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ECS NF650iSLIT-A Motherboard Review :: ECS NF650iT-A Features
NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI is based upon NVIDIA's nForce 650i SLI chipset, which is the newest chipset available on the market for the mainstream for Intel based motherboards. It supports all current Intel LGA-775 CPUs including the Core 2 Duo E6700 and Quad Core processors like the QX6700. Also supported is Intel's new upcoming FSB 1333 MHz CPUs which haven't been announced yet but will be supported when they do get released.  CPU Socket  DIMM Slots Four DIMM slots adorn the board, allowing the nForce 650iSLIT-A board to support up to 32GB of DDR2 800MHz memory. Note, that ECS has only tested the motherboard with 8GB of memory as there are few modules over 2GB at the moment on the market. NVIDIA's chipset is certified for the highest amount of memory that is currently available. It is likely that it will be a while before we see a lot of 4GB or 8GB modules be the norm, as two of those would require a 64-bit operating system to run.  SATA ports  IDE controller SATA hard disk drives are rapidly becoming the norm for hard disk drives today replacing the IDE hard disk drives of the past. Serial ATA drives are now approaching the terabyte size that we could only dream of a few years ago for storage. Four SATA II 3.0 Gb/second ports are on the board. RAID 0, 1, 0+1 and 5 modes are supported through NVIDIA's MediaShield application. Two IDE controllers and a FDD controller round out the drive support.  3D Audio Demo  Audio I/O  Microphone  Mixer  Sound Effect Onboard audio is provided by the Realtek ALC883 CODEC. Virtually every motherboard on the market today supports the High Definition Audio (HDA) standard. High Definition Audio supports multiple simultaneous audio streams, 7.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Digital Live sound. Onboard sound has come a long way from the days when the motherboard manufacturer only had to worry about two 1W speakers attached.  Expansion  Molex connector  PCI Express x16 locks SLI stands for Scalable Link Interface and was introduced by NVIDIA in 2004 to improve gaming performance by using two graphics cards in parallel. Today over 90% of the multiple graphics card systems are SLI, as noted by a recent Steam Survey. SLI has three modes of operation, AFR (Alternate Frame Rendering) where each video card renders subsequent frames. SFR (Single Frame Rendering) is where each video card renders a portion of the same frame and the final result is displayed on-screen and single card mode where SLI does not work. ECS decided to go all out on expansion options for their 650iSLIT-A board. There are two PCI Express x16 slots used for SLI operations. The nForce 650 SLI chipset has a maximum of 18 PCI Express lanes, meaning that the board will operate in x8 x8 mode when SLI is enabled. ECS's board operates in x8 mode with only a single card installed as well. We'll see how that plays out against other boards in the Performance area of the review. Early SLI boards had a "paddle" which switched the mode from SLI to Single Card mode. All current motherboards have done away with the paddle, freeing space. Two PCI Express x1 slots are present, giving the option for additional RAID controllers or Gigabit Ethernet cards. Finally, three PCI slots are present, for legacy cards.  Rear IO The rear IO on the board is typical of many boards on the market today. There are six jacks for the onboard audio, two SPDIF Out ports, meaning that you can attach the widest variety of speakers on the market today. PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard ports are prone so those who don't have USB versions or Wireless versions of these devices can use the old ports. A single COM1 port is present as are 4 USB ports and a RJ-45 jack for the Gigabit Ethernet. Windows Vista Ready- The NF650iSLIT-A board is Windows Vista Premium Ready. When combined with a Shader Model 2.0 video card or better, the motherboard can run any of the new features of Windows Vista Premium including the new Aero GUI. Vista is important as virtually every computer sold to OEMs and DIYers will have at least one version of the OS on it. Contents:
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