ECS G33T-M2 (V1.0) Intel G33 mATX Motherboard

Conclusion:

While the ECS G33T-M2 (V1.0) Intel G33 mATX Motherboard is not designed for the enthusiast or gamer who would want to be able to tweak every aspect of their system, simple overclocking is achievable. Although they have made great strides lately, ECS may not be one of the brands that is considered when people think of feature rich enthusiast motherboards. This board is a good example of a fairly simple, budget conscious offering that can provide reliable operation for the typical user.

There are a few short comings that the computer enthusiast might expect to have available, but this is not what this motherboard is designed for. While no gamer or computer enthusiast would be caught using integrated graphics, if you were using this motherboard as a stepping stone for a new system it would not be a bad option for general office/homework, surfing the Internet, or as a budget conscious media center system. With the addition of a decent PCI Express graphics card, you could have a reasonable gaming machine.

One of the biggest drawbacks to this motherboard is the number of SATA ports and the lack of any RAID options. Since you will probably have to use a SATA optical drive, that leaves you only 3 SATA ports for hard drives. For most people this will be plenty, however for a media center you might want to have a few more. While the lack of RAID will be a major drawback for power users, the average consumer looking for a budget oriented board may not mind.

A search of PriceGrabber did not return any results for the ECS G33T-M2 (V1.0), but ECS says we will soon see it available at places like Newegg.com for under $90 (US). For this price it is a good motherboard for a media center or a non-gaming computer.

Looking at this motherboard for use in a budget conscious media center or desktop solution, I award the ECS G33T-M2 (V1.0) Intel G33 mATX Motherboard the rating of "Recommended".


Pros:

» Supports 1333MHz FSB
» Stable platform for a mainstream system to be built
» A mATX motherboard with four DDR2 memory slots
» Four SATA 3 Gbps connections

Cons:

» Meager overclocking features in the BIOS
» No RAID capabilities
» 1333MHz FSB achieved via overclocking
» Only includes one SATA cable
» No PATA connections

Special thanks to ECS for providing the ECS G33T-M2 (V1.0) Intel G33 mATX Motherboard to Bigbruin.com for review!