This week NVIDIA introduced the company's next-generation NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI media and communications processor (MCP), designed specifically for 1333FSB Intel QX9650 (Yorkfield) processors. The new nForce 780i SLI MCP brings support for 45nm quad-core processors, PCI Express Gen 2.0. 1200MHz DDR2 memory and more. Read on to see how the board performs with the latest in hardware technology!
Article Title: XFX nForce 780i SLI Motherboard ReviewTo improve the time to market for this motherboard series, NVIDIA opted to use an NVIDIA nForce 200 chipset to add the new features of the board. Traditional motherboards have two chipsets on them: a north bridge, which Nvidia calls a System Platform Processor (SPP), and the south bridge, which Nvidia calls the Media Communications Processor (MCP). The NVIDIA 780i motherboard has a third chipset on it now, which is the nForce 200. The nForce 200 connects directly to the north bridge and adds 32 lanes of PCIe 2.0 connectivity that can be split evenly between a pair of physical x16 slots. There are not enough lanes for three physical x16 PCI Express 2.0 slots, so the thrid lane goes directly through the nForce 780i SLI MCP. Of the 62 PCIe lanes, 32 are PCI Express 2.0 and they are all thanks to the nForce 200 chipset. This isn't the best way to implement 3-way SLI support, but it works.
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/616/1/
