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NVIDIA nForce 590/570 SLI Roundup Part 1 July 06, 2006 |
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Summary: In part 1 of our nForce 570/590 SLI roundup, we take a look at four different nForce SLI motherboards for AMD's brand new AM2 socket. Inside you'll find motherboards from ASUS, EPoX, Foxconn, and Gigabyte. The ASUS motherboard features 8-phase power delivery while the Gigabyte board has 3 PCI Express graphics slots! See how these boards compare to one another in features and performance in today's article!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 12 ) |
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) |
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Now let’s briefly look at the two high end chipsets featured in this roundup.
| The nForce 570 SLI and nForce 590 SLI chipsets | Page:: ( 2 / 12 ) |
The nF590 SLI platform is the most feature-packed and thus the most expensive of the nF500 series chipsets. At first glance, it seems very similar to the nForce4 SLI X16 platform for the AMD Socket 939 Processors, in fact if you look at a basic overview of the two chipsets side-by-side, you’ll see there are little differences. The most significant changes are DDR2 support, two less native PATA drives, two more native SATAII and the inclusion HD Azalia audio, all missing on the nF4 SLi X16 platform, while present on the nF590 SLi platform. Both chipsets are composed of two chips, and are the only ones like that in their classes. The Southbridge handles most of the I/O operations while the Northbridge is primarily responsible for handling PCI Express graphics.
The nForce 590 differs from the other less expensive options of the nF500 series too. Only nForce 590 boards offer maximum overclocking, and LinkBoost™ Technology. As we noted before, it is the only dual x16 platform as well. Dual x16 PCI Express Graphics (PEG) slots don’t help much, if at all, when gaming, so this is nothing special. These premium boards are priced in the $200+ range. Even now, one month after their release, the three nF590 SLI boards are priced over $200 dollars. The Foxconn and ASUS boards are in stock now, priced at around $210. The Gigabyte board hasn’t been released yet, but will be in stock in the coming week priced similarly. Now let’s move on to the other chipset featured in this roundup.
The nF570 SLI boards are mainstream offerings, and are priced in the $130-$150 range. They are much more affordable than the premium nF590 enthusiast boards. LinkBoost™ Technology did nothing to improve performance as we saw in FiringSquad’s AM2 review, linked on the introductory page of this article. Maximum overclocking is also gone, but many manufacturers have included these options anyway in their BIOS. The nF570 SLI board tested by us, the EPOX MF570-SLI has as many overclocking options if not more than the other nF590 SLI boards.
Let’s move on to the actual boards.
| The Gigabyte M59SLI-S5 Layout and Features | Page:: ( 3 / 12 ) |
For 20 years Gigabyte has been providing the highest quality components including motherboards, graphics cards, chassis and various cooling products. Gigabyte began with motherboards and continues to deliver very stable and affordable products. The motherboard tested today was no different. The Gigabyte M59SLI-S5 motherboard is not available yet, but will be in stores very shortly. It has the cleanest, meaning best layout of all the motherboards featured in this roundup. It uses the standard blue PCB that most Gigabyte boards use.
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The back panel is nothing special. The 8 channel audio jacks and dual Ethernet ports have become a standard, especially among premium enthusiast motherboards. The old legacy parallel and serial connections are also present. This is a nice touch, although many modern high end motherboards have been excluding them. There is also a 1394b connection.
We are all probably used to the 1394a connection being present on the back panel, but instead there are headers for that on the motherboard to the front of your case. There are four USB 2.0 ports on the back and headers for six (6) more on the motherboard.
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The layout here is very clean and standard except for a few features. This motherboard has three PCI Express Graphics (PEG) slots. There is no stated cause for this but we predict that these will be for NVIDIA’s upcoming physics processors. ATI’s physics solution uses a video card in a PEG slot, and to maintain a dual graphics system with a physics card, the motherboard has three PEG slots. If you have a single video card configuration, we suggest fitting the card into the light blue PEG slot. Dual video configurations will utilize the light blue and black slots. We also see a Molex connector at the very bottom of the board. This is also present on the Foxconn board. The purpose for this connector is to provide extra juice to the motherboard when there is a dual graphics configuration. Unfortunately this is a very inconvenient place since some power supplies don’t have long enough cables to reach this spot.
On the right, we see the CPU socket, the area around it, and the memory slots. The dual channel configurations are clearly marked. The two red slots are one channel, while the yellow slots make up the other. To some enthusiasts this may be a bit of a problem because the memory sticks are very close together which may result in unwanted temperatures. Making the channels every other slot would have been a better decision from a thermal standpoint.
The Northbridge and MOSFETs are passively cooled using SilentPipe2™ technology. The 4 phase power management (PWM) area isn’t cooled, unlike many motherboards. This is a minor touch, but Gigabyte could have extended the copper heatsink over the PWM. Near the end of the passive cooling there is the 8pin connector with 4 of the pins blocked off in case your power supply only has a 4pin connector. The connector is located very conveniently, right below the power supply when the motherboard is in a case.
| Gigabyte M59SLI-S5 (cont.) | Page:: ( 4 / 12 ) |
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Near the bottom right corner of the bard we see the Dual BIOS technology that is available only from Gigabyte. In case you ruin the main BIOS during flashing, the other chip saves the motherboard. You can also see three USB2.0 headers (predominantly yellow) for a total of six external ports. There are six native SATAII connectors (four pictured here). The two other SATAII connectors are controlled by the JMicro SATA controller. There is also a Texas Instruments Firewire controller to the left of the JMicro chip. Next to the USB headers are the brightly colored front panel connectors.
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Here we can see the other two native SATA II ports not pictured earlier. There are also the PATA and Floppy connectors. Note there is only one PATA connector for two drives. Previously there were two connectors for four drives. The nF500 and RD580 chipsets now only support two PATA drives. The picture on the right is a close up of the ITE chip that monitors the temperatures and voltages of the system.
Overclocking
Like most of the other Gigabyte motherboards on the market, the user must press Ctrl + F1 to reveal the advanced tweaking settings. Without pressing that, one can only access the HyperTransport and PCI Express speeds. With that setup, we were able to achieve a maximum of 219MHz HyperTransport. This is because the HyperTransport multiplier defaults at 5x and the HyperTransport speed should be maintained at 1000MHz. Since it defaults at 5x200FSB, you must instantly lower the HyperTransport multiplier to overclock. Without Ctrl + F1 the option was not possible, but we were able to reach a measly 219MHz HTT. Once all tweaking options were revealed, the board soared to 311MHz. Any motherboard than can reach 300HTT can be considered a good overclocker. The Ctrl + F1 combination is a little annoying as every other BIOS we’ve encountered has all the options unlocked by default.
| ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe Layout and Features | Page:: ( 5 / 12 ) |
ASUS has been a legend among enthusiasts and mainstream users for many years now. They are known for building solid, fully featured motherboards. Today, ASUS also makes chassis, power supplies, cooling devices, video cards and more. ASUS developed a very solid reputation with their A8N32SLI Deluxe board (Socket 939, nF4 SLI x16 chipset). They continue to live up to that reputation with the AM2 brother on the A8N32, the M2N32-SLI Deluxe.
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The layout of this motherboard differs greatly from the Gigabyte motherboard, but it is also very clean and well planned out. Starting out we see the rear panel ports are numerous and varied. There is the standard 8 channel audio, USB 2.0 ports, the dual Ethernet ports, the serial port and PS/2 ports. There is also a Firewire connection. One thing that stands out is the external SATA port, just below the Firewire connection. This is possible but not many motherboards feature such a connection. If you read the review of the Foxconn nF590SLI board earlier, you can recall that it has space designated for external SATA, but the ports are not physically there.
To the right we see ASUS’s implementation of silent heat pipe technology to cool the North and Southbridge, the MOSFET, and even the 8 phase power management, unlike the Gigabyte motherboard.
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Here are the expansion slots. ASUS does nothing special here, just the standard 2 PEG slots, 1 PCI Express X4 slot and 3 PCI slots. ASUS doesn’t use the 8pin power connector like the Foxconn and Gigabyte boards. Rather it uses a 4 pin connection. Almost all power supplies on the market today have a 4 pin connector, so the 8 pin isn’t required. Next to the first PEG slot, you can see 2 fan headers, and 4 more in the other picture. Though this isn’t required or necessary, it is a nice touch. In the picture to the right, you can see all 6 native SATA II ports next to each other. ASUS doesn’t use another controller for additional ports. There shouldn’t be a need for that though, 6 hard drives should be more than enough for everyone.
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Here we see the four 240-pin memory slots for DDR2 memory. The two dual channel configurations are clearly marked. The yellow memory slots are one channel and the other channel consists of the black slots. The photo on the right shows a blue PATA connector, a black floppy connector and white 24 pin power connector; all of these connectors are located very conveniently.
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Here are the Texas Instruments Firewire and Marvell NIC controllers. Many manufacturers have chosen to make one of the two NIC controllers separate from nVidia’s control despite the fact that the nF570 and nF590 chipsets support dual Ethernet. This is because Marvell’s solutions are usually faster.
Overclocking
The ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe has a BIOS with a very different interface compared to the other three nForce500 motherboards tested here. The Gigabyte, Foxconn, and EPOX motherboards have a Phoenix BIOS, which in our opinion is easier to navigate and use. ASUS’s Award BIOS has all the tweaking features the other motherboards have, if not more, but the layout and appearance is less appealing and more complicated to navigate. Nevertheless, we were able to push the board to a very nice 314MHz limit.
| EPOX MF570SLI Layout and Features | Page:: ( 6 / 12 ) |
Traditionally EPOX has produced budget-oriented motherboards. In the past couple of years however, they have been producing high end motherboards packed richly with features at a great value. EPOX is not making an nF590 SLI board, so they settle for the next tier down, the nF570 chipset. Because it is priced much less than the premium nF590 SLI motherboards, this EPOX MF570 SLI model should sell very well.
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The green circuit board and brightly colored orange and yellow connectors are traditional choices for EPOX. This motherboard has a few layout issues that we will discuss later. Starting from the rear panel connectors, we see nothing new. The 8 channel audio, dual gigabit Ethernet and 4 USB 2.0 ports are present. What are missing are the Firewire and external SATA. The empty spot in the middle of the rear panel connectors is marked as a place for those. It is strange that EPOX would skimp on Firewire; however external SATA is a more premium feature, so it is no surprise it is missing.
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In the left picture, we see the expansion slots. EPOX gives plenty of room for SLI, allowing video cards with coolers that take up two slots, primarily the NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX to function in SLI mode while still having room to breathe. In the right picture, we see the dual channel configurations clearly marked. The orange memory slots make up one of two channels, while the yellow slots are the other channel. We also see a yellow PATA connector near the RAM slots.
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To the left are the six native SATA II ports found on the nForce 590 and nForce 570 SLI chipsets. To save room, two are placed horizontally across the board, while the other four are lined up vertically. In the photo on the right, are many connectors crowded together. First we see two more SATA II ports powered by a JMicro controller. Next we see the BIOS chip. This brings up the first layout issue. The CMOS clear chip that is usually next to the BIOS is nowhere near it. Rather it is a whole 4 inches away near the 6 native SATA ports.
There are three USB 2.0 headers for a total of 6 ports. They right next to each other and are colored black, yellow and blue. On the very bottom is a black floppy connector. Now here is the real surprise. Although the nForce 500 series doesn’t support 4 PATA drives, rather only two on one connector, EPOX added another yellow PATA connector for four drives. Unfortunately the second PATA and floppy connectors are placed horizontally across the board, versus the regular vertical placement. This makes cases untidy with cable clutter. To combat this, EPOX included two rounded PATA cables. Despite that, we label this placement as a mistake in layout. All of the PATA and floppy connectors should have been right next to each other.
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From left to right: EPoX's new Ghost BIOS chip, which allows you to recover your BIOS after an unsuccessful BIOS flash. Next is the Realtek 883 codec. Next are two Marvell gigabit Ethernet controllers. Instead of substituting one of nVidia’s Ethernet ports for a Marvell chips like the ASUS and Foxconn motherboards, EPOX lets the Marvell chips take over control of both ports. Finally is a close-up of the above mentioned JMicro SATA controller.
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This photo shows onboard power and reset switches, the front panel connectors and finally the debugging LED. This feature is only found on the Foxconn board and shows that EPOX is really trying to provide a premium board for a price that is not at all premium.
Overclocking
Although the nF570 SLI chipset does not support nVidia’s “Max Overclocking”, we were not surprised to see the EPOX MF570SLI’s BIOS as rich in overclocking features as any of the nF590 boards. Our overclocking results showed that the nF570SLI is no weaker in that category. Our EPOX MF570SLI sample topped out at 307MHz HTT. So for much less money you get about equal overclocking. This was a good step forward for EPOX.
| How We Tested and Benchmarks | Page:: ( 7 / 12 ) |
Test Setup
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+
2GB Corsair PC6400
BFG GeForce 7900GTX OC
Samsung 250GB SATAII
Antec 400W ATX2.0
Foxconn C51XEM2AA
Gigabyte M59SLI-S5
ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe
EPOX MF570SLI
Benchmarks that are being conducted are following:
Lavalys Everest
- Memory Read
- Memory Write
- Memory Latency
Sisoft Sandra
- Float Memory Bandwidth
- Integer Memory Bandwidth
3DMark06
Aquamark 3.3
HDTach
Rightmark Audio
Quake 4
- 1600x1200 Ultra Quality 4xAA 16xAF
Call of Duty 2
- 1600x1200 4xAA 16xAF
FEAR
- 1600x1200 4xAA 16xAF Maximum Settings
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
- Outdoors 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF
- Indoors 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF
- Foliage 1600x1200 4xAA 8xAF
| Memory Bandwidth and Synthetic Test Results | Page:: ( 8 / 12 ) |
SiSoft Sandra
AquaMark 3
Everest
3DMark 06
Notes
As you can see, the motherboards don’t perform very differently. In each test, the motherboards finish within 1-3.5% of each other. There is no clear winner here, because almost every bench mark is one by a different motherboard. The Foxconn board does take 4 of the 7 tests here, but only by a couple of percent. The EPOX board hung well with the nF590 boards. These are great results for a motherboard that is almost half the price of the rest.
| Audio and Hard Disk Performance | Page:: ( 9 / 12 ) |
RightMark
HDTach
Notes
What may stand out to you is the gigantic difference between ASUS’s audio performance and that of the other motherboards. This is because ASUS uses ADI Soundmax audio, versus the Realtek solutions found on the other motherboards. The hard disk performance is much more consistent though. Except for the Gigabyte board, which had a 1.3ms (+9.3%) higher random access time, and a slightly slower (-1.5%) average read speed, all motherboards performed equally. Although the Gigabyte board seems slower by the numbers, the difference will not be noticeable in real life programs such as games, which we will get to later. Once again, we see the less expensive EPoX motherboard hang with its big brothers.
| Gaming Performance | Page:: ( 10 / 12 ) |
Notes
All gaming results here are very consistent. The Foxconn motherboard pulls ahead in every benchmark, but by less than 1 percent over the other motherboards. Gigabyte’s slightly slower hard disk performance does not affect gaming, nor does ASUS’s enlarged sound CPU utilization. Once again, the EPOX MF570SLI is on par with the premium nF590 SLI motherboards.
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 11 / 12 ) |
Foxconn C51XEM2AA
Pros
- Great feature set, and performance that slightly tops all of the other motherboards. If you only look at the numbers, this motherboard can be labeled as the fastest.
- Well assigned dual channel configurations. Unlike the other three motherboards, Foxconn’s memory channels are every other slot (1&3, 2&4). The other motherboards’ channels are 1&2, 3&4. This makes the memory sticks right next to each other, producing less airflow around the heat spreaders and potentially leading to higher operating temperatures. The Foxconn motherboard’s layout prevents that.
Cons
- We only found one con, but it is pretty substantial. The Northbridge on this motherboard is cooled by a rather small aluminum heatsink, versus the copper heatpipe assemblies found on the ASUS and Gigabyte nF590 SLI motherboards. This results in temperatures up to a whopping 81C at full load! Not only might this be a risk to the lifespan of the motherboard, but it also impairs overclockling. With an 80mm fan blowing on the Northbridge heatsink, we were able to bring the temperature down to a cool 39C, and our max overclock jumped from a measly 253MHz, to 321MHz HTT.
Gigabyte M59SLI-S5
Pros
- Three PEG slots. Gigabyte potentially took a step forward to future-proof this motherboard for SLI physics. If or when NVIDIA announces its GPUs will support triple card operation like the ATI implementation, Gigabyte’s motherboard will be ready.
- SilentPipe2 technology. This all-copper, completely silent heatpipe covered the MOSFETS, and both the North and South bridges. Although completely passive, temperatures reached a maximum of only 47C.
Cons
- The annoying Ctrl + F1 combination to access the advance overclocking features is a little irratating. While it may prevent inexperienced users from messing up their system, all motherboards we tested today don’t include such a feature. Also, the nF590 motherboards are made for overclocking, so why hide the options?
- Minor hard disk performance impairment. Although this didn’t affect any other benchmarks, we still saw it in out tests. So this is another minor con.
ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe
Pros
- 8-phase power and many voltage increments in the BIOS. ASUS power implementation was the only one of that kind of any motherboard tested in this roundup. All other motherboards featured 4-phase power. ASUS also had many more increments for voltages in the BIOS to provide the least possible voltage, and therefore heat to the chipset and CPU.
- Silent heatpipe chipset cooling. ASUS implementation was bulkier than Gigabyte’s, but it had to cool the 8-phase power management, not cooled by the Gigabyte solution, MOSFET, and both the North and South bridges. ASUS’s cooling system reached 51C, slightly high than that of the Gigabyte board, but once again, the ASUS board had more area to cool.
- External SATA. This was a feature found only on the ASUS motherboard. Although the Foxconn and EPOX motherboards left space on the rear panel for eSATA, they didn’t actually place it there.
Cons
- The ADI Soundmax audio CPU utilization performance was far worse than that of the Realtek solutions found on other motherboards. Although it didn’t negatively affect gaming performance, the numbers in the RightMark audio test showed otherwise. We’ll have to see if a new driver update lowers CPU utilization.
EPOX MF570SLI
Pros
- Great performance. The EPOX MF570SLI kept up with the premium nF590SLI motherboards throughout the tests.
- Enthusiast features that aren’t found even on even some of the nF590SLI boards. EPOX includes a BIOS packed with overclocking features that enabled us to reach about the same maximum overclock as the other premium nF590SLI boards. The onboard power and reset switches and the debugging LED shows EPOX’s commitment to stand out among mainstream motherboards.
- Quiet active cooling. Active cooling on the nF570 chipset helped us achieve a high overclock. The chipset did reach high temperatures of 46C, which is high for an actively cooled chipset, especially compared to the 47C max of the completely passively cooled Gigabyte board. Nevertheless, quiet active cooling is a plus.
Cons
- There were a few layout issues, primarily the horizontal placement of the second PATA and floppy connectors. The other issues are minor, and should be negative factors.
| Conclusion | Page:: ( 12 / 12 ) |
As of right now, we cannot recommend any particular board. There will be a second part in this AM2 roundup featuring more motherboards where we will recommend the motherboards that stand out from the rest. In this roundup, every motherboard stood out for a different reason. The ASUS M2N32 SLI Deluxe stood out due to a richer feature set such which included external SATA and 8 phase power management. The Gigabyte M59SLI-S5 motherboard had an extra PEG slot, making it more future proof than the rest. The EPOX MF570SLI stood out by providing equal performance, and enthusiast controls for a much lower price. Although the Foxconn C51XEM2AA didn’t stand out anywhere in particular, it took the majority of benchmarks by a tiny margin.
There is also a looming threat on the horizon. Intel is scheduled to release the Core2Duo or “Conroe” in a few weeks. A day after that AMD is planning price cuts up to 50% on all AM2 CPUs on July 24th.So if you wait a few weeks, you’ll be able to judge for yourself which platform is better, and enjoy significantly lower prices.