Conclusions
I can't help but think it fitting that Nvidia is launching the 780i SLI during a time of year when bands release greatest hits albums to capitalize on the holiday sales rush. In many ways, the 780i feels like Nvidia's greatest core logic hits; you have some old tracks, represented by the 570 SLI MCP, paired with a remixed north bridge and one new song, the nForce 200.

Everything comes together nicely on the new 780i board design, but perhaps not well enough. As good as Nvidia's core logic chipsets have been over the past few years, the competition has moved forward, and the 780i SLI doesn't quite catch Nvidia up. Take the chipset's PCIe 2.0 implementation, for example. Using a third nForce 200 chip may allow Nvidia to milk more life from an older north bridge chip, but it also results in signaling rates that aren't quite up to speed. Adding the nForce 200 increases power consumption, too—something that was already high enough with nForce chipsets.

The 570 SLI MCP pressed into service in the 780i could also use some work. PCI performance is a little slower than we'd like to see, and while we applaud Nvidia's desire to offer chipset-level Gigabit Ethernet, its solution no longer offers higher throughput and lower CPU utilization than competing third-party chips.

Despite these flaws, the 780i SLI is still a good chipset with a solid feature set and competitive performance. The XFX board we used for testing didn't so much as flinch at the abuse to which we subjected it, and it provides loads of BIOS tweaking options and a healthy dose of overclocking headroom.

Most importantly, though, the 780i SLI—an indeed the entire nForce 700 series—gives Nvidia an SLI platform compatible with Intel's new 45nm processors. Based on what we've seen, 45nm Core 2 chips will be the ones to have come the new year. And if you're looking for a high-end graphics solution, the best bet at the moment is probably a pair of GeForce 8800 GTs in SLI. The nForce 700 series gives Nvidia the only platform short of Intel's extremely expensive Skulltrail proposition capable of putting the two together. So it may not be the best chipset, but it's certainly an integral component of the best high-end gaming platform that one could build with current components.

Keep in mind, though, that Nvidia has something in the works to support upcoming Intel processors based on a 1600MHz front-side bus. We don't know what that chipset will look like just yet, but we expect it to be a bigger step forward than the 780i SLI.