X-bit labs

ECS NF650iSLIT-A (V1.0) Mainboard Review

Category: Mainboards

by Doors4ever

[ 05/25/2007 | 12:25 PM ]

We would like to talk about a mainboard from Elitegroup Company on Nvidia nForce 650i SLI chipset. Price is expected to be one of its major advantages, but there any other? Let’s see if we manage to find them!

Table of contents:

• Package and Accessories
  
• PCB Design and Functionality
  
• Specification
  
• BIOS
  
• Overclocking
  
• Performance
  
• Conclusion
  

We all know that the largest manufacturer of graphics solutions, Nvidia Company, doesn’t just launch new graphics chips into the market and let them float there freely, they do not leave the future of their solutions in the graphics card makers’ hands. The company is paying more and more attention to the life of their offsprings and has been working very actively together with the end product manufacturers. We all have seen a lot of graphics cards on Nvidia solutions that use reference PCB design without any modifications.

Since the launch of nForce 680i SLI chipset in the end of last year Nvidia started actively promoting the same work model with the mainboard makers, too. Only a few selected companies, such as EVGA, BFG, XFX, ECS and Biostar got the right to sell reference mainboards under their trade mark. And although they claim that Nvidia will not be selling any mainboards under their own brand name, the company is expected to continue selling reference mainboards. Note that Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) is also on this short list of trusted companies.

Since the nForce 650i SLI chipset is a less expensive and more mainstream solution, they didn’t really sell any reference mainboards based on it, but Elitegroup managed to get on the list of selected manufacturers who were allowed to develop their own mainboard designs. Moreover, this company is known to be the member of the “big five” – the world’s largest mainboard makers including also Asustek, Foxconn, Gigabyte and MSI. Of course, we very well know that Elitegroup has never been very overclocking-friendly: overclockers’ interests have never been the inspiration for their product designs. The Elitegroup products mostly attract customers’ attention with their low price-point. However, considering everything we have just pointed out we hope that ECS NF650iSLIT-A mainboard on nForce 650i SLI chipset may change this situation for the better.

Let’s see if our hopes turn out justified.