NVIDIA nForce 650i Ultra Reference Board Details

[Bastieeeh]

Though the NVIDIA nForce 650i Ultra MCP was launched at the end of last year it took NVIDIA some time to come up with an actual reference design. Again ChileHardware were the first in the business to show some facts. The 650i ultra is the least feature-packed chipset out of the 600i family, with the absence of SLI being the biggest drawback. But if you don't intend to go for a SLI setup then the board will please you with full Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad support. Furthermore we are talking about dual-channel DDR2-800 (four DIMM sockets), a single PCIe x16, two PCIe x1 and three PCI (32bit/33MHz) slots, four SATA II ports and a single PATA port (HDD or optical drive).
The ATX I/O panel is not that crowded either, besides the obligatory PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports there are four USB 2.0 ports, the Gigabit Ethernet connector and the eight-channel audio connectors.
The mentioned Gigabit port supports NVIDIAs FirstPacket prioritizing technology in order to deliver the lowest pings possible while gaming. The SATA ports support Raid arrays (Raid 0, 1, 0+1 and 5) and onboard you will find four additional USB2.0 pinouts to be used with a USB bracket. Its price will be in the 50-100 US$ range, companies like EVGA, XFX, ECS, Biostar will soon adopt this design to their product family. All in all very nice budget solution mainboard that has its strengths.



Source: ChileHardware

[tkpenalty]

Looks very ordinary, no parallell, no esata, no decent audio...though it is pleasantly empty. Why cant nvidia just manufacture mobos themselves?

Its so empty.. O_O at this point in time it just feels so weird looking at a motherboard THIS BARE!!

[BXtreme]

i just don't like that 'thing'....it's....

[tkpenalty]

Originally Posted by BXtreme

i just don't like that 'thing'....it's....

I get your point... its so bare... its disturbing i mean where are the serial ports? They cost like $0.50 for each serial port

[BXtreme]

but seeing it's price it ain't a bad deal for the ppl who build plain home systems
But I don't like it

[WarEagleAU]

Yes, it is bare, but, does that mean the Board Partners can add to it what they see fit? If that is the case, seems like XFX, Foxconn, ECS, BFG, etc could make this board more than just "Entry Level". IF they are able to do it, Audio might get better, and eSATA (not seeing a need for it right now) and more firewire, USB, serial ports, etc can be added.

[OnBoard]

Haven't used serial/parallel ports for years, don't need sli/crossfire or firewire, use a sound card anyways, so if it's a good overclocker this might be in the next mobo list too. It does look bare, but if it's cheap and runs cool, no need foor 500g forth of heatpipes/sinks And single PATA sound good for my optical ones, have read too many stories about jmicron chips (in p965).

"companies like EVGA, XFX, ECS, Biostar will soon adopt this design" none of those are available here, so doesn't really matter if it's good or not, need a mobo in a month :/