XFX nForce 790i Ultra Motherboard Preview @ [H]

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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XFX nForce 790i Ultra Motherboard Preview - NVIDIA has a new nForce motherboard chipset for Intel’s newest CPUs that brings with it support for DDR3 and SLI. Some of you are excited, while I can already hear groans of agony from others. Let's give you the straight dope on 790i Ultra.

The XFX 790i Ultra motherboard that we have used here today has left me with a very positive impression. And, as much as I hate to say it, I want one. The damn thing ran flawlessly for over four days with a 100% load on all its major system busses then did not blink an eye when I “cooked” it at 50C for another 15 hours.
 
"Once bitten, twice shy."

Truer words couldn't be said for the majority of people I know who ran the 680i... Mine has been flawless, but I have been reluctant to upgrade to the 780. Personally, I will not be the guinea pig this time around. I will, however, be more than happy to purchase this board should it prove to be as good as you claim over the long haul.

Another fantastic preview, thanks.
 
Nice thorough preview and I am clearly one of the early adopters as I am using an EVGA 790i ultra board right now myself. So far so good. I am going to play around more with it tonight once my faster DDR3 comes in.
 
Nice thorough preview and I am clearly one of the early adopters as I am using an EVGA 790i ultra board right now myself. So far so good. I am going to play around more with it tonight once my faster DDR3 comes in.

Well, I have about a week of solid experience on you right now. Come back in a month after running it [H]ard and we will all have something to talk about. Really.
 
I am looking at making a major upgrade in the near future. I am sorely tempted. But, I hate to make the purchase only to be plagued with issues. I really do hope nvidia makes this chipset work.

On this. . . . I am having a hard time finding low latency memory. What do you guys like to run with?

-Mecdrox
 
Memory costs have me second guessing a jump from my otherwise rock steady 680i board.( arent 2 GB of good DDR3 350 dollars??)
This was a really nice, concise review.

This new MB is 350$ currently......ouch.
DDR2 is dirt cheap.
I'm going to wait and see if people can run 2 x GX2 9800 on a 680i board, and if there is any advantage over Triple-SLi before I consider a move.

At this point the dollars needed to upgrade aren't really worth it, IMO.
 
I'm glad it appears that nvidia is getting their act together with these 790 boards. I used a 650i board last year and it was fine, but I wasn't satisfied with it, but that was mostly asus's fault. Anyway, even if nvidia is putting out better stuff now, how many people can really afford this setup? I'd say a fair amount can't even consider it since I spent about 250 for a top end P35 board and 4gigs of ram whereas these boards are 350 right now not including the DDR3. I just don't see much uptake on these unless DDR3 prices plummet well before intel's new cpu's come out.
 
I know the boards are feature rich, but anything over $275 seems like price gouging to me, even for an enthusiast board.
 
700$ for the board and ram....which was a lot but this is a good board so far, although i picked up the evga version.
 
That scares me too :) I would probably not even stutter if it was 300, I guess I will have to decide which I like more... eating, or a new Crack MB addiction.
 
Memory costs have me second guessing a jump from my otherwise rock steady 680i board.( arent 2 GB of good DDR3 350 dollars???

Here is some OCZ DDR3-1333 for $150 after MIR. It seems people are having no problem getting these to DDR3-1600 speeds. These same modules were ~$250 about six weeks ago. DDR3 prices are really starting to move downwards.
 
What gets me about the 780i and the 790i, why haven't the board designers turned the direction of the MCP fan exhaust toward the REAR of the case?! :confused:

680i -> exhaust towards CPU
780i -> exhaust towards VID (which raised my temps by a degree or two)
790i -> exhaust towards CPU

Just something that I have been curious about....
 
It's good to know that nVidia may have fixed some of their previous board issues. This has been one of the major reasons I have stayed away from SLI--getting stuck with a nasty board=uncool. May get one of these in a year or two if they pan out OK.
 
Great review - I really appreciated the stability testing, and especially the 50*C tests. Honestly, I was more impressed with the 100s of hours of stable operation than the 500MHz FSB.
 
Outstanding work Kyle! This is the fist article I've read on the 790i that directly addresses the very questions and concerns many of us have. A great service to your readers and to all hardware enthusiasts. Thank you.
 
What gets me about the 780i and the 790i, why haven't the board designers turned the direction of the MCP fan exhaust toward the REAR of the case?! :confused:

680i -> exhaust towards CPU
780i -> exhaust towards VID (which raised my temps by a degree or two)
790i -> exhaust towards CPU

Just something that I have been curious about....

Probably something to do with conserving space around the CPU. With all those sinks its already pretty crowded.
 
Why is there no mention about the price?

Because you are smart enough to figure that out on your own and assign it value in your specific needs. (And quite frankly, I just was not focused on it.)
 
Does this being a 'preview' mean we'll get to see some real benchmarks and such soon?

I'm not only interested in exact benchmarks when comparing it with X48, but also the performance gain in games. Haven't been able to find a 790i vs 780i comparison yet that also compares games... only synthetic benchmarks crap.
 
I agree with Kyle, price is just a secondary concern in reviews. Just look at stores or use pricegrabber.com to find out yourself. Also, I think that when Kyle prepare the review, the prices is unknown... Same for the Rampage Formula review.

 
Price is indeed a secondary concern but there's quite a difference in price between a 790i+DDR3 and a 780i+DDR2 and it's probably quite interesting for a lot of 'gamers' to see the performance difference between those 2. If you just go from 30fps to 33fps in Crysis then most won't really care and buy a 780i, but if it offers a larger performance gain than that it gets a lot more interesting for the average person. (shouldn't say 'average' too loud here on [H] though :p)
 
We expect those who are really interested in those reviews to have a good background in computers. It should be obvious that if a board use DDR3, it will be more costly to upgrade and this is a given with any technology jump.

 
Definitely has me thinking of a 790i + Intel Quad-core for my next build. And as you say, we're all hoping this one doesn't go south like the 680i did, but something tells me that won't be the case here. Thanks, Kyle!
 
Here is some OCZ DDR3-1333 for $150 after MIR. It seems people are having no problem getting these to DDR3-1600 speeds. These same modules were ~$250 about six weeks ago. DDR3 prices are really starting to move downwards.

AWESOME Thanks! I hope the prices continue to go down and speeds go up.
 
For all of Kyle's (appreciated) bluntness, this is the best kind of data that nVidia could hope to see. Time will tell if this is consistent across the 790i boards, or if this is a particularly good sample.

Assuming Intel's roadmap holds (yeah, right), I think I'll milk my 680i system until the Nehalem platform hits a reasonable price point. DDR3 is just too damned expensive, especially compared to 4GB of DDR2 that's already paid for.
 
I think you should focus on it, specially since Brent factored price in the GX2 review to draw his conclusions. Keep things consistent

I do agree this might be considered as "price is no object", but still...

THIS ARTICLE was not focused on it. That hardly goes for everything we write.
 
Great preview as usual! Only spent $80.00 to upgrade to 780i from 680i. Might think about 790i if DDR3 was cheaper or was significantly a better performer than DDR2.
 
As much as this costs, I am going to get one next month for a new build. I have been waiting for a DDR3 SLI mainboard and it came sooner than I had hoped.
 
I personally would not pay the price premium for DDR3. Of course, you may see a different value. If there is a DDR2 variant of this board on the way, which I would GUESS there is, it would very likely be the one to have IMO. I don't see a DDR2 790i being any less of a board, but of course we have never used one so that is just all conjecture.
 
While I've found the MSI P7N Diamond to avoid the quirks and issues experienced with other 780i boards (at least with Kentsfields, Conroes, and Wolfdales atm) I too would consider switching to a 790i Ultra DDR2 board. I'm just not getting my hopes up that one will be released.
 
The price is what kills me in this situation.
I can't justify a 790i + DDR3 versus an X38 + DDR2. The performance difference is small but the price difference is huge.
Plus, I think the reliability of an Intel chipset vs an nvidia one speaks for itself. Though nvidia has certainly made some good chipsets over the years, they have also missed the mark on several occasions.
In short, unless you're building an SLI rig with two nvidia video cards, I think Intel + DDR2 is the way to go in terms of price, performance, and reliability.
 
As for the DDR3 I picked up some of that OCZ mentioned earlier and 150 is comparable to high end ddr2 i mean all in all it costs way more than it should but it is still comparable. On a side note a buddy who works at microcenter said each store is getting 40 of these and newegg is only getting something like 100 in the first wave. They are gouging them though, 400ish for the board and so on but what do you expect.
 
Kyle, honestly I thank you for your biased review.

I have been following this board through its sample testing and kept telling myself the same thing, "The 680i looked this good at its testing as well".

After I RMA'd my 5th, yes 5th 680i, I gave up and sold it. I bought a P5k-deluxe (kyle I love my on board wifi!!! its awesome when my PC travels with me, or gets moved to the TV room)

I havent looked back, the p35 has been the most stable chipset I have ever run.

Last week I bought a 780i with the notion that I was going to be disappointed, although it was better than the 680i it was still no P35.... I will probably be doing a step up on this 780i to a 790i.

Here is hoping that I will be able to drop my multi to a x7 or x6 and open up the FSB on my Q6600 (3.8Ghz on H20) and that DDR3 prices drop like rocks.
 
Excellent review as always Kyle and of course the price of entry is silly atm, no suprise there. If in fact a DDR2 variant arrives I might consider this for an SLI build, if not then X38/48 here I come.

Oh and the paper bag was priceless, lol. Loved that part of the review. ;)
 
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