At the same time as NVIDIA unleashed GeForce 9800GX2, it also released the new nForce 790i chipset series. Unlike the predecessor nForce 780i, nForce 790i is native PCIe 2.0, which means no auxiliary bridge chip. The second piece of news is the DDR3 support, which just strengthens its position as a high-end chipset. A number of reviews have appeared and they all show that NVIDIA has put a lot of effort into the new memory controller.
The memory performance is excellent and outperforms other Intel chipsets, including Intel X48. The problem is that this is the only area where nForce 790i excels, not saying that the performance is bad, but the processor and gaming performance is slightly worse than Intel’s high-end chipsets.
Power consumption has been a real issue with the latest generations of nForce chipsets, but this has improved significantly with nForce 790i. While X38 and X48 still consume less power, 790i is a lot better than the predecessor 780i.
Photo courtesy of TechReport
Unfortunately, it seems that a lot has been borrowed from previous chipsets, but we’re still waiting for the hardcore tests to see if the card behaves more logical than its siblings when put under some real stress.
Reviews;
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