GeForce 9300, together with GeForce 9400, is today the fastest chipset with integrated video for the Intel platform, achieving in some situations the same performance of a low-end add-on video card (Radeon HD 3450 with 256 MB and 64-bit interface). Intel G45 has the same overall performance of GeForce 9300 when you are not playing games, but fails to deliver the same performance level on games.
But don’t get too excited. In order to achieve a decent frame rate you will have to lower the resolution and disable all image quality settings from your game, but at least you will be able to play it.
Support for GPGPU technology (a.k.a. CUDA) was a nice addition to GeForce 9300. We tested it and it really works, so you will be prepared to enjoy the performance boost this technology brings when mainstream programs that use it becomes available (Adobe Creative Suite 4 – i.e., Photoshop CS4, Premiere Pro CS4 and After Effects CS4 – will use this technology to increase performance).
Talking specifically about ECS GF9300T-A Black Series motherboard, it is always good to see ECS improving the quality of their products. The reviewed board comes with solid aluminum capacitors and ferrite chokes on the voltage regulator circuit, something some people would not believe ECS would ever do.
The HDMI output with digital audio support is an excellent feature, making this motherboard a natural pick for home theater PCs (HTPC). We, however, would like to see at least a coaxial SPDIF output on this motherboard, as not all home theater receivers have an integrated HDMI switch and not all receivers with this device are able to extract audio from the HDMI connector.
Speaking of audio, ECS could have used a better audio codec. Realtek ALC883 has a lousy 85 dB signal-to-noise ratio for its input, what will make your analog-to-digital audio conversions (e.g., converting LPs and tapes to MP3 or CDs and VHS tapes to digital format) to have a lot of white noise.
The motherboard ran stable, however its SATA ports came configured as AHCI instead of SATA and Windows installer couldn’t find our hard drive. This is a tricky configuration, especially because it is hidden inside the Advanced Chipset Setup instead of being listed together with the hard disk drive on the Standard Setup like it happens with other motherboards.
Overclocking capability is really good, even though die-hard overclockers will miss the voltage configuration for the CPU.
In summary, it is a good pick for the mainstream user that knows about these small limitations beforehand, but more exigent users may want a different product.
