XFX 650i Ultra Motherboard

[Kougar]

Reviewer: Mr. Gregg "The Gonz" Gonsowski

Date Published: June 7, 2007

Excerpt: "Sure, trying new things can be scary. Unless of course it is from a well established company like XFX. New to the motherboard scene XFX offers a solid product at an amazing price."


http://www.bjorn3d.com/Material/revimages/motherboards/xfx%20650i%20Ultra/PRsmall.jpg

Please feel free to post your comments and questions here!

Link To Review (http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1106)

[slugbug]

Looks like a good board, I may have to pick one up.

[Mr Coffee]

Another solid article Gonzo. Love that you give a firm yes/no recomendation. To often I get to the end of the article no further along than I was before it.
Keep up the great work!

['Amp!']

Thanks for the comments guys. I really enjoyed this particular board and would gladly help anyone out who is considering getting one. :icon_tiphat:

[Unregistered]

Seems the 1st XFX review out there...

Great chipset! it's memory latency is very is much shorter than one of intel chipsets and together with $266 quad-core that would be a great pair, however the only question left is what mainboard to choose.

Asus made a strange design, including putting lithium battery at the hot northbridge... Hope it will not xplode in 2-3 years :-)
MSI makes strange BIOSes with strange overpriced 'platinum' series.
Abit makes a great PCB with the worst BIOS ever seen.
ECS... i ECS :-)
DFI... i wonder what it is, but anyhow no way to get one in the Moscow.

Now will think about XFX :-)
Interesting what quality of audio does it have... What chip is used for audio ?

To me this mainabord has two misses: miss of firewire and miss of e-SATA connector.
If not this - perhaps it would be really the best mainboard out there.

Thanks for review!

[Victor]

IF i am not mistaken, the board should come with realtek HD audio.

I do believe that the internal SATA can be used as eSATA but you would just the expansion card to route the connector to outside of the case and with the eSATA connector.

[Bio-Hazard]

Seems the 1st XFX review out there...

Great chipset! it's memory latency is very is much shorter than one of intel chipsets and together with $266 quad-core that would be a great pair, however the only question left is what mainboard to choose.

Asus made a strange design, including putting lithium battery at the hot northbridge... Hope it will not xplode in 2-3 years :-)
MSI makes strange BIOSes with strange overpriced 'platinum' series.
Abit makes a great PCB with the worst BIOS ever seen.
ECS... i ECS :-)
DFI... i wonder what it is, but anyhow no way to get one in the Moscow.

Now will think about XFX :-)
Interesting what quality of audio does it have... What chip is used for audio ?

To me this mainabord has two misses: miss of firewire and miss of e-SATA connector.
If not this - perhaps it would be really the best mainboard out there.

Thanks for review!
Tne MSI boards do OC well, like all the (most anyways) 650i chipsets. I'm now running my MSI board (PsN SLi-Fi, non-Platinum) again and although it doesn't have a E-sata prot, like Victor stated, one could be easily routed to the outside if you really needed one. Of just simply buy a case that has E-sata support on the front panel, easy enough fix right there and you wouldn't have to reach around to the back of the case to get to it either...........:jawdrop:

[slugbug]

Just saw a killer deal on this board for $79.99 Canadian after a $20 rebate. I just may have to order one at that price :grin:

edit: Ordered it last night. I have a Buffalo Firestix 2gb PC2-6400 kit for it. All I need now is a C2D processor.
I plan to install a fan on the northbridge heatsink and also install a small heatsink/fan on the southbridge as well. Any suggestions on what I should use?

[slugbug]

I'm surprised to see there is no heatsink on the PWM chip area. It would have been nice to see heatsinks with fans on both the northbridge and southbridge as well.

[Bio-Hazard]

Don't really need them on the PWM area if you have halfway good airflow in your case. My MSI board doesn't have any on the PWM and I haven't had any heat related issuse. Besides, if you check around most of the different makers threads about these reff boards, most of the PWM HS aren't making contact worth a crap anyways. .......;) NB and SB coolers are always a good idea, a added fan, again, isn't really required with good air flow unless you really start cranking the volts the them.

[RoNiN]

I am waiting for this board to arrive. I took advantage of the NCIX $80 deal on this board and I hope to OC the E2160 with it. I downloaded and prepared a floppy with the 650iU-P2 bios from the XFX site. I assume this board ships with a P1 bios? Anyway, has anyone tried overclocking the E2100 series chips on this yet and if so which BIOS are you using. Let me know your results with other CPU's as well if no one has tried the E2100's yet. My hope is that the (hopefully) newer P2 BIOS has enabled higher memory voltage settings. The 2.1V max it appears to have is a bit low for my liking but for the price I couldn't pass it up.

[slugbug]

I got my XFX 650i from NCIX yesterday, but I'm waiting til July 22nd to get a C2D.
I was a bit surprised to find only a quick install guide and no printed manual in the box.

edit: Trying to download the new bios file but it looks like XFX's ftp server is down at the moment.:(

[buffpandabear]

hi, i'm building a new comp, just bought a xfx 650i ultra for $70 after MIR, good deal. Anyways, I'm going to probably buy a e6600 or e6700 after the july 22nd price drops, and I want to OC with a good cooler. What will fit on this motherboard? I'm looking at the scythe ninja right now because it's relatively cheap and comes with a fan. Will it fit?
Also, if I want to OC on this board, do I need to cool the SB or NB? I noticed there's no cooling for the SB, do I need to buy a heatsink? If it's not absolutely necessary then I would rather save the money.
Thanks!

['Amp!']

The board as stock with my Big Typhoon got me to 3.5 on my e6420.

I slapped a heatsink on the southbridge but it did nothing for OC since it controls hard drives and suck.

I was able to hit 475MHz on the FSB with stock cooling so I think you will be fine.

Just be aware that the XFX board places the CPU socket very close to the edge of the board and using the Big Typhoon on this board does not allow me to use a case like the Tagan Black Pearl that places the motherboard very close to the case edge.

[buffpandabear]

So you're saying that I should be able to use the Scythe Ninja?

By the way, I will be using the Ultra Wizard mid-tower case that I got for free after rebate at Fry's. Will this work with the XFX 650i ultra and the Scythe Ninja?

Thanks.

[Unregistered]

Does the XFX 650i ulta support 1333 Mhz Core 2 duos out of the box without bios update?

[sushrukh]

Does the XFX 650i ulta support 1333 Mhz Core 2 duos out of the box without bios update?

Yes this board supports 1333FSB but a BIOS update may be needed.I think,currently no boards are supporting 1333 out of the box.They are, but you need to update your mobo to the latest Firmwire to get the support but if it says,that it supports 1333,you'll get it.

You can see here (http://xfxforce.com/web/product/listConfigurationDetails.jspa?series=NVIDIA+nForce +650i&productConfigurationId=1056480) that this board does support 1333 FSB.

[slugbug]

Does the XFX 650i ulta support 1333 Mhz Core 2 duos out of the box without bios update?

You'll need to flash to the P03 bios with an older cpu installed first.

[Unregistered]

would begin by saying: amazing review. thumbs up.

i have a few queries:
1. does the 650i support 800MHz FSB P4s? i have an Intel 3.0 lying around that i would like to use with this mobo for the time being. that is until the Penryns arrive.

2. which brings me to my 2nd Q, would this mobo support Penryns?

3. if we were to compare this board with an ASUS P5K-VM (http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=542&l4=0&model=1690&modelmenu=1), which one would be better, generally speaking?

thanks.

['Amp!']

The linked motherboard is from the G33 series chipset which is a smaller sized motherboard used mostly for Home Theatre PC's so it is a bit of a mismatch.

You can go to www.xfxforce.com to check for CPU compatibility. To my knowledge the motherboard supports PIV's

[Unregistered]

The linked motherboard is from the G33 series chipset which is a smaller sized motherboard used mostly for Home Theatre PC's so it is a bit of a mismatch.

You can go to www.xfxforce.com to check for CPU compatibility. To my knowledge the motherboard supports PIV's

yeah i checked there. it just says 1066/1333 MHz FSB processors. but then it also says P4 compatible, so i guess my 3.0 will work.

however it doesnt say anything about Penryns or 45nm procs.. :S