Nvidia 780a Chipset Preview
Conclusion
Published: 9th May 2008 | Source: Nvidia | Price: N/A |
Conclusion
NVIDIA have plainly pulled out all the stops to bring the 780a to the performance market. With Hybrid SLI technology and the ability to run up to 3 cards in SLI no-one can doubt that this chipset is going to be a gamers delight. Sadly our overclocking exploits were hampered by a restrictive CPU but if you have a chip that is up to the task I have no doubt that the Crosshair II (and thereby the 780a chipset) has the minerals to eek every last drop of performance from it.
I have shown that despite the on-board VGA not being designed to be a standalone VGA solution it is quite ample for day to day use and only shows it's weaknesses when asked to perform 3D tasks such as gaming at anything other than low settings. I for one would like to see onboard VGA become a feature on motherboards once again if for nothing other than to use as a troubleshooting aid.
The chipset does not appear to be a major heat source as with its 780i counterpart, feeling luke warm to the touch and with the motherboard not reporting temps of over 35c during our benchmarking runs it certainly reports to be very cool and efficient which is a plus as in the UK were expecting some hot weather this summer for a change.
In the very near future we will be analysing the 780a chipset once more with the Asus Crosshair II receiving the full OC3D treatment. We will also see how quad SLI scales with the new chipset but for now, the 780a on-board and very capable VGA will have to suffice.
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Most Recent Comments
Some of the chipsets with onboard GPU's out now are really worth looking at when you consider HTPC's
Full HD output ftw tbh
.I was socked about the onboard VGA actually being able to run games let alone be playable.
Looks like a nice board.
.Tis a very nice board, I just wish we could have exploited it more....but that comes later
. i shall give it a full read when i return homegood to see asus havent abandoned AMD, and neither has Nvidia, back in the day they made some good boards, like mine, the A8N sli-premium
Asus board
Nforce 4 chipset
AMD processor
tis the shizz
good to see we're building back upto that
amd processors were never really good overclockers anyway, you were lucky if you got 500MHz out of your athlon 64 series....
I do hope AMD can get back inline with Intel as the support is evidently still there for enthusiasts with chipsets/motherboards like this.
You going to be doing more reviews webbo?
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Originally Posted by name='teknokid'
yeah, tis looking good
You going to be doing more reviews webbo? |
:whack::banng:
:haha:Did you get my pm kemp?
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Originally Posted by name='ionicle'
nice
good to see asus havent abandoned AMD, and neither has Nvidia, back in the day they made some good boards, like mine, the A8N sli-premium |
This new 780a chip looks packed with features, great (pre)review. The layout of the asus board looks spot on aswell.
1. The Price!
2. Current AMD processors.
Why pay £140+ for a motherboard that uses current AMD processors? When you could spend £140+ on an X48 board and get an Intel processor that is better than current AMDs. Who would buy a £140+ motherboard just for the onboard graphics and hybrid SLI when they would be combined with an AMD processor?
Spot on, cept DFI Lanparty SLI-DR, X2, 3gig DDR500Asus board
Nforce 4 chipset
AMD processor
tis the shizz
Im glad there will be another reiview on this board though. To really put it through its paces you need to test the tri-SLI capability, Quad-SLI, and have a Phenom 9850X4 BE. Also testing hybrid SLI to see how well that works and to see if there really is a dip in performance with it enabled.
For a (not so) little preview i thought this was great. Keep up the good work! And sorry ima bit late. This is the board im looking at getting in the near future so i wanna see the OC3D seal of approval before i decide on heading to Intel. (Which is going to be exspensive for me, QX9650, DDR3, 790i, ect)
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Review HERE