by Ilya Gavrichenkov
07/02/2008 | 06:06 PM
Testing contemporary mainboards based on Nvidia chipsets is a real challenge for a hardware reviewer. At least for a responsible reviewer who cares about his reputation. All our previous experience with LGA775 mainboards based on nForce core logic sets indicates that it is really hard to make any positive conclusions about them without deceiving the readers. And even if the board performs impeccably during the test session, it doesn’t quite do it. Nvidia Company have lost their credibility as a developer of reliable and stable solutions back in the days of nForce 680i SLI. After the mainboards based on it got into the mass market, the users experienced numerous incidents when they lost data from their hard drives because of the chipset bugs. And later on the owners of nForce 680i SLI based mainboards had to face pretty unpleasant compatibility issues with Intel’s quad-core Penryn processors, although Nvidia used to claim there would be none. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to reveal issues like that during a regular editorial test session, since they occur occasionally and only in certain conditions.
Unfortunately, our first reviews of mainboards based on Nvidia’s 6th chipset series didn’t reveal any of those problems. And we did give these products very good verdicts, which made us feel really guilty later on. After that we became much more careful about their system chipsets and even tried to avoid them. However, we can’t disregard Nvidia’s attempts in the chipset segment and cannot leave their new nForce 790i SLI completely out of our consideration. Especially since Nvidia keeps stimulating the sales of mainboards on their core logic using the graphics card market as the driving force. As you know, SLI technology allows using several graphics cards on GeForce GPUs in a single configuration. However, you can only enjoy SLI if you have a mainboard based on an Nvidia nForce chipset in your system. And although the only reason behind this restriction is pure marketing, we have to put up with it. The manufacturer forces users who are willing to build a high-performance multi-GPU graphics subsystem to buy unpredictable mainboards, and we, reviewers, face a tricky task of giving them a fair and objective evaluation.
Today we are going to talk about a new ASUS mainboard based on the latest Nvidia chipset for LGA775 platform – nForce 790i SLI. Frankly speaking, we hoped that this chipset will help us erase the unpleasant memories from the previous generation solutions. But our hopes will never come true, as you may have already figured out. Mainboards on the 7th generation nForce chipsets bring in new obstacles that are practically as destructive as the old ones. Nvidia engineers currently keep fighting the traditional unexplainable HDD data losses as well as spontaneous error occurring during memory overclocking, system freeze during video playback, etc. That is why if you read through several reviews and decided to get yourself a new nForce 790i SLI based mainboard, we strongly advise to check out the users’ feedback in numerous forums first.
Keeping in mind that nForce 790i SLI may cause all sorts of issues, we are going to review a new ASUS Striker II Extreme (NSE) mainboard that came to replace ASUS Striker Extreme in the Republic of Gamers series.
But before we start talking about ASUS Striker II Extreme, we should say a few words about Nvidia nForce 790i SLI chipset. It is a really new solution, and not a slightly modified previous-generation chipset like nForce 780i SLI and nForce 750i SLI. The new chipset we are talking about today consists of two and not three bridges, since PCI Express 2.0 is now finally supported in the SPP North Bridge (System Platform Processor) and not implemented by an additional controller. Moreover, nForce 790i SLI supports faster DDR3 SDRAM and officially supports processors with 1600MHz bus.
As a result, the block diagram for the new Nvidia nForce 790i SLI looks as follows:
We can see right away that all the innovations of the new nForce 790i SLI have been made in the North Bridge. As for the South Bridge, Nvidia engineers believe it is still up-to-date that’s why they have been leaving it as is for years already. It is partially true, however, some people may get very concerned that the new nForce 790i SLI uses an MCP (Media and Communications Processor) developed two years ago for nForce 570a SLI.
nForce 790i SLI uses an absolutely new SPP (North Bridge). It is responsible for two PCI Express x16 2.0 graphics card slots. Additional PCI Express x16, x8 and x1 slots are implemented via the chipset South Bridge and do not support version 2.0 of the protocol. That is why nForce 790i SLI is first of all designed to support dual-card SLI configurations. In fact, Nvidia stresses that the third PCI Express x16 slot is intended for a physics accelerator. So, Nvidia gives everyone to understand very clearly that experiments with three- or four-card SLI configurations are very unlikely to become a mass solution any time soon.
Speaking of the SLI, we can’t help mentioning that nForce 790i SLI is the last Nvidia chipset without the integrated graphics core. Even nForce 790a SLI for Socket AM2+ platform launched just a little after already features an integrated graphics core. It is primarily introduced for Hybrid SLI and Hybrid Power technologies, which disable the external graphics in 2D mode where GPU performance is of minimal importance.
Besides the fresh PCI Express bus controller, the new chipset North Bridge also acquired an updated memory controller supporting DDR3 SDRAM. I have to point out that unlike integrated memory controllers from Intel, Nvidia solution is not backward compatible with DDR2 SDRAM. Therefore, Nvidia nForce 790i SLI based mainboards features only DDR3 DIMM slots. Overall, this is a good time to switch to new memory standard. Although a lot of users still consider DDR3 SDRAM to be expensive and unnecessary exotics, Intel has done a great job in preparing the market for it. Moreover, DDR3 SDRAM can work synchronously with the processor FSB, thus ensuring better performance in Nvidia chipsets due to lower latencies.
Transition to DDR3 SDRAM required Nvidia to develop new EPP spec – Enhanced Performance Profiles 2.0. This specification provides SPD expansion for saving settings profiles during overclocking this time for DDR3 SDRAM. And although EPP 2.0 technology is a complete analogue of Intel’s XMP, the profiles supported by different companies’ chipsets are not compatible.
Note that Nvidia offers two identical versions of its new chipset: nForce 790i SLI and nForce 790i Ultra SLI. Besides the price for the mainboard makers, these chipsets have only one difference: a more expensive modification is formally compatible with up to DDR3-1000 overclocker memory modules. In reality it means that nForce 790i Ultra SLI is simpler to configure with high-speed DDR3 SDRAM EPP 2.0 memory modules: all necessary parameters can be set automatically. In manual configuration mode both nForce 790i SLI modifications have no limitations for memory bus clock speed. That is why nForce 790i Ultra SLI as well as nForce 790i SLI have almost the same chances to end up in an enthusiast’s computer.
As for the alternative solutions from other manufacturers, the closest rival to the new Nvidia chipsets in both: price and features will be Intel X48 Express. However, it is important to understand that it is not direct competition, since X48 Express doesn’t support SLI configurations, which remains nForce’s exclusive feature. Nevertheless, graphics subsystems made of several GeForce graphics cards are not that widely spread these days, so it makes some sense to still compare the functionality of the new nForce 790i SLI against Intel X48 Express:
As we see, top Nvidia and Intel chipsets have very similar base specifications. However, nForce 790i SLI looks more attractive from several standpoints: number of supported PCI Express lanes as well as bus bandwidth between the chipset North and South Bridges. Also, Nvidia chipset with two Ethernet controllers offers between networking functionality due to Teaming support. Besides, it also supports Parallel ATA interface that has been long gone from Intel South Bridges. In fact, the only thing Intel X48 Express is superior in, is the number of USB ports.
However, do not take this specification comparison too seriously. Mainboard manufacturers can easily add the missing functionality with additional controllers when designing their products. Moreover, it is not the official claimed specifications that are important, but the way they actually work.
That is why let’s get to know the new mainboard based on Nvidia nForce 790i SLI chipset.
So, we got our hands on the sister of a well-known ASUS Striker Extreme - ASUS Striker II NSE mainboard based on Nvidia nForce 790i SLI chipset. These two mainboards differ by their chipset North Bridges. Extremely pricy Striker II Extreme is based on nForce 790i Ultra SLI, while a more affordable Striker II NSE is based on nForce 790i SLI. The specifications of our today’s testing hero, ASUS Striker II NSE, look as follows:
If we compare these specs to ASUS Striker II Extreme, we will see that there are hardly any differences. All the differences lie in the Memory: they claim that Striker II Extreme supports memory up to DDR3-2000 SDRAM, while Striker II NSE stops at DDR3-1600. It is hard to tell what they actually mean by this, since our Striker II NSE allowed setting memory frequency at up to 3000MHz. So, this difference between the two mainboards seems to be just a formality, which may, however, save you about $75.
As you can see from the specification table above, ASUS engineers considered Nvidia nForce 790i SLI functionality to be quite sufficient for a mainboard from a top price range. Therefore, almost all Striker II NSE features represent the chipset functionality. Besides the two main chips – SPP and MCP, they used an additional JMicron JMB363 controller providing a pair of eSATA ports and a VIA VT6308P IEEE1394 controller.
So, even though ASUS engineers designed their own Nvidia nForce 790i SLI based mainboard layout different from the reference, they didn’t create anything unique from the functional standpoint. ASUS Striker II Extreme and NSE offer almost the same features as top of the line mainboards from EVGA, XFX and other manufacturers. Even the number of slots is identical: ASUS mainboards have two PCI Express x16 2.0 slots, one PCI Express x16 slot of the “old” type, two PCI Express x1 and two regular PCI slots.
However, it would be incorrect to claim that ASUS Striker II NSE is absolutely identical to the reference mainboards on Nvidia nForce 790i SLI. The thing is that this ASUS mainboard belongs to the Republic of Gamers series, which determines a number of interesting features it has, including a very rich accessories bundle. Therefore, it is logical that this mainboard comes in a large and very attractive package that will certainly stand out in stores:
The exterior of the box is not very informative, its primary role is to make the first impression. Therefore, there is a gun shot hole on the very front of the box right next to the model name. All the mainboard advantages (according to the manufacturer) are listed on the inside of the foldable box front panel:
Here you can also check out the sound card and cooling system components through the transparent windows. However, there was no room on the box for a mainboard photo as well as for a detailed list of features.
The box contains the mainboard in transparent firm plastic casing and a smaller box with accessories. Among them are quite common items: user’s manual, SATA and PATA cables, a DVD-disk with drivers and software and a rear panel case bracket with two additional USB 2.0 ports and IEEE1394 connector.
However, there are also a few very interesting accessories in there. Namely, two SLI bridges for two and three graphics cards; additional rotor fan for the chipset cooling system that comes with all top ASUS mainboards; ASUS” brand name Q-connector set that make it easier to connect and disconnect the front panel indicators and buttons, and an original I/O Shield with built-in highlighting.
The third group of accessories bundled with ASUS Striker II NSE includes absolutely exotic items that come only bundled with the Republic of Gamers boards. They are Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts game DVD, cable ties, three thermal diodes to be placed randomly inside a system case, protective rubber pads for the system sitting on the desk, LCD Poster indicator and a set of connecting pipes for the liquid-cooling system.
As you may have already understood from the description of the accessories bundle, ASUS Striker II NSE features a very original cooling system. It can work in three different modes: simple (passive) mode, with an additional fan and as part of a liquid-cooling system. Moreover, it also looks very impressive, though a little overboard, because it consists of four pretty big heatsinks connected with copper heatpipes.
The size of this system is quite justified, considering that nForce 790i SLI is one of the “hottest” chipsets available in the market today. As a result, even impressively large ASUS chipset cooling system becomes scorching hot during work. It is not only internal complexity of nForce 790i SLI chipset, but also 90nm production technology they use for it that determines these high temperatures.
The largest heatsink is installed on the nForce 790i SLI SPP North Bridge and it is not just a ribbed chunk of aluminum. There is a water block on top of this heatsink, so that you could include it into your liquid-cooling contour using the bundled connecting pipes. This water block makes ASUS Striker II NSE mainboard a great choice for those overclockers who prefer liquid-cooling systems. This mainboard can be connected to a liquid-cooling system in practically no time without any extra effort on the user’s part. The central heatsink is topped with a small intriguing parallelepiped with “Republic of Gamers” logo connected to a power out on the mainboard PCB. However, despite our expectations, it has nothing to do with cooling: it is not a Peltier module, but a glowing decoration.
There are three heatpipes originating from a massive central heatsink. Each of them ends in its own heatsink. The lower flattened heatpipe goes to a low-profile South Bridge heatsink. Two other heatpipes go up and lead to MOSFET heatsinks of the processor voltage regulator circuitry. These two heatsinks around LGA775 can accommodate a bundled rotor fan of very efficient design, small size and quiet operation. Note that the heatsink behind the processor socket has been extended up to the case rear panel and the I/O Shield has special vent holes made exactly for it.
You can also notice small heatsinks on the reverse side of the mainboard PCB. They are located right under the hottest mainboard spots:
However, they serve merely as decoration, because there is no contact between them and the mainboard surface. Very strange solution.
Finishing with the ASUS Striker II NSE cooling system, I have to warn you that the processor socket is surrounded by relatively tall components on three sides out of four. As a result, you may have problems trying to install certain large processor coolers.
However, it seems to be the only serious drawback of ASUS Striker II NSE design.
Slots and connectors are placed very conveniently, so it will be easy to assemble a system based on this mainboard. Moreover, all three PCI Express x16 slots can accommodate graphics cards with dual-slot cooling systems.
ASUS took good care of those enthusiasts who will be willing to use this board for their numerous overclocking experiments: there are Power On and Reset buttons on the board and a Clear CMOS button on the back panel.
You may be a little surprised to see no POST code indicator anywhere on the board, although it is an important diagnostic tool and it is available on the reference nForce 790i SLI based mainboards. However, remember that there is an LCD Poster panel among the bundled accessories. It displays the POST status in real time and uses not the codes but words for it.
ASUS Striker II NSE processor voltage regulator circuitry is made of contemporary components. It uses Japanese solid-state capacitors with organic polymer electrolyte, ferrite core chokes and high-frequency MOSFET. The circuitry has eight phases, however, the number of active phases may drop down to two in idle mode thanks to a special EPU controller (Energy Processing Unit).
There are six USB 2.0 ports, PS/2 keyboard connector, an optical and coaxial SPDIF connector, two eSATA ports, IEEE1394 connector, two Gigabit network ports and a Clear CMOS button on the mainboard connector panel.
Six analog audio jacks and an eight-channel ADI AD1988B codec with the entire analog part of the sound tract have been moved to a separate daughter card called SupremeFX II. It should be installed into one of the PCI Express x1 slots.
One of the unique features of ASUS Striker II NSE mainboard typical of the entire Republic of Gamers series is the back panel highlighting that should make it easier to find the right connectors in low-light conditions.
I have to say that it is far not the only glowing component on ASUS Striker II NSE. The mainboard is covered with all sorts of diagnostic LEDs for FSB frequency and different system voltages. And the colors of these LEDs have been selected in such a way but a quick look at the mainboard is enough to determine the "general condition" of the system. Of course, we are not talking about any exact diagnostics here, but it is more than enough to check if the parameters have been set correctly.
ASUS Striker II NSE mainboard we tested features BIOS version 0403 dated April 3, 2008. Of course, it was absolutely unacceptable to use a 2-month old BIOS version, because our mainboard would certainly have numerous issues like any nForce 790i SLI based board. Especially since Nvidia and their partners reported almost weekly about fixing different issues in their BIOS. That is why we first of all went to ASUS web-site to look for a new BIOS version. Imagine how surprised we were to find out that no new BIOS for ASUS Striker II NSE has been released since then!
Luckily, we could take advantage of the fact that ASUS Striker II NSE is practically identical to ASUS Striker II Extreme, which we have already mentioned before. It turned out that the BIOS from a more expensive mainboard is fully compatible with ASUS Striker II NSE, so we could use BIOS version 0801 for Striker II Extreme. ASUS engineers promised that they had fixed most of the problems connected with HDD data losses. However, there are still quite a few issues to work on. For example, we have immediately discovered that ASUS Striker II NSE was incompatible with some memory modules, such as DDR3-1800 from Cell Shock, which we have been using successfully for a long time.
ASUS Striker II NSE BIOS Setup is based on Phoenix-Award micro-code and has pretty unusual structure. The very first page is now Extreme Tweaker section devoted to major frequencies, voltages and timings.
The first parameters offered here are FSB and memory frequencies and processor clock frequency multiplier. They are activated once you disable automatic overclocking in AI Overclock Tuner and “simple” setting of CPU and memory parameters using CPU Level Up and Memory Level Up options.
The processor frequency multiplier is set in a standard way, and you even get fractional multipliers for 45nm CPUs. However, FSB and memory frequencies are set in a slightly unusual manner, especially for those users who have no experience with LGA775 mainboards on Nvidia chipsets. The bus frequency is set in quadrupled values from 400MHz to 3000MHz. in more traditional numbers it will be an interval from 100MHz to 750MHz.
As for the memory frequency, there are two ways to set it: in Linked and Unlinked modes. In the first case, DDR3 memory is clocked synchronously at the same frequency as FSB. The second mode implies setting the frequency manually in the interval from 800MHz to 3000MHz. In this case the mainboard will pick the best FSB:Mem divider, although nForce 790i SLI supports 10 times more dividers than Intel chipsets. Once the optimal divider is found, the mainboard will immediately report the actual memory frequency right there in the column called “Actual Mem (DDR), MHz”. The difference between the desired and actual memory frequency is usually no more than 100-150MHz. Besides, unlike Intel chipsets, Nvidia core logic can clock DDR3 SDRAM at frequencies higher than FSB speed. In other words, ASUS Striker II NSE boasts unprecedented flexibility in memory subsystem configuring.
After that you can adjust the frequency of HyperTransport bus that connects the bridges in nForce 790i SLI, and the frequency of PCI Express buses from the North and South Bridges of the chipset.
Memory timings are available in a special BIOS subsection called Memory Timing Settings.
The timings that can be adjusted are more than enough for fine tuning of the memory subsystem:
The voltages are set in a separate section called Over Voltage:
ASUS Striker II NSE offers an extensive number of voltages to play with:
Note that all voltages may be set in Auto and in this case the mainboard will try to find the most optimal parameter settings on its own judging by the processor and memory frequency. During manual configuring, the selected parameters are highlighted green, yellow or red depending on their potential danger to the system components.
I would also like to point out an extremely useful Loadline Calibration option among voltage settings. Thanks to special design of the CPU voltage regulator circuitry it allows minimizing harmful Vdroop effect during overclocking. I have to say that ASUS also gave the users the opportunity to adjust CPU GTL_REF parameters. These settings may be helpful during quad-core processors overclocking, because they allow setting threshold values on the FSB bus for each physical core. Thorough management of these parameters allows hitting extremely high frequencies during quad-core CPU overclocking.
The next section called CPU Configuration offers tool for processor technologies management.
From here you can control power-saving and virtualization technologies and even disable individual cores of multi-core processors. Moreover, I have to add that ASUS Striker II NSE, like other ASUS mainboards, refuses to reduce processor Vcore in case of low power consumption if processor Vcore is set at a certain specific value in the Over Voltage section in the BIOS.
Other BIOS Setup sections contain ASUS’s usual settings. The only section we need to mention here is Hardware Monitoring section. It allows monitoring not only processor, North and South Bridge temperatures, but also three additional temperatures recorded by the three additional thermal diodes connected to the mainboard.
The temperatures from these diodes may be used to control the rotation speeds of connected fans. You can also tie up the processor fan rotation speed to the CPU temperature.
BIOS Setup of this mainboard also has both ASUS’ typical utilities: EZ Flash 2 and O.C.Profile. The first allows reflashing BIOS from floppy disks and USB drives directly from the Setup, while the second one allows saving settings profiles. Note that profiles can be saved in mainboard memory as well as on drives as files, which makes it very convenient to exchange profiles with some other ASUS Striker II NSE and Extreme owners.
Mainboards on Nvidia nForce 790i SLI chipset will definitely be of interest to some computer enthusiasts. If you want to combine a contemporary quad-core processor, DDR3 memory and high-performance graphics subsystem with a couple of GeForce GPUs, this is the only way you can. However, Nvidia believes that mainboards on their latest LGA775 chipset may also be of interest to enthusiasts with less extreme demands. nForce 790i SLI developers stress its phenomenal overclocking potential, which we absolutely had to check out starting with finding maximum FSB frequency when ASUS Striker II NSE remained stable.
We put together a special testbed on ASUS Striker II NSE, which also included 2GB of Corsair DDR3-1800 TWIN3X2048-1800C7DF G, Gainward Bliss 8800GTS 512MB graphics card, Western Digital Raptor WD1500AHFD HDD and SilverStone SST-ST85ZF PSU. The participating processors were cooled with Zalman CNPS9700 LED cooler.
Contemporary mainboards do not have any problems with dual-core Core 2 Duo processors overclocking any more. Nevertheless, we decided to start our practical overclocking experiments on ASUS Striker II NSE with Core 2 Duo E8500 overclocking. We lowered its multiplier to 8x and managed to overclock the processor to 4.24GHz. It is a pretty good result considering the FSB frequency was set at 530MHz.
The system remained stable and reliable in these conditions, which was tested with a 1-hour run of Prime95 25.6 test in Blend mode. The memory was also working problem-free at 1816MHz with 7-7-7-18-1T timings.
However, we had to increase North Bridge voltage to 1.54V and raise the following processor voltages: CPU Voltage – to 1.4V, CPU VTT Voltage – to 1.3V, and CPU PLL Voltage – to 1.64V. Vmem was set at standard 2.0V.
Although we are talking about easy and problem-free overclocking experience, there still are some problems an overclocker may face, most likely because of some BIOS issues. For example, during our test session the mainboard sometimes refused to boot reporting over-overclocking. As we found out it was occasionally setting the processor multiplier incorrectly and that’s what caused the problem. Luckily, in this case BIOS doesn’t reset the parameters during next boot-up but suggests entering the BIOS Setup to make some adjustments. So, I guess we can live with that.
Especially since in some situations ASUS Striker II NSE does indeed offer unprecedented flexibility during overclocking. To check out the real value of these options we installed a quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor, which we could normally overclock about to 460MHz FSB on Intel based mainboards.
Once we lowered the multiplier to 8x, we could get Core 2 Extreme QX9650 to run on ASUS Striker II NSE at 475MHz FSB. The CPU overclocked to 3.8GHz.
We ensured stability by raising processor Vcore 1.4V. As for the memory, it worked fine at 1782MHz with 7-7-7-18-1T timings and 2.0V nominal voltage.
Unfortunately, further FSB increase resulted in stability loss and no voltages or CPU GTL_REF parameter could help regain it.
However, we should be pleased with the obtained result, as far not every mainboard for enthusiasts can overclock quad-core processors that well. The only thing that can spoil the glorious achievement is the fact that to ensure stability we significantly increased the chipset voltage - to 1.7V, CPU VTT Voltage – to 1.5V and CPU PLL Voltage – to 1.8V. Moreover, we had to manually set CPU GTL_REF0 and CPU GTL_REF1 at -51uV and -56uV respectively. In other words, we had to put some effort in conquering 475MHz FSB.
On the other hand, we actually need to push the voltages so aggressively during quad-core processor overclocking only in the very end. For example, at 455MHz FSB our Core 2 Extreme QX9650 system was absolutely stable at much more acceptable settings: 1.4V chipset voltage, 1.4V CPU VTT Voltage and 1.6V CPU PLL Voltage.
So, we can certainly recommend ASUS Striker II NSE as a great choice for overclocking experiments.
nForce 790I SLI chipset is the first Nvidia chipset where they introduced a memory controller with DDR3 SDRAM support. Nvidia points out numerous performance improving technologies in their marketing materials. Among them are improved intellectual algorithms for preliminary sampling, dynamically adjustable data processing tract with lower latency and independent arbitrage of memory access operations. That is why analysis of nForce 790i SLI based mainboards’ practical performance is of extreme interest to us.
Within this article we compared the performance of our ASUS Striker II NSE against that of their newest mainboard on Intel chipset – P5E3 Premium. As you remember, ASUS P5E3 Premium is based on Intel X48 Express, although it is not that important because all Intel chipsets starting from P35 Express use the same memory controller with minimal changes.
As a result, our testbeds were built with the following hardware components:
First series of tests was performed with the CPU running in its nominal mode at 3.16GHz frequency set as 9.5 x 333MHz. DDR3 SDRAM worked at 1333MHz with timings set manually to 6-6-6-18-1T. All other memory subsystem and chipset settings were left at Auto.
As usual, we first of all ran some synthetic benchmarks for the memory subsystem speed. This particular parameter is extremely important for mainboards for Intel platform. For our measurements we used Lavalys Everest 4.50:
According to all practical characteristics measured by Everest benchmark, nForce 790i SLI based mainboard is the winner here. However, do not get too excited just yet, as the results may be gravely affected by Nvidia’s preliminary sampling algorithms that can very well predict sequential reads and writes. In other words, do not be surprised if the results in real applications will be different.
As we have expected, in real applications and complex benchmarks the picture is completely different. The mainboard on Intel X48 Express outperforms ASUS Striker II NSE on Nvidia nForce 790i SLI in most tests. So, we can conclude that Nvidia didn’t in fact manage to design a DDR3 memory controller as efficient as the one used in Intel chipsets of the 3rd and 4th series. However, the performance difference we see here is not that dramatic – only 1-2%, which shouldn’t be critical for real systems.
However, it is still too early to draw any final conclusions. Let’s checked out our benchmarks results in overclocked mode.
As we know from our previous experience, relative performance of overclocker platforms is very often different from the favorable testing conditions in nominal operational mode. Therefore, we decided to see what would happen if we set the FSB frequency at 460MH. Since we used the same Core 2 Duo E8500 processor with 9.5x multiplier, its frequency rose to 4.37GHz, which is a very decent result these days. To ensure system stability at this speed we increased CPU Vcore to 1.45V.
DDR3 SDRAM in both systems worked in synchronous mode at 1840MHz frequency with 8-8-8-24-1T timings.
The very first Everest results obtained on ASUS Striker II NSE were unacceptably low for these testing conditions. Read speed and latency at 460MHz FSB were even lower than what we saw in the nominal mode. It immediately suggested that nForce 790i SLI seems to have inherited a typical issue of the previous generation nForce chipsets called FSB Strap. For example, nForce 680i SLI based mainboards suffered this typical performance drop at 450MHz FSB, exactly what we are seeing right now.
Does it mean that it doesn’t make sense to overclock processors on nForce 790i SLI based mainboards with the FSB frequency beyond 450MHz? Luckily, it doesn’t. Nvidia managed to resolve this issue in the latest BIOS versions for their newest chipset. The BIOS for ASUS Striker II NSE got new options with mysterious names “P1” and “P2” that eliminate the negative effort from FSB Strap. For instance, this is what you can achieve if you activate them at 460MHz FSB setting:
I believe you will not argue about the benefits of these undocumented functions. Therefore, we continued our ASUS Striker II NSE tests during overclocking with the “magic” P1 and P2 parameters enabled.
As a result, our nForce 790i SLI based mainboard managed to outperform ASUS P5E3 Premium in Everest tests during overclocking.
However, as we know, advantage in Everest means only one thing: that Nvidia’s preliminary sampling algorithms are not a marketing trick – they do work.
So, it is high time we checked out the performance of our testing participants in real applications and complex tests:
Overclocking didn’t really change the situation. ASUS P5E3 Premium is again ahead of ASUS Striker II NSE in almost every test, however the advantage of the Intel X48 Express based solution is overall insignificant. Only Half-Life 2 results stand out: P5E3 Premium mainboard manages to get pretty far ahead of the competitor.
It is very hard to make any final conclusions about ASUS Striker II NSE mainboard basing on the benchmark results. Despite a few unpleasant issues it did perform very well in our practical tests. Of course, memory modules compatibility issues or occasional boot-up failures with correct settings are frustrating, but not critical problems. Especially taking into account that this mainboard overclocks processors really well and performs practically as fast as top platforms on Intel X48 Express. And we would definitely recommend ASUS Striker II NSE to all advanced users, if it were not for one thing: this mainboard is based on nForce 790i SLI from Nvidia.
The thing is that Nvidia cannot design a problem-free chipset for LGA775 platforms that would behave predictably. The new nForce 790i SLI followed in the footsteps of nForce 680i SLI: it still suffers from the old problems such as unexplainable HDD crashing, and acquired a few new ones such as system hanging during video playback with SLI enabled. Moreover, we can’t be sure that this chipset will not surprise us with something else later on. It can easily turn out incompatible with one of the new processors or some other hardware. We have already experienced things like that, so now we need to be very cautious when it comes to nForce 790i SLI based solutions.
As a result, ASUS Striker II NSE mainboard is definitely a great solution as a test platform for a dedicated computer enthusiast who is willing to face difficulties and put up with sudden restrictions for the sake of the highest performance.
It is a pity that Nvidia don’t give their fans any other choice. If you want to put together a system with SLI support, nForce is your only option. That is why mainboards like ASUS Striker II NSE find their way into the market. And the users will not be disappointed if they don’t face those problems we talked about. However, if you are not going to use dual-GPU video subsystem in SLI mode, then it may be better to consider other options.