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XFX 790i 3-Way SLI Motherboard Review

NVIDIA has released their highly anticipated DDR3 chipset, the 790i Ultra SLI and we take a look at this new piece of silicon from the green team in the form of the XFX 790i Ultra SLI.

Introduction

Typically known for their NVIDIA graphics board XFX got into motherboards only a couple of years ago. Like BFG and EVGA they don’t actually build the boards but rather use NVIDIA reference designs targeted at gamers in every budget sector. The boards are known for being highly overclockable, feature rich and finicky to say the least.

The nForce 790i Ultra SLI chipset features entirely new silicon for the north bridge as the previous 680i SLI MCP couldn’t support DDR3 RAM. Unlike Intel it seems that NVIDIA decided to keep DDR3 and DDR2 support separate jobs for two different chipsets. This new MCP will hopefully be what the 680i SLI should have been from the start and we aim to find out if this is truly the case or not. The 790i Ultra SLI boards do use the same existing SPP that the previous 780i SLI and 680i SLI chipsets used. With that said the SPP really wasn’t the problem with the previous motherboards so I’ve got no issue with that. A revamped south bridge that supported additional USB and SATA ports would have been nice, but it isn’t the end of the world. Feature-wise the 680i’s SPP was very good for its’ time in both terms of features and performance. In addition to the MCP change the 790i Ultra SLI boards feature improved power component specifications and the PWMs are cooled by the heat pipes from the north bridge cooling solution. There is an increased count of solid capacitors and all of the traditional caps on the board are quality units from Rubycon and other sources. So even though the power system is still 6-phase it has been improved over previous 6-phase designs found on the 680i SLI and 780i SLI reference boards.

The XFX 790i Ultra uses NVIDIA’s 790i SLI Ultra chipset. It is a DDR3 only chipset and therefore only supports DDR3 memory. The board is also designed to use NVIDIA’s SLI and 3-Way SLI technology. Like the 780i SLI chipset based boards, the 790i Ultra SLI has three full speed PCI-Express x16 slots for maximum bandwidth for NVIDIA’s latest graphics cards. The 790i Ultra also supports the latest Intel ® Core™2 Extreme Quad-Core / Core™2 Duo / Intel® Pentium® Extreme and Intel® Pentium® D processors. As with most motherboards made today, few components are required to complete a working system. All that is needed are an LGA775 processor, DDR3 memory modules, power supply, video card, and drives.

Main Specifications Overview:

Detailed Specifications Overview:

Packaging

The packaging for the XFX 790i Ultra SLI is pretty basic. The board is protected by the usual cardboard and anti-static bag. Inside the box you’ll find cables, a 3-Way SLI bridge, a standard SLI bridge, USB I/O bracket, floppy cable, an IDE cable, SATA data cables, Molex to SATA power cables, driver disk and a manual.

Board Layout

The layout of the 790i Ultra SLI is better than that of its’ predecessors. It has better port placement for the front panel connectors as well as the power connectors. Gone is the auxiliary power connector which is something I like quite a bit. The slot layout is better than that of the 780i SLI reference boards and essentially goes back to being the same as the previous 680i SLI boards. A good move their on NVIDIA’s part. However I still see traditional capacitors and not the new solid ones I’m used to seeing on most boards these days. I see capacitors from Rubycon and OST making up the bulk of them. There are some solid caps as well and some of them are very poorly placed. (More on that later.)

The CPU area is fairly open at first glance. My Apogee GT waterblock fit like a glove as long as it was oriented correctly. Oddly though the alternate block I have on hand (the Innovotek G-Flow) didn’t fit. That’s unusual as I’ve never seen a board that wouldn’t accept it. The problem lies in the poor placement of capacitors too close to the CPU socket. They are too tall and that causes the G-Flow block to be unable to make contact with the CPU correctly when placed over these capacitors. The problem is literally a distance of millimeters. I can see this being an issue for air coolers as well but at least they left the back of the CPU socket area flat this time. The 680i SLI boards were notorious about that. It made air cooler selection sometimes difficult.

The board's four DDR3 DIMM slots are well placed. You can install or remove memory with a video card installed and the color coding is very nice and easy to understand.

The north bridge is located in the usual spot next to the CPU however the north bridge cooling is much better than it has been on previous NVIDIA chipset based reference boards. There is an active cooling fan and heatpipes covering the PWMs behind the CPU. It also covers the ones on the edge of the motherboard that NVIDIA never cooled that well in the past. The design reminds me of the Striker Extreme’s cooling system but this one has a fan.

Linked from the north bridge cooling system is a heatpipe that connects to the south bridges’ low profile heat sink. The heat sink is low enough and flat enough that installation of any cards will not be an issue. The south bridge is located in front of the expansion slots and in front and above it on the outer edge of the board you’ll find the SATA ports. Also close by is a readout that displays POST codes.

The XFX 790i Ultra SLI has three PCI-Express x16 (2.0) slots. They are green in color and each have a full x16 lanes of bandwidth for maximum performance. Also there are two PCI-Express x1 slots and two legacy PCI slots.

There are two RJ-45 ports, 2 PS/2 ports, 1 IEEE1394 port, 1 SPDIF port, 6 mini-headphone jacks, 1 eSATA port, and an optical out port for digital audio. The eSATA port is a very welcome addition that I’ve not found on enough enthusiast boards.