790i Ultra SLI Motherboards Compared

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This was ALL OF THE AVAILABLE 790i Ultra SLI MOTHERBOARDS: Other graphics brands with NVIDIA reference boards INCLUDING EVGA are selling the same unit as XFX, even with the same BIOS (except for the boot logo). XFX was the only one who cared to send one.
 
Thats what i was going to say!!! Thank god. Well i guess i made the right choice. XFX 790i, exactly what i am going to buy in the coming month. Just need to save for it XD.
 
Who would pay four hundred dollars,when you can just buy a P45 for 100-150 dollars which has roughly the same real world experience as an X48 or 790I?
Nah,I'd rather buy better and more reliable parts-such as power supply,processor,GRAPHICS CARD,and maybe go buy a rifle 😛
 
$400 for a motherboard? What the hell is wrong with the X48 Express that people would rather consider buying a 790i? And it can't be because of SLI. Makes more sense to buy the X48 and Crossfire.
 
[citation][nom]jaragon13[/nom]Who would pay four hundred dollars,when you can just buy a P45 for 100-150 dollars which has roughly the same real world experience as an X48 or 790I?Nah,I'd rather buy better and more reliable parts-such as power supply,processor,GRAPHICS CARD,and maybe go buy a rifle [/citation]

If you want SLI you're going to need an SLI motherboard. The article specifically stated that the reference design motherboard was almost as good in many ways as the winning board, but far cheaper.

The site only has two awards, one is for top value and the other is for "best of the best". It's hard to award a $350 motherboard for top value, but it's not so difficult awarding the "best of the best" even if the price is outrageous
 
[citation][nom]kitsilencer[/nom]$400 for a motherboard? What the hell is wrong with the X48 Express that people would rather consider buying a 790i? And it can't be because of SLI. Makes more sense to buy the X48 and Crossfire.[/citation]

It does! Well, sorta. If you want the absolute fastest rig on the planet, you're going to need at least two, possibly three, GTX280's. But if you can wait a few days or maybe a couple weeks, you might be surprised at how well a Crossfire set of HD4870X2's can perform using an X48 motherboard.
 
My point is that,even though you could theoritically have 3/4 GPU's all at once,you won't get nearly as much performance as you'd want.A simple 750I or P45 chipset will do nearly the same job.
 
It is a foxconn board i bet.I just read a review elsewhere with same stuff except it had an x48 chipset."All manner of goodies are bundled with the Black Ops: a 120MM fan, a plastic dry ice cooling pot for the Northbridge, and a Plexiglas "benching table" for open-air use."
 
Hey i just bought an EVGA's nForce 790i Ultra SLI 775 A1 Version Motherboard can you test this against them please?
I wanna see how my motherboard performs against these. :)
 
[citation][nom]sirrell[/nom]Hey i just bought an EVGA's nForce 790i Ultra SLI 775 A1 Version Motherboard can you test this against them please?I wanna see how my motherboard performs against these. [/citation]

The EVGA motherboard WAS tested. It's the same motherboard as XFX sells. EVGA has never made a motherboard, it buys them from other companies, and in this case XFX and EVGA buy the SAME motherboard from the SAME company. Even the BIOS is the same, which you'd probably know if you read a little more of the article.

XFX wants your business more than EVGA, which is why XFX sent a motherboard when EVGA did not. In fact, EVGA wouldn't even respond to the request.
 
[citation][nom]theLaminator[/nom]Why buy a 790i? Just wait for Nehalem and get a mobo with the x58 chipset. It supports SLI and CrossFire. Seems like the way to go to me. http://www.custompc.co.uk/news/604 [...] sfire.html[/citation]

X58 DOES NOT support SLI any more than the X48 did. Either motherboard could use the nForce 200 bridge to let NVIDIA's graphics driver SEE the "Compatibility". It's all driver tricks, as Intel chipsets supported SLI until NVIDIA locked Intel out in the graphics driver.

So, we might see some X58 motherboards with an nForce 200, and we might also see some that don't have it. All that is well and fine if you're interested in waiting for the "next big thing". But if you want to buy now and instead wait for the next big thing...perhaps you'll see something else on the horizon by then, and never buy anything.
 
mmhh...I would like if asus make a "ready-watercooled" motherboard. For someone who want a silent PC, watercooled, is there a motherboard better than evga 790 ultra black pearl?
 
just so everyone knows, the "mystery motherboard" is a foxconn board. i was just on their website the other day and they had some information on this board which is no longer there. any they are the only company that has a LN2 cooling solution for the chipset
 
Looks like both nVidia and Intel are guilty of not providing information to each other. Intel for not giving the specs to run the 45nm chips and nVidia for restricting the driver on Intel chips... that second move by nVidia sounds borderline monopolistic. Surprised they haven't ended up in courts, no wonder tensions are so high between these companies.
 
[citation][nom]Niva[/nom]Looks like both nVidia and Intel are guilty of not providing information to each other. Intel for not giving the specs to run the 45nm chips and nVidia for restricting the driver on Intel chips... that second move by nVidia sounds borderline monopolistic. Surprised they haven't ended up in courts, no wonder tensions are so high between these companies.[/citation]

Both moves are monopolistic, but you could say NVIDIA delivered the first shot in this war since SLI has been restricted for so long.

I was surprised about the news that Intel had traded "permission to use the nForce 200 on Intel chipsets" for its new CPU interface: That would mean Intel gets nothing (still has to buy an nVidia chipset component) while NVIDIA keeps on rolling.
 
Yup... all it took was the mention of the liquid nitrogen tower to know it had to be a 790i version of the Foxconn Blackops. If it does come out I hope it's considerably better and more reliable than their disaster of an X48 board. Hmmm... maybe thats why this board is delayed or cancelled. Just having a notable overclocker jump ship from DFI to Foxconn does not turn a traditional junk maker into a shining star.
 
Good stuff. Waiting for the next big thing usually is a fruitless effort, however at this time with Nehalem just weeks away from launch buying such a high priced end of product life motherboard makes very little sense. One can surmise that after Nehalem starts filling the channel retailers will be hard pressed to clear the channel of high end Core 2 products without major price reductions. Wait a few more weeks and your budget should be very nicely rewarded.
 
Just wanted to step in here and say this, I have an EVGA 790i Ultra Board, and have performed every test you guys did accept the audio tests (because I use a Creative X-fi Fatality card) and I will say this,
My board currently right now is running on air cooling for both my CPU and MOBO. My system runs stable at 3.6ghz w/ a 9 x multi at 400 mhz FSB all day everyday = 3600 mhz,(Q6600) with 1333 mhz Corsair DDR3. The FSB is set at 1.40v and the Processor is set at 1.45v. My ram is running 1.8v. I am using BIOS P05, which is currently considered amongst Evga owners as the best bios they have used for this board. It's very very stable. A new one is currently being worked on as well according to moderators at the EVGA forums.

Personally I think I would have liked to see the boards run and tested with an 8800GT because I think that is now pretty much the main stream, and definitely a better playing field than the crappy 3850 that you chose to use. Most gamers use something better than that by now. Whats the point of testing crysis with a card that can only push 5 frames a second? Also I would have also recommended testing with a Q6600 processor because that is also the current standard for a gaming processor right now among most readers as far a I can tell from most forums and posts.

Some might disagree with me but as far as I am concerned I read alot more posts about guys trying to overclock Q6600's than E6850's, and now with the Q6600's low price it can't be beat. Most gamers Are using over clocked Q6600's not e6850's as far as I have been reading.

On another front, why wasn't the x48's crossfire capabilities tested versus the Nvidia's SLI capabilities with cards in the same price to performance bracket? It would have also been nice to see if the more expensive ASUS provided any additional performance over the Reference design boards in SLi mode.

It is also interesting to see how well the Nvidia boards did vs. the X48 for Harddrive performance, as the Nvidia boards are being consistently slammed for their IO and raid performance. Depsite this I have yet to see any data corruption that everyone's talking about, and also my Raid configured in "0" performs flawlessly, with three Samsung 32mb cache drives.

All in all, I will tell you guys this if any of you are planning on going to the 790i Ultra, go with the EVGA version. They have excellent support, lifetime warranties, and even replace your boards if you fry it while overclocking. I called and spoke to one of their techs who told me I should be able to hit 3.8 GHZ with my Q6600 when I get water cooling for this board with no problems.. stable.

Also don't worry about whether a large heatsink will fit, I have had 4 different huge heatsinks on my EVGA, with no issues at all as far as mounting problems were concerned. These included the Zalman CNPS9700 mentioned in this report as well as a Big Typhoon from Thermal Take, a VR1 also from Thermal Take and now a huge Ultra Chilltec Thermal Electric Controlled cooler, with no issues.

Make sure that you update to Bios P05 and you will be fine. One thing I will tell you about these boards is that they are picky when it comes to the ram, and sometimes you will need to manually set the correct voltage for some ram as the board will set it to a default 1.5 volts. Most DDR3 uses 1.5v to 2.0v depending on the manufacturer and performance level, make sure you know which to set it too or you will get BSOD's.

Hope this helps anybody out there looking to upgrade or switch to the 790i's.
 


That's nice to hear. If P05 BIOS really is better than the subsequent P06, it's a shame that XFX didn't tell that to THG.



This is very simple: The review before it used a crappy 3850, so the card was kept for comparison purposes. And the reason it was used in the review before it was, because the review before that used a crappy 3850. And the one before that. And regarding the one before that, well, the 3850 hadn't become crappy yet back then.



Why not XFX? Doesn't XFX have a "double lifetime" warranty for the same motherboard?
 
I was a die-hard ASUS person...I purchased the XFX 790i MB because it costs around 25% less than the ASUS... I installed an Intel E8400 with G.SKILL 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1800 (PC3 144000). The XFX 790i MB would not POST... I spent 10 workdays with XFX Tech support to get this MB up and running. They told me it was a BAD MB can you ship back to XFX so they can check it out. I said NO... I am going to RMA the MB.... I purchased the ASUS 790i Striker II Extreme. Used the same CPU and DDR3...computer started up with no issues... Yes, you do pay a little more for the ASUS...But it does come with a sound card and a Game... The ASUS MB is the best thing I purchased in a long time...It runs great...I highly recommend this MB to anyone who wants a true gaming MB...
 
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