Abit and MSI take on the nForce 650i

Nvidia’s latest nForce 650i SLI chipset may pry the last few budget-conscious enthusiasts away from Socket AM2, though. The 650i rolls SLI support into mid-range core logic for LGA775 processors, and motherboard makers have been quick to deploy the chipset in enthusiast-oriented products.

The latest 650i-based motherboards to hit the market are Abit’s Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI and MSI’s P6N SLI Platinum, and we’ve been abusing both in our labs for the last couple of weeks. Can a textbook MSI offering challenge Abit’s first attempt to adapt the Fatal1ty brand to a mid-range mobo? Read on as we test these boards against half a dozen others to find out.

Getting specific
Nvidia is known for juggling north and south bridge components to create “new” chipsets, and the 650i SLI is no exception. In fact, it may be the most unexpected combination we’ve seen to date. At the north bridge, we have the 650i SPP—a brand new chip that boasts support for 1333MHz front-side bus speeds in addition to dual-x8 SLI configurations. That new core logic smell doesn’t waft down to the south bridge, though. There, you’ll find a 430i MCP that’s all but identical to the nForce 430 that debuted with Nvidia’s GeForce 6100 series chipsets in September of 2005.

I suppose that makes the nForce 430 the cougar of core logic chipsets—an older south bridge chip cavorting with a much younger north bridge. But they work well as a couple, in part thanks to the 8GB/s HyperTransport interconnect that bridges the generation gap. The nForce 430i SLI doesn’t look its age, either; the chip has everything you’d expect from a modern mid-range MCP, including four SATA RAID ports, integrated Gigabit Ethernet, and support for Native Command Queuing and “Azalia” High Definition Audio.

With both the Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI and P6N SLI Platinum fully exploiting the features inherent to the nForce 650i SLI, there are plenty of similarities between the spec sheets of each board. There are a few key differences though. First, note that the FP-IN9 favors pairs of PCI, PCIe x1, and PCIe x16 slots. The P6N Platinum, on the other hand, opts for an extra PCI slot at the expense of one PCIe x1.

Moving to integrated peripherals, you’ll notice that the Fatal1ty board doesn’t really have any. Mid-range mobos typically don’t have enough in the budget left for indulgent extras, but the FP-IN9 doesn’t even have Firewire onboard. The P6N does, and it’s also packing an eSATA port tied to an auxiliary Silicon Image storage controller.

Despite those differences, both boards agree when it comes to audio codecs. Realtek’s ALC888 gets the call, extending the crab’s virtual monopoly over onboard audio to another two motherboards.

Affordable, for a change

The Fatal1ty brand has typically been reserved for high-end motherboards, but it’s trickled down to more affordable territory with Abit’s FP-IN9 SLI. With street prices starting at $127, this is actually one of the least expensive nForce 650i boards on the market.

Of course, Fatal1ty branding alone won’t make us forget the FP-IN9’s lack of Firewire and eSATA connectivity. The red and black aesthetic does give the board an extra dose of visual flair, but you won’t be able to appreciate it without a case window.

A solid layout is much more important than a motherboard’s looks, and the Fatal1ty hits a snag right out of the gate. The auxiliary 12V power connector isn’t as close to the top edge of the board as we’d like to see, and that can create unnecessary cable clutter around the CPU socket and rear chassis exhaust fan. This isn’t a huge inconvenience, but Abit has usually been pretty good about putting its power connectors in the right places.

Fortunately, the rest of the FP-IN9’s layout is spot on, perhaps in part thanks to the fact that Abit’s board designers didn’t have to worry about accommodating a bunch of integrated peripherals and their corresponding ports.

Taller heatsinks ringing the CPU socket may interfere with extremely wide aftermarket coolers, but these days heatsink makers appear content building up rather than out, so it shouldn’t be an issue. We’ll gladly tolerate a larger north bridge cooler to do away with pesky chipset fans, anyway.

Note that there are precious few capacitors around the CPU socket. Those that do make an appearance are low-profile, solid state caps that won’t get in the way.

Moving down the board we encounter a flurry of storage ports clustered in one corner. SATA ports are tucked away at the bottom of the board where they won’t interfere with longer double-wide graphics cards, and IDE ports have been mounted on their sides facing the edge of the board. Abit also throws in handy onboard power and reset buttons next to the SATA port cluster. The CMOS reset jumper is also conveniently located there.

Abit has done an excellent job with the FP-IN9’s slot stack, leaving a large enough gap under the primary PCIe x16 slot to ensure that a double-wide graphics card won’t cost you an expansion slot. Running two double-wide cards in SLI will compromise one of the board’s two PCI slots, but you’ll still be left with a couple of PCIe x1 slots.

Like other nForce 650i-based motherboards, the FP-IN9 is only capable of feeding eight lanes of PCI Express bandwidth to each card in an SLI configuration. You have to flip an onboard paddle to get the board into SLI mode, and while that’s not quite as convenient as a BIOS switch, it’s not a big deal if you’ve already opened your case to add that second graphics card.

A relative lack of onboard peripherals keeps the Fatal1ty board’s port cluster looking a little sparse. The only real luxury is an optical S/PDIF audio output, which Abit would no doubt like you to combine with its iDome digital speakers.

Textbook MSI

MSI has quietly been building solid enthusiast-oriented motherboards for years now, and the P6N Platinum is the company’s latest mid-range offering. Like most MSI boards, the P6N is largely reserved and restrained, content to let others duke it out for the title of World’s Flashiest Motherboard. That makes this board just about the polar opposite of the Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Already, we know that the P6N platinum packs more peripherals than the Abit board, but then it costs more as well. Street prices start at $154—nearly $30 more than the Fatal1ty. So what does the extra scratch get you?

Not much in the way of visual flair or improved power connector placement. Like Abit, MSI puts the board’s auxiliary 12V power connector south of the socket, all but ensuring that cabling will interfere with airflow between the CPU socket and rear chassis exhaust.

Fortunately, there’s still room around the CPU socket for larger coolers. MSI does employ extensive heatpipe cooling for the board’s north bridge and power circuitry, but the heatsinks are far enough away from the socket to avoid clearance issues.

Like the Abit board, the P6N relies on passive heatsinks to keep its chipset components and VRMs cool. However, MSI also includes an optional chipset fan that screws onto the top of the north bridge cooler. This whiney little cooler isn’t necessary for normal operation, but it’s recommended for systems with limited internal airflow. The fan is also rather loud, so you’ll want to avoid using it if possible.

MSI puts Serial ATA and IDE ports a little higher on the P6N than we saw with the Abit board, but they still don’t interfere with longer double-wide graphics cards. The nForce 430i south bridge only has four SATA ports, so it doesn’t have many to lose.

Note that the 430i also gets in on the board’s heatpipe cooling, although I’m not entirely sure why. All the nForce 430 implementations we’ve seen have been perfectly happy with simple, low-profile coolers, so the P6N’s south bridge heatpipe may not be necessary.

The P6N SLI’s slot stack favors PCI over PCI Express x1, opting to provide three of the former and only one of the latter. That makes sense given the persistent dearth of PCIe peripherals, and it allows you to run two PCI cards alongside a double-wide SLI setup.

Like the Abit board, you also have to flip an SLI paddle to switch between single- and multi-GPU modes. This is probably something you’re only going to do once or twice in the life of the motherboard, so the few seconds of effort are hardly a hassle.

There’s quite a bit going on in the P6N SLI’s port cluster, including nods to the old-school crowd with a parallel port and a shout out to the new generation of eSATA connectivity. You also get a Firewire port and both coaxial and TOS-Link flavors of S/PDIF audio output. I’d happily trade one of those S/PDIF output options for a digital input, though.

BIOS options and tweaking software
Mid-range motherboards tend to be favored by enthusiasts looking to overclock the snot out of affordable processors, so a wealth of BIOS options is really essential. Both boards get off to a good start by offering control over the CPU multiplier, although that option curiously disappears with the MSI board if you load its “optimized defaults.”

The Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI’s overclocking menu

On the front-side bus, er, front, you get quad-pumped options up to 3000MHz on the Abit board and 2500MHz with the MSI. Technically, the FP-IN9 gives you more headroom, but we’ve yet to have any LGA775 motherboard’s front-side bus running stable above an effective 2000MHz.

To keep a system’s memory from having to keep up with the front-side bus, both boards allow you to set a target memory bus speed between an effective 400 and 1400MHz. The BIOS automatically chooses an appropriate multiplier based on that target speed, and both the Abit and MSI boards appear to have access to a similar pool of multipliers.

The FP-IN9 and P6N stay relatively even in the voltage department, too, although they each go about CPU voltage adjustments in different ways. With the Abit board, you can set CPU voltages between 1.325 and 1.7V in 0.025V increments, while with the MSI, you’re given the option of increasing the CPU voltage by between 0.0125V and 0.3875V in 0.0125V increments. The P6N SLI Platinum gives you finer granularity there, and you can also set its memory voltage slightly higher than you can with the Fatal1ty board; the P6N’s DDR voltage options go up to 2.8V, but the FP-IN9 tops out at 2.5V.

Memory tweaking with the P6N SLI Platinum

When it comes to memory timings, similar options are available with both boards. You get access to all the usual suspects, including the DRAM command rate. However, we couldn’t get the Fatal1ty board to run our DIMMs with a 1T command rate with either the current release BIOS or a beta BIOS provided by Abit. The company is working to resolve the issue, but a fix isn’t available yet.

No µGuru, but still better than MSI’s fan speed control

No one does hardware monitoring and fan speed control better than Abit, so we had high hopes for the Fatal1ty on that front. Unfortunately, the board doesn’t come with a µGuru chip, so its capabilities are quite a bit more limited than we expected. Fan speed control is available for the CPU and system fan headers, and it’s easy to set temperature ranges and fan speeds, but that’s where the fun ends. Gone is the ability to tweak automatic fan speed controls for all the other onboard fan headers. You also lose µGuru’s support for BIOS-level alarm and shutdown conditions for all onboard voltages, temperature sensors, and fan speeds.

Even without a full suite of µGuru options, the FP-IN9’s BIOS still gives you more options than that of the P6N SLI Platinum. The MSI board only offers automatic fan speed control for the CPU fan header, and you don’t get any shutdown or alarm conditions.

If all this BIOS-level tweaking is freaking you out, don’t worry; both boards can be tweaked and even overclocked from the familiar confines of Windows. Nvidia’s nTune system utility is compatible with both boards, although only with limited functionality.

nTune’s monitoring app, for example, can’t track system voltages or temperatures on either board. And it gets worse when we move to nTune’s tweaking utility.

On both boards, your tweaking options are limited to adjusting memory timings and bus speeds. Voltage and fan speed controls are greyed out because neither Abit nor MSI has included the necessary hooks in their respective BIOSes for full nTune support.

Abit and MSI may be reluctant to fully support nTune because both companies have their own tweaking software for Windows. And like most apps provided by motherboard makers, these are a little over the top in the interface department.

Abit’s latest tweaking utility

MSI’s Dual Core Center software

Abit’s software brings back most of the µGuru functionality that’s missing from the BIOS, but it’s a little short on overclocking options. MSI’s Dual Core Center suite is better if you’re looking to overclock from Windows. However, its hardware monitoring and fan speed control options aren’t as extensive.

Our testing methods
We’re comparing the performance of the Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI and P6N SLI Platinum to that of a collection of Core 2 motherboards, including Asus’ P5N-E SLI and Striker Extreme, DFI’s LANParty UT ICFX3200-T2R/G, and EVGA motherboards based on Nvidia’s nForce 680i SLI and 680i LT SLI reference designs. We’ve also thrown in results from Shuttle’s XPC SD39P2 small form factor system.

Although we had no problems running a 1T command rate on the Asus and EVGA boards, the DFI wasn’t stable at 1T, so we had to back it off to a 2T command rate for testing. Also, although we set a 1T command rate with the Fatal1ty board, it ignored that setting and ran our DIMMs with 2T timings. Command rate control isn’t available on the XPC SD39P2. In fact, we’ve yet to see command rate control exposed on motherboards with Intel chipsets.

All tests were run at least twice, and their results were averaged, using the following test systems.

Thanks to Corsair for providing us with memory for our testing. 2GB of RAM seems to be the new standard for most folks, and Corsair hooked us up with some of its 1GB DIMMs for testing.

Also, all of our test systems were powered by OCZ GameXStream 700W power supply units. Thanks to OCZ for providing these units for our use in testing.

We used the following versions of our test applications:

• SiSoft Sandra Standard XI SP1
• WorldBench 5.0
• TCD Labs HD Tach v3.01
• Futuremark 3DMark06 Build 1.02
• Splinter Cell Chaos Theory v1.05
• RightMark Audio Analyzer 5.5
• RightMark 3D Sound 2.3
• NTttcp
• Cinebench 9.5
• Sphinx 3.3
• Quake 4 1.30 with trq4demo1 demo
• F.E.A.R. 1.08

The test systems’ Windows desktop was set at 1280×1024 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.

All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.

Memory performance

Sandra scores are even between the Abit and MSI boards, but Cachemem results are more mixed. There, the Abit has an edge in read bandwidth, while the MSI comes out ahead when it comes to latency.

Motherboards don’t always handle four-DIMM configurations well, so we popped in an extra couple of memory modules to look for problems. We had to slow the P5N-E’s DRAM command rate to 2T to get four DIMMs running stable on that board. The others had no problem running a tighter 1T command rate with four DIMMs, with the exception of the ICFX3200 and FP-IN9 SLI, which ran at 2T throughout our testing.

Adding two more DIMMs to our systems doesn’t change the picture all that much in Sandra. However, the P6N SLI’s Cachemem read bandwidth drops a little, while the FP-IN9’s latency rises.

WorldBench

MSI tops the competition in WorldBench and beats the Abit board by a full three points. Only five points separate the fastest boards from the slowest ones in this test.

Gaming

With the exception of Quake 4, this first round of game results works out pretty square for the Abit and MSI boards. It’s the Fatal1ty trailing in Quake 4, though.

Multi-GPU gaming performance
Our first round of gaming tests was conducted with lower in-game detail levels and display resolutions, but we’ve cranked things up for a second round. These tests use high resolutions, high detail levels, and anisotropic filtering and antialiasing. We’ve tested each board with a single GeForce 7900 GTX. The Abit, Asus, EVGA, and MSI boards were also tested with two 7900 GTXs running in SLI. Since the ICFX3200 doesn’t support SLI, we tested it with a Radeon X1900 XTX in single-card and CrossFire configurations. And since it can’t accept a second graphics card, the SD39P2 was only tested with a single GeForce 7900 GTX.

Our purpose here is not to compare the merits of SLI versus CrossFire, or even the GeForce 7900 GTX with the Radeon X1900 XTX. Instead, we’re looking at how performance scales when a second graphics card is installed.

As one might expect from boards using the same nForce 650i chipset, the Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI and P6N SLI Platinum offer nearly identical performance in our multi-GPU graphics tests. Note that their performance is comparable to those of high-end motherboards that offer a full 16 lanes of bandwidth to each card in an SLI configuration, too.

Cinebench rendering

Cinebench scores are too close to call.

Sphinx speech recognition

MSI maintains an edge over the Abit board in Sphinx, likely due to the latter’s higher memory access latencies. That puts the P6N SLI comfortably in the middle of the pack while the Fatal1ty languishes near the bottom of the pile.

Audio performance

Audio codecs and their associated drivers rule performance with positional 3D audio these days, so it’s no surprise to see the boards clumped together. The FP-IN9 fares slightly better here, despite the fact that it’s using the same ALC888 codec chip and Realtek drivers as the P6N SLI.

We should also note that some of Realtek’s HD audio drivers fail to correctly implement EAX occlusions and obstructions, rendering some games virtually unplayable with EAX effects enabled.

Audio quality
We used an M-Audio Revolution 7.1 sound card for recording in RightMark’s audio quality tests. Analog output ports were used on all systems. To keep things simple, I’ve translated RightMark’s word-based quality scale to numbers. Higher scores reflect better audio quality, and the scale tops out at 6, which corresponds to an “Excellent” rating in RightMark.

RightMark Audio Analyzer reveals an advantage for the FP-IN9 in the total harmonic distortion test, but otherwise, the board is even with the P6N SLI Platinum. All the boards are pretty close in these tests, with at most a single point separating the best from the worst in each test.

ATA performance
ATA performance was tested with a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ATA/133 hard drive using HD Tach 3.01’s 8MB zone setting.

ATA performance is even across the board, as one might expect.

Serial ATA performance
Moving to Serial ATA, we tested performance with a Western Digital Raptor WD360GD SATA hard drive. Again, we used HD Tach 3.01’s 8MB zone test.

The Fatal1ty board is just a little faster than the Platinum in a couple of Serial ATA performance tests.

USB performance
Our USB transfer speed tests were conducted with a USB 2.0/Firewire external hard drive enclosure connected to a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 hard drive. We tested with HD Tach 3.01’s 8MB zone setting.

USB performance is close, but the Abit board steals a win in the write speed test. Its CPU utilization is lower, as well, although HD Tach’s margin of error in that test is +/- 2%.

Firewire performance
Our Firewire transfer speed tests were conducted with the same external enclosure and hard drive as our USB transfer speed tests. Since the Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI lacks an onboard Firewire controller, it’ll have to sit this test out.

The P6N SLI is right in the thick of things in our Firewire performance tests, managing to match or beat the performance of more expensive boards.

Ethernet performance
We evaluated Ethernet performance using the NTttcp tool from Microsoft’s Windows DDK. The docs say this program “provides the customer with a multi-threaded, asynchronous performance benchmark for measuring achievable data transfer rate.”

We used the following command line options on the server machine:

ntttcps -m 4,0,192.168.1.25 -a

..and the same basic thing on each of our test systems acting as clients:

ntttcpr -m 4,0,192.168.1.25 -a

Our server was a Windows XP Pro system based on Asus’ P5WD2 Premium motherboard with a Pentium 4 3.4GHz Extreme Edition (800MHz front-side bus, Hyper-Threading enabled) and PCI Express-attached Gigabit Ethernet. A crossover CAT6 cable was used to connect the server to each system.

The boards were tested with jumbo frames disabled.

The Fatal1ty and Platinum offer comparable Gigabit Ethernet throughput, but the Abit board’s CPU utilization is much lower during the test, despite the fact that both boards use the same chipset and associated drivers. We repeated this test numerous times, but the results were consistent.

Power consumption
We measured system power consumption, sans monitor and speakers, at the wall outlet using a Watts Up power meter. Power consumption was measured at idle and under a load consisting of a multi-threaded Cinebench 2003 render running in parallel with the “rthdribl” high dynamic range lighting demo.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the Core 2 Duo’s C1E enhanced halt state working properly on the ICFX3200 or SD39P2. C1E was enabled in the BIOS, but the boards refused to lower CPU clock speeds at idle unless we invoked SpeedStep via Windows’ minimal power management profile. We contacted DFI and Shuttle about the issue, but it’s yet to be resolved. Similar problems were encountered with the Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI, which wouldn’t throttle processor clock speeds with C1E or SpeedStep. Abit is aware of the issue and is working to resolve it, but we don’t have a fix yet.

An inability to throttle the Core 2 Duo processor multiplier keeps the Fatal1ty’s power consumption higher than that of the Platinum at idle, but the tables turn under load. There, the Abit board’s power consumption is five watts lower than that of the Platinum, perhaps in part because the latter has to power additional onboard peripherals.

Overclocking
For our overclocking tests, we swapped our Core 2 Duo E6700 engineering sample for a retail E6300 we’ve had up to 3.3GHz without extra voltage or cooling. To get things started, we locked the memory bus at 800MHz and started turning the screws on the front-side bus. System stability was tested with Prime95 and the rthdribl HDR lighting demo.

The Fatal1ty tops out at 390MHz

With the Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI, we started to run into problems with front-side bus speeds above 370MHz. A north bridge voltage boost to 1.35V seemed to do the trick, and we pressed on to 390MHz without issue. However, the board refused to post with a 400MHz front-side bus speed, and no amount of additional voltage for the chipset or other components got us into Windows at that speed. We even tried lowering the CPU multiplier, to no avail.

MSI manages 400MHz

We observed similar behavior from the P6N SLI Platinum, which required a north bridge voltage boost to maintain stability at front-side bus speeds above 380MHz. In this case, 1.4V was needed, and that only took us up to 390MHz. We had to crank the north bridge voltage to 1.5V to get the board stable with a 400MHz front-side bus, and it would go no further, no matter what we tried.

So both boards overclocked to within 10MHz of each other, which isn’t entirely surprising given that they use the same 650i chipset. 400MHz is respectable, too, but it’s still well shy of the 470MHz we hit with Asus’ 650i-based P5N-E SLI, though.

Conclusions
The Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI and P6N SLI Platinum are very different approaches to Nvidia’s nForce 650i SLI chipset, and both are decent options for cash-strapped enthusiasts looking for the foundation of a Core 2 Duo build. Abit wins on price, with the Fatal1ty selling for around $30 less than the Platinum online. However, that $30 costs you onboard Firewire and eSATA connectivity that you get with the P6N SLI.

Despite differences in price, the boards are pretty equivalent on the BIOS front. The Fatal1ty BIOS does give you better fan speed control, but with most of Abit’s µGuru functionality left on the cutting room floor, it’s a little short on the unique functionality that has traditionally made Abit’s BIOSes so appealing. Compound that with issues surrounding the DRAM command rate, and more importantly, both C1E and SpeedStep clock throttling, and it’s clear the Fatal1ty BIOS needs some work. There are no such problems with the BIOS for the P6N SLI Platinum, and although it isn’t as flashy as what you get with the Abit board, it gets the job done.

Getting the job done is really what MSI does best, and the P6N SLI Platinum is a textbook example of that focus. The board has everything you really need in terms of BIOS functionality and onboard peripherals, and everything just works—no BIOS updates needed. Still, it’s hard to get really enthusiastic about the board given that it’s selling for between $155 and $180 at most online retailers. That’s a big ask given the price of other nForce 650i-based motherboards on the market, in particular because MSI doesn’t bring anything particularly unique to the table with the Platinum.

In the end, then, it’s hard to really throw our weight behind either board. They’re both decent offerings, but to garner a solid recommendation, it will take a BIOS fix for the Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI and lower prices from the P6N SLI Platinum.