Following in the footsteps of i845E based mainboards (see this news story), Japanese hardware stores started offering products built on i845G. These are two mainboards EPoX EP-4G4A (standard ATX mainboard) and EP-4G4A+ (the same mainboard equipped with an integrated ATA/133 RAID controller). They cost $145 and $162 respectively.

The interesting thing is that the same stores are offering another EPoX solution: EP-4BEA, an ATX mainboard on i845E chipset (see this news story for more details on it) for around $140. It is only $5 less than the cost of the integrated analogue that is why EP-4G4A will definitely find its customers: those users who don’t want to spend money on the cool graphics now but might be willing to do it later. I believe that this opportunity is worth paying 5$.