Power Consumption and Final Thoughts
NVIDIA’s chipsets have never been known for their power efficiency and the nForce 780i was a well documented case of that.

EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI Motherboard and Chipset Review - Motherboards 75

The new 790i chipset, which is really a completely new chip compared to the modest upgrades from the 500-series to the 780i, exhibits much lower power consumption than NVIDIA’s other products.  At idle, the new DDR3 chipset uses 20 watts less power than the DDR2-based 780i platform and uses 22 fewer watts when at load under CineBench 10.  Compared to our Asus X38 motherboard, the EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI uses less power at both idle and load but when we compare it to the DDR2-based X48 motherboard from Gigabyte, the NVIDIA design uses just a bit more. 

Overall, a big improvement on NVIDIA’s part.

Performance

The system performance of the NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI chipset is actually quite impressive.  In our synthetic testing the new DDR3 memory controller in the chipset is able to beat out Intel’s DDR3 memory controller found in the X38 and X48 chipsets by a reasonable margin.  Beating Intel at their own game like this is definitely something NVIDIA should be bragging about.  Even better, those memory gains actually translated into some performance benefits in our tests using PCMark Vantage and should offer at least marginally faster systems overall.

Performance on the accessories and storage options was on par with what we expect; integrated SATA and USB data throughputs were within the ranges we expect to find them.  You really can’t ask for much more than that.

EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI Motherboard and Chipset Review - Motherboards 76
Check in next week loyal readers…

The optional SLI in 2, 3 and 4-way configurations is obviously a performance advantage as well for gamers if you are willing to shell out the extra dough for a pair (or three for that matter) graphics boards, or already have an SLI configuration you are going to migrate over. 

Features

The NVIDIA designed motherboards are always competent when it comes to features.  New additions to the 790i Ultra SLI motherboard like DDR3 memory, PCI Express 2.0, eSATA, a third-party storage controller and a looped vapor / heatpipe cooler definitely take the previous NVIDIA boards and improve on them.  The features that remain constant from the 680i and 780i designs are still great for enthusiast motherboards: up to 12 USB ports, three PCIe x16 slots, integrated power and reset switches, solid chipset cooling, a great motherboard layout for easy installation, etc.

Some features that might get overlooked include support for all kinds of RAID on the six SATA connections the board offers from the NVIDIA nForce south bridge, dual Gigabit networking connections, 8-channel audio and more.  The NVIDIA control panel and ESA software suite is also a plus that you can use with this board that offer great overclocking and customization direct from Windows.

Overclocking and Stability

I was very impressed with the overclocking power that the EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard provided.  All of the BIOS options are in place to really allow a user to push their system to its limits and NVIDIA has been pushing the BIOS and overclocking front forward since their first entered the chipset market.  The refinement and ease of use of the BIOS is probably the best we have seen yet. 

And of course our overclocking results were also damn impressive!  I was able to beat our top front-side bus on our QX9650 processor, previously held at 460 MHz on the X48 chipset, and get 490 MHz on the NVIDIA 790i Ultra SLI motherboard.  That is a significant jump for a CPU that has traditionally been less overclockable thanks to its quad-cores. 

In terms of stock system stability (or overclocked for that matter) the EVGA 790i Ultra SLI was fantastic.  I didn’t see any issues during OS installation or testing; no blue screens, no lock ups, nothing. 

Pricing and Availability

Okay, now this is the one area where I have to take NVIDIA by the hand and them and smack the crap out of them.  They have built a truly awesome motherboard in 790i Ultra SLI – but they have priced it out of the range of just about everyone.  The price of the EVGA 790i Ultra SLI motherboard at Newegg is $349.99.  No really, $350.

EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI Motherboard and Chipset Review - Motherboards 77
Worth your first child?

To be fair, this isn’t the most expensive Intel motherboard you can buy – after all there is the Skulltrail platform.  But other than that, the two 790i motherboards top the Newegg.com Highest Price list in the Intel Motherboards section.  Yes there are other motherboards from companies like ASUS and Gigabyte that are in this same $300+ range and we have hard time recommending those to anyone but the most hardcore PC enthusiast but we continue to want to think of these NVIDIA boards as a good value.  Sure the 780i didn’t fall into that category, but you can get 680i motherboards for well under $200 and that seems much more reasonable to us. 

Does the 790i Ultra SLI chipset really offer $150 worth of additional performance or features?  I don’t think so, especially when you consider the 680i SLI motherboards can run 3-Way SLI, Quad SLI with the new 9800 GX2 cards, support all the ESA functionality we have seen and use cheaper DDR2 memory.  The 790i chipset is going to be for the true hardcore gamers only it would seem.

Final Thoughts

In the end though, it’s hard to not be impressed by the EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard – it offers exceptional speed and overclocking performance that we haven’t seen on any other platform.  Sure, it’s expensive, but all new technology usually is and for those of you that are really pushing your systems hard the value you see in this motherboard will be more than acceptable; and NVIDIA can’t really be blamed for the cost of DDR3 memory can it?  I know the 790i chipset is not for everyone, but for offering simply one of the best enthusiast motherboards we have seen yet, this motherboard deserves the praise.

EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI Motherboard and Chipset Review - Motherboards 78

Be sure to use our pricing engine to find the best prices on 780i motherboards and anything else you might need:

« PreviousNext »