu and case. It looks like you'd still need an inverter to run that with the psu it comes with. Is that what you're doing? I don't think the case seems that big at all. The measurements they give it seems like it's about the same size as the travla case I've got only about twice as tall.

I upgraded mine a while back and also tried the intel atom 330 board. boot was slow as hell and it just didn't impress me in the least bit.
I ended up going with a $50 Zotac mini-itx and a 1.6Ghz Conroe-L based celeron. I think the total cost from newegg was about $75. From post to boot is (no resume) is about 12-14 seconds (using SSD with EWF). The nvidia chipset on the baord does run hot though, but even in the Houston heat I've not had a thermal issue with it.

insaneramman · 07-31-2009, 11:10 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Punky

This is the entire system dimension: 282mm*95mm*315mm（with bezel）
The board itself is a mini itx board though, so if you take out the case and get a much smaller system.

Thanks Punky was hoping for inches I saw those dims on the site. My convert ruler is at work.

Punky · 07-31-2009, 11:54 PM

11.1023622 x 3.74015748 x 12.4015748 inches
google my friend.

nst6563 · 08-01-2009, 10:05 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by insaneramman

Thanks Punky was hoping for inches I saw those dims on the site. My convert ruler is at work.

Lol. When I saw the mm measurements (also listed on neweggs site) the first thing I compared them to was fan sizes

it's roughly 2x120mm + 1x80mm fans wide, 1x90mm fan high, and 3x120mm fans long.

shortee611 · 08-01-2009, 10:22 AM

Think of it this way 25mm is roughly a inch (actually 25.4mm = 1 inch) so a 100mm is roughly 4 inches.

2k1Toaster · 08-01-2009, 01:16 PM

Or you could just stop converting it and use metric like the rest of the world! It makes more sense logically and is more accurate anyways. That and it is based off of a stick of gold, how much cooler does it get.

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