New nForce 790i Ultra SLI chipset

Besides the GeForce 9800 GX2, NVIDIA’s also launching a slew of new nForce 7 series chipsets. At the high-end of the spectrum lie the new nForce 790i Ultra SLI and 790i SLI MCPs. These new nForce 790 chipsets solve the most glaring flaw of nForce 780i – lack of support for Intel’s 1600MHz FSB – they also feature native PCIe 2.0 support and thanks to a new memory controller, they also support DDR3 memory, rather than the 1200MHz DDR2 max supported by the nForce 780i chipset. We’ve included the following chart which highlights the key features found in NVIDIA’s Intel-based nForce 7 series MCPs:

nForce 7 Features Comparison
	nForce 790i Ultra SLI	nForce 790i SLI	nForce 780i SLI	nForce 750i SLI
Socket	LGA-775	LGA-775	LGA-775	LGA-775
CPU Support	Penryn (Yorkfield and Wolfdale) Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Pentium	Penryn (Yorkfield and Wolfdale) Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Pentium	Penryn (Yorkfield and Wolfdale) Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Pentium	Penryn (Yorkfield and Wolfdale) Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, Pentium
FSB	1600MHz	1600MHz	1333MHz	1333MHz
ESA-Certified?	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
NVIDIA SLI Technology	Yes, 3-Way (3x16)	Yes, 3-Way (3x16)	Yes, 3-Way (3x16)	Yes, 2-Way (2x8)
Memory Type	DDR3	DDR3	DDR2	DDR2
Max Memory Speed	2000MHz (EPP 2.0)	1333MHz	1200MHz (EPP 1.0)	800MHz
# of PCIe Lanes	60 lanes	60 lanes	62 lanes	26 lanes
# of PCIe Links	10 links	10 links	12 links	6 links
PCIe Configuration	3x16 or 4x8, 1x16, 1x8, 4x1	3x16 or 4x8, 1x16, 1x8, 4x1	3x16 or 4x8, 1x16, 1x8, 6x1	1x16, 1x8, 2x1
PCIe 2.0	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
SATA/PATA Drives	6/2	6/2	6/2	4/4
SATA Speed	3Gbps	3Gbps	3Gbps	3Gbps
RAID	0,1, 0+1, 5	0,1, 0+1, 5	0,1, 0+1, 5	0,1, 0+1, 5
NVIDIA MediaShield Storage Technology	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Native Gigabit Ethernet Connections	2	2	2	1
NVIDIA FirstPacket Technology	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
NVIDIA DualNet Technology	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
NVIDIA Control Panel Utility	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
NVIDIA System Monitor	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
USB Ports	10	10	10	8
PCI Slots	5	5	5	5
Audio	High Definition Audio (Azalia)	High Definition Audio (Azalia)	High Definition Audio (Azalia)	High Definition Audio (Azalia)

As you can see, looking at the paper specs, the biggest difference between the nForce 790i Ultra SLI and the nForce 790i SLI is the Ultra SKU’s support for faster 2.0GHz DDR3 memory speeds. All of our testing conducting today was using 2.0GHz EPP 2.0 memory modules from Crucial. The nForce 790i SLI chipset is limited to DDR3 speeds of 1.33GHz.

NVIDIA also says that while both nForce 790 chipsets are highly overclockable, chips that scale to the highest clock speeds have been binned to go into nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboards. Therefore if overclocking is important to you, you may want to opt for an nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard.

nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboards aren’t cheap though. We’ve been told that Ultra boards will sell for $350 and up. That’s about $100 more than the nForce 790i SLI, which should start around $250 and up, while the nForce 750i SLI is expected to sell for $120+.


With DDR2 memory modules selling for significantly less than DDR3, the nForce 780i SLI chipset will remain in NVIDIA’s lineup as the high-end DDR2 offering in the $250+ segment. Physically the nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard looks very similar to the nForce 780i SLI reference design. Key changes include a larger cooler on the North Bridge with more fins for drawing additional heat off the MCP. NVIDIA also employs a circular heat pipe design that now totally surrounds the entire CPU socket area; only two sides were enclosed on the nForce 780i SLI design. NVIDIA has also added an eSATA port to the 790i Ultra SLI’s back plate, as well as a coaxial audio connector. Finally, on the motherboard itself, NVIDIA includes an additional SATA port next to the x1 PCIe expansion slot.



None of today’s nForce 7xxi chipsets support HybridPower. As we mentioned earlier, NVIDIA’s first chipsets for the Intel platform with HybridPower support won’t arrive until Q2’08.


We’ll be taking a closer look at all the changes introduced in the new nForce 790i Ultra SLI chipset (including overclocking) in a dedicated article.