Introduction

It has been over a month since the June 23rd launch date for the AMD AM2 Socket and the NVIDIA nForce500 core logic. AM2 was the first part of AMD’s transition to a new generation of Athlon 64 CPU’s. The most significant change in AM2 is AMD’s transition from DDR1 to DDR2 memory. Along the way NVIDIA has added new and innovative technologies to their nForce chipsets. These include LinkBoost™, DualNet®, FirstPacket™ and Teaming technologies. You can read about these advancements and more in our AMD Socket AM2 Chipset Showdown.

Presently, there are many nForce AM2-ready motherboards on the market from numerous manufacturers. Prominent manufacturers such as ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Foxconn, Abit, DFI, ECS, EPOX, Biostar and more, have boards available for purchase. Today we’ll look at the premium boards from ASUS, Gigabyte, Foxconn, and EPOX. The first three boards are from the nF590 SLI segment, while the EPOX board is based on the nF570 SLI chipset. More boards will be thoroughly tested in a second roundup later on. Here’s a quick overview of the new nF500 chipsets:

NVIDIAs nForce5 lineup
	nForce 590 SLI	nForce 570 SLI	nForce 570 Ultra	nForce 550
Segment	Enthusiast SLI	Performance SLI	Performance non-SLI	Mainstream
Intended CPU	Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64 X2, Athlon 64	Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64 X2, Athlon 64	Athlon 64 FX, Athlon 64 X2, Athlon 64	Athlon 64, Sempron
NVIDIA SLI Technology	Yes 2x16	Yes 1x16/2x8 in SLI	No	No
NVIDIA LinkBoost Technology	Yes	No	No	No
Max Overclocking	Yes	No	No	No
FirstPacket Technology	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
DualNet Technology	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Native Gigabit Ethernet connections	2	2	2	1
Teaming	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
TCP/IP Accleration	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
NVIDIA MegaShield	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
SATA/PATA Drives	6/2	6/2	6/2	6/2
SATA Speed	3GB/sec	3GB/sec	3GB/sec	3GB/sec
RAID	0, 1, 0+1, 5	0, 1, 0+1, 5	0, 1, 0+1	0, 1, 0+1
NVIDIA nTune	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
PCI Express Lanes, #Links Configuration	46 lanes, 9 links (16, 16, 8, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1)	28 lanes 6 links (16, 8, 1, 1, 1, 1)	20 lanes 5 links (16, 1, 1, 1, 1)	20 lanes 5 links (16, 1, 1, 1, 1)
USB Ports	10	10	10	10
PCI Slots	5	5	5	5
Audio	HD Audio (Azalia)	HD Audio (Azalia)	HD Audio (Azalia)	HD Audio (Azalia)

Now let’s briefly look at the two high end chipsets featured in this roundup.