EVGA 790i SLI FTW Digital PWM Motherboard Review

[Apoptosis]

EVGA 790i SLI FTW Digital PWM Motherboard Review

When eVGA launched the 790i SLI FTW motherboard a few months back, their non-reference design won them a lot of acclaim. Now they've taken something great and made it even better with the inclusion of an 8-phase digital PWM. The 790i SLI FTW already featured a solid PWM, so how does this new digital PWM match up? Read on to find out!

You had to see this coming. I was able to borrow two EVGA GTX 280 video cards and do some LN2 overclocking. I had issues getting 540+FSB stable so I opted for the easier solution and pulled out the QX9650 and the F1EE LN2 pot. Insulating the EVGA 790i FTW Digital was an incredibly easy process and within 10 minutes I was up and running.

Article Title: EVGA 790i SLI FTW Digital PWM Motherboard Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/802/1/

[DX]

What no liquid cooling for the DIMMs? =)

[martini161]

i dont know if it happens for anyone else but on the results of the benchmarks page its cut off after memory bandwidth. nice review BTW. is that an AC fan over top of the North bridge in the pic of the Ln2 run?

[Apoptosis]

i dont know if it happens for anyone else but on the results of the benchmarks page its cut off after memory bandwidth. nice review BTW. is that an AC fan over top of the North bridge in the pic of the Ln2 run?

That is a delta branded DC 12V fan... more than likely a 'screamer' series from back in the day.

As for the test results just click the image for full view... Maybe we should do them top to bottom from now on.

[martini161]

That is a delta branded DC 12V fan... more than likely a 'screamer' series from back in the day.

maybe we should do them top to bottomAs for the test results just click the image for full view... M from now on.

a screamer? i thought those were outlawed

[DMB2000uk]

As for the test results just click the image for full view... Maybe we should do them top to bottom from now on.

I didn't click on the results image either, and I had no idea there were so many results clipped off of the picture.

Dan

[Gomeler]

Oh yikes, guess I should re-format my table to fit the 550px. Those results pages have always been linked to the the larger image, woop! The fan is a sanyo denki 12vdc fan, 5watts. I used to use a 110vac 30w fan but it nearly took off the tip of a finger and have since downgraded to "weaker" fans

[Apoptosis]

sanyo... wtf looked like a delta

[Gomeler]

it's all the same, 120mm wide 38mm thick finger nippers

[martini161]

it's all the same, 120mm wide 38mm thick finger nippers

ive got a couple of ac fans lying around here, thanks for the tip as for not sticking fingers in im sure they moved damn good air though

[SAMSAMHA]

do you happen to have the EVGA 790i Ultra to comapre? how are the two boards fare against each other?

[Gomeler]

I unfortunately don't. I've been told the 790i Ultra clocks Wolfdale/Conroe(E8xxxx/E6xxx) processors better while the 790i SLI FTW Digital and non-Digital clock Kentsfield/Yorkfield(Q6xxx/Q9xxx) processors better. This board was only average with my Wolfdale but with the QX9650 it positively screamed(~480FSB).

[martini161]

I unfortunately don't. I've been told the 790i Ultra clocks Wolfdale/Conroe(E8xxxx/E6xxx) processors better while the 790i SLI FTW Digital and non-Digital clock Kentsfield/Yorkfield(Q6xxx/Q9xxx) processors better. This board was only average with my Wolfdale but with the QX9650 it positively screamed(~480FSB).

i assume thats due to the improved PWM and the quads needed more power. ive also noticed with my quad core that one set of cores hates anything above 333mhz fsb but the other set is rock solid up to 425+. not sure if this has something to do with power as well?

[SAMSAMHA]

I unfortunately don't. I've been told the 790i Ultra clocks Wolfdale/Conroe(E8xxxx/E6xxx) processors better while the 790i SLI FTW Digital and non-Digital clock Kentsfield/Yorkfield(Q6xxx/Q9xxx) processors better. This board was only average with my Wolfdale but with the QX9650 it positively screamed(~480FSB).

Kind of interesting to see that the Ultra would clock better with the dual while the non-ultra actually clocks better with the quad core. You would think the other way around as usually the better chip should work better with more advance (expensive) cpu.

thanks for the info.

I am wondering if there's any major performance hit between this and the ultra as the 1333 memory limitation on the 790i chip vs the 2000MHz on the ultra.

[Gomeler]

There's no 1333MHz memory limitation with the 790i SLI chipset. I was able to hit DDR3-1940 7-6-5-18-1T with 2.2vdimm and 1.52vMCH. As for the "cheaper" chipset working with the more expensive chip and such, I believe it's the stronger PWM on the 790i SLI FTW that lets it clock Quads much better than the 790i Ultra. This would explain why it doesn't do as well with duals as the PWM is less of an issue and the chipset is the bottleneck. For most consumers the 790i SLI and 790i Ultra are identical chipsets, it is only when you are pushing the limits of the hardware that the additional binning implemented in selecting the 790i Ultra chipsets begins to show. They are afterall the same processor, 790i Ultra is just a higher bin than 790i SLI.

[SAMSAMHA]

make sense, thank you for the info.