Package and Accessories
The EP45-DQ6 arrives in a sturdy box with a shiny metallic theme, that extends from the front to the rear of the box.
GIGABYTE lists their features on the front…
Inside the false cover…
And also on the back of the box. Its hard to miss any of the documented features under these circumstances.
Once you slip off the top cover, you will fine a thick sturdy cardboard box.
That box breaks down further into two more subdivisions, a clear plastic one for the motherboard, and a cardboard one for the accessory bundle. Overall the packaging is sturdy, and should insure the product arrives to you in good shape.
The EP45-DQ6 comes locked and loaded in the accessory department. Along with the standard I/O shield, floppy & IDE cables. GIGABYTE also packs in four SATA cables, three case badges (for a little GIGA bling), manuals, and driver disk.
The bundle also goes all out in the expansion bracket department in the form of an IEEE 1394 expansion bracket supporting firewire 400 and firewire 800, two eSATA brackets each with two eSATA connectors and a Molex power outlet, two Molex/SATA power adapters, and a pair of eSATA cables.
GIGABYTE packs in the utility software with this board as well. Since the board is one of the designated “E” series, GIGABYTE’S energy conservation software dubbed ”Dynamic Energy Saver Advanced” comes packaged with the board. The software utility even has a power saving meter, to gauge how much energy your saving by utilizing the software. Animated gears are displayed as a means of indicating how much the software is toning down the system for greater energy conservation. Since undervolting and underclocking the CPU are its main means of energy conservation, as soon as you overvolt and overclock the CPU the software becomes somewhat counterproductive, although it still can be used in that scenario.
Beyond the DES utility GIGABYTE includes their latest tweaking utility, designed to run under the windows environment. Easy Tune 6 features a clean layout, and proved effective in configuring the system. Looking at the picture you will notice the tabbed sections consisting of CPU, memory, tuner, graphics, smart fan and hardware monitoring. The CPU and memory screens read out just like a CPU-Z menu, and the tuner section even allows for CPU ratio changes. All things considered, its one of the most polished windows overclocking utilities I have encountered.
