Introduction:

   It's been a very busy year trying keep up with all the chipsets. There's been so much activity the last couple of years following Intel's Core 2 releases, that all of the models and features have blurred together for one giant mess within my brain. If you've been Googling Intel Core 2 supporting motherboards, then you're probably not far from getting completely turned around as well. It's seems almost endless.

Well, to help simplify things, there are two sides to the Intel supporting motherboards. There are both Intel Chipsets and NVidia Chipsets that put the Core 2 series to work. On the Intel Chipset side, we have the P35, P45, X38, and X48. Out of all of these, performance has been great from each with the best results split between the P45 and X48. The differences between the two are mainly just the Chipset and board layouts.

On the NVidia side, we have the 680i, 780i, and 790i Chipsets. The original 680i had a rocky launch, but some BIOS updates quickly turned it in to a power hungry performer for extreme gamers. The 780i didn't afford a great deal of performance difference from the 680i which was a shame. In fact, if it weren't for the limited supply of 680i Chipsets, the 780i probably wouldn't have done so well. (Yeah, yeah, I can hear the growling.)

The 790i, on the other hand, has been a noticeable performance jump over the 680i. If you're on a 680i that has been intermittently causing you problems, I can say that a 790i is worth the cost given the improvements. It's not the most power efficient Chipset around, but it's done a much better job of providing a stable, reliable platform even though DDR3 is still relatively new.

If you're not already familiar, here's a little information on the stock 790i Ultra SLI features and specs:

NVIDIA® nForce® 790i Ultra SLI®-based motherboards are the foundation for the world’s fastest gaming PCs, delivering top performance for 1600 MHz FSB Intel CPUs with extreme CPU overclocking, and unmatched DirectX® 10 gaming for 2-way, 3-way and Quad SLI technology. The only platform to support DDR3-2GHz also provides world-record setting memory speeds and component control with ESA.

 

The Fastest, Most Overclockable Rig Get unbeatable performance at stock and overclocked speeds (single GPU). NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI MCPs offer the highest CPU FSB overclocking with the latest CPU technology as well as unrivaled DDR3 memory overclocking. And real-time component monitoring and tuning features with ESA give you complete control over your PC.

 

Unreal Tournament 3 image captured on NVIDIA GPU. Provided by Epic.

Unmatched DirectX 10 Gaming with SLI Combine two dual-GPU NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics cards and an nForce 790i Ultra SLI -based motherboard to enjoy earth-shattering Quad SLI technology and the rapid-firing gaming performance of next-generation DirectX 10 games the way they’re meant to be played.

 

Designed for Next-Generation CPUs and Technologies nForce 790i Ultra SLI -based motherboards include support for 1600 FSB CPUs, DDR3 memory and PCI Express 2.0 giving you access to the fastest performance on the planet and headroom for the future.

• Extreme DDR3 Speeds with SLI-Ready Memory, including EPP2.0
  DDR3 is a new PC technology that enables high memory speeds on desktop PCs. NVIDIA® nForce® 790i Ultra SLI® MCPs are the fastest DDR3 platform delivering extreme speed and increasing overall system performance. Including SLI-Ready Memory with EPP 2.0 for easy, one-click, hassle-free optimized memory performance.

• Overclocked FSB Speeds
  Through overclocking, nForce 790i Ultra SLI MCPs can deliver FSB speeds well beyond specification. The front side bus (FSB) is specified to run at 1600MHz to support existing and future FSB speeds.

• Designed for NVIDIA SLI technology
  SLI technology is a revolutionary platform innovation that allows you to intelligently scale graphics performance by combining multiple NVIDIA graphics solutions in a single system with an nForce SLI MCP. The nForce 790i Ultra SLI MCP provides support for 2-way, 3-way and earth-shattering Quad SLI.

• Support for ESA
  ESA provides real-time and complete PC performance management. Tested by a comprehensive certification program for system compatibility and reliability, ESA-certified components and applications bring you unprecedented control to manage and tune thermal, electrical, acoustic and operating characteristics to maximize your PC’s performance.

• NVIDIA Control Panel
  NVIDIA Control Panel allows you to take full advantage of ESA. Easily adjust PC characteristics for maximum performance. Seamlessly monitor characteristics in an intuitive and customizable 3D environment with NVIDIA System Monitor.

• PCI Express 2.0 Support
  Designed to support the new PCI Express 2.0 bus architecture, offering a future-proofing bridge to tomorrow’s most bandwidth-hungry games and 3D applications by maximizing 5 GT/s of bandwidth (twice that of first generation PCI Express). PCI Express 2.0 motherboards are fully backwards compatible with existing PCI Express products for broad support of PC peripherals.

• NVIDIA MediaShield Storage
  NVIDIA® MediaShield™ Storage is a suite of features that safeguards your most important digital media assets; always reliable, scalable, and accessible. Includes support for RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 configurations and up to six SATA 3Gb/s drives.

• NVIDIA FirstPacket technology
  Be the ‘King of Ping’ with NVIDIA FirstPacket™ technology. Get the crystal-clear phone conversations and online gaming performance you expect. FirstPacket technology assures your game data, VoIP conversations, and large file transfers are delivered according to preferences set by you in an intuitive wizard.

• High Definition Audio (HDA)
  High definition audio brings consumer electronics quality sound to the PC delivering high quality sound from multiple channels. Using HDA, systems can deliver 192 kHz/32-bit quality for eight channels, supporting new audio formats.

 

CPU	Intel
Processor Supported	Pentium D Pentium 4 Penryn (Yorkfield) Penryn (Wolfdale) Core 2 Quad Core 2 Extreme Core 2 Duo
Socket Supported	LGA775
PCI Express 2.0
FSB Speed	1600MHz
NVIDIA SLI®-ready	3-Way
SLI-Ready Memory
SATA/PATA Drive Support	6/2
NVIDIA MediaShield Storage
NVIDIA MediaShield RAID	0, 1, 0+1, 5
Audio Specification	HDA (Azalia)
USB Ports	Up to 10 USB 2.0 ports
ESA-Certified
Gigabit Ethernet Connections	2
NVIDIA FirstPacket technology
PCI Express x16 slots	3
PCI Slots	5
NVIDIA Control Panel
Vista Support
Dual Network
NVIDIA System Monitor
Form Factor	ATX

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