Finally, NVIDIA has developed an nForce chipset for the Intel platform and it’s looking mighty tasty.
Finally, NVIDIA has developed an nForce chipset for the Intel platform and it’s looking mighty tasty. It doesn’t surprise us that it can’t quite perform at the level of Intel’s 925XE, because of an immature memory controller, but nonetheless it still manages to put up a good fight with SLI and SATA RAID 5. ASUS’ baby is passively cooled and something we grew strangely fond of was the explanatory labelling, listing the various onboard connectors and components (in place of the usual cryptic ‘J1’, ‘JB3’, etc.). The overall layout is accessible, with the stand-out factor being the increased space between the two PCI-E 16x slots, allowing for better cooling. Hard drive manufacturers are on the brink of bringing out external SATA drives and ASUS has prepared for this by supplying a juicy eSATA port. This allows external drives access to the immense transfer speed of internal drives. Forget hot-plugging an internal drive though, as it uses a different connector and the power must be supplied externally. As with all new mobos, this one also requires a 24-pin ATX power plug, so a new PSU may be needed. Something we’ve been begging for is an updated audio chip, but right across the board everyone is opting to use the AC’97 codec. Why the step down from SoundStorm, we don’t know, but in comparison, AC’97 is really missing the meat. Sound aside, this is a top motherboard, with a spacious design and plenty of mileage ahead of it with eSATA, two Gigabit Ethernet ports and native dual-channel DDR2 720 support.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012