The Unofficial ASUS P5N-E SLI 650i Board Thread

[Conky]

Originally posted by: zjohnr

Originally posted by: Beachboy
Another thing to remember is that just because you can change the settings to 412.5Mhz doesn't mean they will work at that setting.

And, again, the difference as I understand it is that Intel has never said you're supposed to be able to do anything above 266 with their current chipsets, so if it does work you're "lucky". If it doesn't, you're only getting what you were supposed to expect to get.

I'm not sure what Nvidia's official stance on the capabilities of the 650i chipset is. But the Asus specs claim it supports a 1333 FSB so at a minimum you know the board is supposed to do 333. And frankly if they cap it at 412.5 I'd be pretty surprised if it doesn't do at least that much. Reliably.

Of course, you'll always come back to there being no guarantee's when you overclock the processor. But given what a crapshoot overclocking is in general, I'll take comfort in any performance guarantees I can get wherever I can get them.

What it actually means I don't think we'll know until some test results show up. But I'm certainly interested enough to wait around and see what shows up from the tests.

-john

Well, 333FSB is a fer piece away from 412.5 so I'm not entirely sure 412.5 is gonna be solid. It sucks that Nvidia "crippled" this chip to begin with. :thumbsdown:

And I'm definitely looking forward to reviews on this board but something tells me that the the 650i isn't gonna be any kind of P965-killer.

 

[irrationalJohn]

Originally posted by: Beachboy
Well, 333FSB is a fer piece away from 412.5 so I'm not entirely sure 412.5 is gonna be solid.

Only mentioned this because (1) it's the only semi-solid non-speculation I have at the moment and (2) to align it with your comment about your current motherboard not making it over 300. If Asus is claiming 333FSB support then they must be pretty damn sure that their board won't have problems reaching that speed. (And of course it's always possible to end up being the most unlucky person in the world and end up getting one of the few Core 2 CPUs that will not overclock. In that case you wouldn't make it over 300 with any motherboard).

Originally posted by: Beachboy
It sucks that Nvidia "crippled" this chip to begin with. :thumbsdown:

Is there anyone anywhere out there on this board who does not feel this way? Part of the reason I'm eager for the NDAs to end is to see if we can find out if this is in fact an Nvidia chipset limit or an Asus BIOS choice.

I fear this probably comes from Nvidia simply because it's such a brain dead stupid thing to do. Why would a motherboard maker deliberately make their board less competitive? Answer is that they wouldn't so this likely does come from Nvidia. <expletive omitted> idiots!

Oh, well. Soon enough we'll know more.

-john

 

[Conky]

Originally posted by: Beachboy
It sucks that Nvidia "crippled" this chip to begin with. :thumbsdown:

Is there anyone anywhere out there on this board who does not feel this way? Part of the reason I'm eager for the NDAs to end is to see if we can find out if this is in fact an Nvidia chipset limit or an Asus BIOS choice.

I fear this probably comes from Nvidia simply because it's such a brain dead stupid thing to do. Why would a motherboard maker deliberately make their board less competitive? Answer is that they wouldn't so this likely does come from Nvidia. <expletive omitted> idiots!

Oh, well. Soon enough we'll know more.

-john[/quote]I hear ya brother, I hope ASUS and Nvidia don't disappoint us. :beer:

 

[cougar1]

I'd bet 412.5 is an Asus BIOS limitation, not an Nvidia limit. Think about it, the 680i has plenty of high-end features to distinguish it from the 650i (Eg. 2x16PCIe+1x8PCIe vs. 1x16 or 2x8PCIe, dual gigabit ethernet vs. single, advanced networking features, etc...). Nvidia has no need to cripple the 650i, since the 680i is clearly superior. Perhaps they would make sure it doesn't beat the 680i in OC, but limiting it to <412.5 would be stupid, especially when intel's 965 is hitting 500+ at the 650i target price point.

However, for Asus on the other hand, a temporary 412.5 BIOS limitation in the lead up to the Christmas season makes a lot of sense. The limitation prevents the 650i from stealing too much business from Asus' high-end 680i offerings. At the same time, since they have the only cost-effective SLI-capable Core2Duo board, they can expect to steal business from the low- to mid- level 965 boards (where buyers may be willing to give up a few OC clocks for SLI) and possibly even some of the cheaper 975-xFire or 570 SLI boards.

Of course this strategy only works until others release their 650i boards, which clock faster. But by then the Christmas shopping season will pretty much be over and Asus will have pushed as many buyers as possible toward their higher-end offerings, so it won't be such a big deal for them to release a BIOS upgrade and stay competitive on OC capability.

 

[Skott]

The reviewers are way behind on reporting the 680i mobos if you ask me. Most are still focussed on the 965s and 570s.

 

[Ilikepiedoyou]

What other options are available chipwise that support sli for decent price besides 570 and 590 sli boards? What intel options are there. I don't care much bout overclocking, more about stabilty and the ability to run dual video cards

 

[mordrid52]

The price has dropped to $149.99 at ZZF. Newegg is also now stocking it at $149.99 but they are charging shipping.

 

[aiya24]

i'll be grabbing this board when the E4300 is released, should be a good combo even if the board is 'limited' to 412.5 FSB...

 

[Ilikepiedoyou]

So the slow FSB is a bios issue, so later on a bios update can bring you back up to 1066 fsb?

Also newegg does not list it as being compatiable with quad core chips? I thought all 600 series chips were?

 

[irrationalJohn]

Originally posted by: Ilikepiedoyou
So the slow FSB is a bios issue, so later on a bios update can bring you back up to 1066 fsb?

At this point I don't think we know for sure whether it's a BIOS/Asus or Nvidia chipset restriction. We're just speculating and waiting for a review or article to show up that will hopefully clarify this. Either way, it's sort of a choice between disappointing news and really bad news.

Originally posted by: Ilikepiedoyou
Also newegg does not list it as being compatiable with quad core chips? I thought all 600 series chips were?

I tried visiting the Asus product page for NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI chipsets to see what that said, but there was nothing there. Not sure what's up with that. Maybe/probably just a temporary web glitch ...

-john

 

[FSH42NA]

http://www.ajump.com/ajump/product.asp?...3&sku=99%2D99%2D99%2D99%2D99%2D5440163

dirt cheap now. Who's gonna bite?

 

[rstove02]

Why would a NDA be in effect for a product that is current available in retail channels?

 

[cdalgard]

I jumped. That seems like a good enough price to try it. Will update this thread with some results when I get it, but I have a feeling that others will be reviewing it soon.

 

[Ilikepiedoyou]

thanks a lot cdalgard!!!

 

[Ilikepiedoyou]

nvm - looking forawrd to the reviews

 

[Xcom1Cheetah]

I am looking forward to a review of it too.

 

[Zim]

nm

 

[Gary Key]

Originally posted by: rstove02
Why would a NDA be in effect for a product that is current available in retail channels?

We just got the board, will fire it up this weekend and let everyone know how it overclocks. The 412 limit is there because I believe the chips are being binned for 680i, then 650i SLI, and finally 650i Ultra.

 

[Sinuous]

I was under the impression that the 650i Ultra would possibly be the best overclocker of the nForce 6 series, due to it's single-chip construction and less overhead communication to slow it down. So it's now presumed that they are binning the chips down to the Ultra so it will have the worst batches?

 

[SUNSfan]

what does binning mean?

 

[Sinuous]

"Binning" refers to the selective placement of chips into categories based upon performance. It is often used in the memory sector to delineate which sticks of RAM perform better and can thus be sold at a higher rated speed/lower rated latency. Thus, in the example given by Editor Gary, the 680i motherboard chips would be the most capable of overclocking, while the 650i Ultras would be the least capable of overclocking.

 

[SUNSfan]

ah i see. Well i'm still anxious to read a review on the 650i. I'm not a big overclocker, but definitely want to put a somewhat cheap nforce 6 behind my new beastly computer.

 

[rstove02]

From what I understand the 650i SLI and 650i Ultra chipsets also run considerably cooler than the 680i chips due to having less features (having one 16x PCIe or two 8x PCIe instead of two 16x PCIe support for video for example). Plus I think both the 650i's are one chipset as opposed to the dual chipset 680i (north/southbridge).

Since the 680i vs the 650i are different in the implementation (i.e. number of chips), could binning come into play?

 

[Skott]

Well, if the 650i overclocked as good or better than the 680i then there wouldnt be much reason to buy the 680i mobos. I guess this is their way of protecting one of their products.

 

[Ilikepiedoyou]

Who else is selling the board now?