XFX 790i Ultra

INTRODUCTION

Mistakes happen. We are all human and sometimes we do things we later realize were not the best way to do them. Most of the time these mistakes are small and harmless and sometimes they cost you. In this regard, I am referring to the NVIDIA 780i chipset. Yes, that's right, I called it a mistake. With native PCIe 2.0, eSATA and support for Intel's 1600MHz FSB CPUs, the 790i Ultra is what the 780i should have been, thereby making the 780i a very costly mistake for anyone who purchased one. But like all mistakes, we need to put the past behind us and look forward to better and brighter things. Better and brighter is just what XFX specializes in and with this board they aim to keep the good times rolling. As stated before, this board comes with lots of goodies including PCIe 2.0, on board eSATA, triple-SLI support, DDR3 support, and a sexy black PCB. If that wasn't enough, just wait until you look at all the accessories XFX throws into the mix. Without further ado I present to you the XFX 790i Ultra.

FEATURES AND SPECIFICATIONS

Performance
Based on NVIDIA 790i Chipset
Supports Intel Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad, Core 2 Duo, Pentium and 45nm CPUs
1066/1333/1600 Mhz Front Side Bus

Chipset
North bridge: NVIDIA 790i Ultra SPP
South bridge: NVIDIA 790i Ultra MCP

Memory
Up to 8GB of DDR3 2000/1600/1333MHz memory
Dual Channel architecture

Expansion Slots
3 x PCIe x16
2 x PCIe x1
2 x PCI 2.2

Storage I/O

• 1 x Floppy disk drive connector
• 7 x SATA 3Gb/s
• RAID 0, 1, 5, 0+1
• 1 x UltraDMA 133/100/66 for up to 2 PATA devices

Audio

• 7.1-channel Realtek ALC889A

Coaxial, Optical S/PDIF out at back I/O

LAN

• Dual Gigabit LAN
• Realtek RTL8111B
• Realtek RTL8110SC

Multi I/O
1 x PS2 Keyboard
1 x PS2 Mouse
1 x S/PDIF Out Coaxial
1 x S/PDIF Out Fiber
1 x IEEE 1394 Ports
1 x eSATA
2 x RJ-45 Port
6 x Audio connector (Center speaker/Subwoofer Out, Rear speaker out, Side speaker out, Line-in, Line-out, MIC)
10 x USB 2.0 ports (6 rear + 4 internal headers)

Form Factor
ATX Form Factor
Length: 12.0in - 305mm
Width: 9.6in - 244mm