Intel NF590 Pictured

[maverik-sg1]

Hexus reports:

Exclusive shots of DFI LANParty nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition motherboard

HEXUS was invited to visit DFI's headquarters located in the bustling metropolis that is Taipei, Taiwan.

Jarry Chang, R+D manager for the LANParty series of enthusiast-orientated motherboards, nipped out of our meeting to bring back the very first DFI LANParty sample based on NVIDIA's upcoming nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition chipset. Folks, the PCB was still warm to the touch, fresh off the factory floor.

Cast your eyes on the motherboard that should make a perfect partner to Intel's eagerly awaited Core 2 Duo (Conroe) CPU. We're hugely excited by DFI's offering, and a look back at our Conroe benchmark numbers will highlight why.





The unmistakable appearance of a LANParty motherboard.











DFI has used a digital PWM controller and eliminated the need to populate the board with space-taking capacitors. The end result is a fully-featured mainboard that carries 7 expansion slots.

Overall design is extremely tidy, and we cannot wait to test it in our labs. Stay tuned for the upcoming full review of, perhaps, the most-wanted motherboard of 2006.



Mav's comments:

I really like to digital power regs on this beauty (allowing more space for phase heads) - lets hope it's as good as the 975 Infinity product (500mhz FSB on Intel anyone??)

The copper southbridge cooler is a welcome addition too to help keep that toasty chipset nice and cool.

Mav

 

[M8tRiX]

Nice find Mav, just quickly will EPP be supported straight out of the box by DFI.

I know i must have my head in the sand, but any idea of a release date for the Conroe ?

Ta

 

[K404]

Conroe..July 24th. Expect supply issues ES are dropping in price pretty well..i`d buy one of them if possible

K

 

[maverik-sg1]

Nice find Mav, just quickly will EPP be supported straight out of the box by DFI.

Ta

EPP:? If I knew what it was I might be able to answer :$ sorry :$

I agree with Kenny, there is every possibility that supply issues will occur, mainly due to the exceptional demand that has already been created by other peoples heroic benchies.

ES Prices are becoming more palletable as the retail units are readied for release and we know that these will be agressively priced (£10-£20 above current presler prices)

Cheers

Mav

 

[M8tRiX]

http://www.nvidia.com/content/epp/epp_specifications.pdf

 

[maverik-sg1]

Oh you mean the memeory overclocking feature?

I guess it will - it's essentially the same chipset now with added mem controller on the northbridge as as they are both using DDR2 it would be a crying shame not to take advantage.

One worrying aspect is that the NF5 AMD chipset can't handle 1066mhz memory, I am hoping this is more and AMD issue than an Intel one.

Mav

 

[Drazic]

Been out for a while now it has Mav. A well known online retailer are sorting there stock out of these but i have both one of these and a DFI 975 Infinty on there way for me to test and kill

Mod comment: No competitors please, thanks.

 

[maverik-sg1]

Been out for a while now it has Mav. XXXX are sorting there stock out of these but i have both one of these and a DFI 975 Infinty on there way for me to test and kill

I hear a lot of people having stock of these - it's total B@LLOX, a ploy to pre-orders so that they can live off the interest of your money. Whats worse is that (like gollum last year) end up waiting longer for your parts coz the pre-orders outweight the stock they got coming in on their first shipment.

Plus, if that's a brand new board taken off the product line (in Asia) and no-one else, anywhere in the world has reviewed/played with it, I can guarantee that it will be 4 weeks before it hits the shelves.

Not starting an arguement or anything here - or looking to flame.

Lets just say thats my view, others have theirs, lets ride this one out and see who is right.

Mav

 

[Vrykyl]

Been out for a while now it has Mav. OCUK are sorting there stock out of these but i have both one of these and a DFI 975 Infinty on there way for me to test and kill

Hahaha you'd better get testing your 3 dozen conroe quad core extreme edition chips on these unreleased beta boards then

:rofl:

 

[nick25]

Feel free to delete this message as its OT: but isn't it illegal for them to charge your card until its shipped?

 

[maverik-sg1]

but isn't it illegal for them to charge your card until its shipped?

Good question, I don't know, some etailors do, some dont.

As for the legality, given the size of the companies taking the money from you I doubt it's dodgy - worth looking into though.

Mav

 

[Drazic]

Hahaha you'd better get testing your 3 dozen conroe quad core extreme edition chips on these unreleased beta boards then

:rofl:

Sorry what? They only just came up to being on order as ES and i'm not getting any in.

How ever other stuff i have and am getting. Don;t go degreading your self now

Mav all i said wa sbeen out on show for ages, someone has it in testing and DFI have sent a few out more for testing

 

[Vrykyl]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=103526

Im all degraded out now

/goes to bed.

 

[clone38]

Well if that motherboard is as good as the Amd version,im getting one

Saving for conroe as we speak.

 

[GoLLuM4444]

[COLOR=#000000']The copper southbridge cooler is a welcome addition too to help keep that toasty chipset nice and cool.[/COLOR]

Isn't that one the northbridge? (It's next to the ram and has the larger cooler while the other one has a tiny dye and is by the expansion slots...)

Is this board coming out at the same time as the conroe chips?

 

[maverik-sg1]

The chipset cooler on the DFI is all copper - the one inbetween the PCI-E and SATA connectors is the southbridge, northbirdge is the one closest to the cpu socket.

Yes will be launched in time for Conroe launch date, hopefully see some reviews prior to that though.

Mav

 

[maverik-sg1]

Anandtech now reports on the beta boad they tested, comclusion so far is this:

Our first tests with the NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition reference board certainly shows promise against one of the better performing Intel 975X boards currently on the market. Based upon the progress NVIDIA has made over the past two weeks with BIOS updates and a new board revision, we are very optimistic about this chipset performing equal to or better than the Intel 975X at this time. Of course, until we are able to fully test a production ready nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition board along with the soon to be released Core 2 Duo ready 975X boards, we cannot conclude with confidence which chipset will cater to the gamer, enthusiast, or hard core overclocker. We do know that if you want to use SLI then NVIDIA is the only game in town for the Intel platform.

Mav's Thought's:

This could be worth the wait, early adaptors of Bad Axe could regret the investment - a few more weeks and reviews will be rife, boards should be available locally before the Conroe official launch.

Interesting - very interesting.

Mav