Not so long ago Nvidia launched the nForce 500 chipset's for AMD's new DDR2 capable socket, AM2. By now you should all be aware of the minimal performance increases DDR2 has brought to the A64 architecture and it's low latency on-die memory controller, but in my opinion the most difficult aspect of the AM2 and nForce 500 launch from my perspective is leaving behind the oh-so mature motherboard choices available for s939 in place of brand new 'unproven' boards, so to speak. With that point made, anyone who's eying up AMD's recent and significant price drops across the board will be asking one question - which AM2 board will rock my world? To help answer this question, we have two feature packed boards on test today, the Foxconn C51XEM2AA and the MSI K9N SLI Platinum, the former based on the 590 SLI chipset and the later using the 570 SLI. First let's take a quick look at both chipset's to see what you'll get for you hard earned yens. The 570 chipset is Nvidia's mainstream performance offering boasting almost all the features present on the 590 SLI chipset. The one glaringly obvious difference between the two are the amount of PCI-e lanes supported. The 590 SLI chipset has 46 lanes and support for two X16 PCI-Express slots for SLI, while the 570 SLI chipset supports 28 lanes and SLI using two X8 PCI-Express slots. It should be clear from the diagram how Nvidia has increased the amount of PCI-e lanes for the 590 SLI chipset. They have kept the same basic configuration as the nForce4 SLI X16 chipset, with the additional PCI-e lanes supplied from an additional chip, the SPP. This is the main reason for the 590 SLI's price premium. One minor feature only available on the 590 chipset is LinkBoost, a rather intriguing attempt at automated overclocking when specific hardware is used, in this case the 7900 GTX. If it detects this card it will automatically increase the PCI-e frequency by 25%. Anyone who knows a bit about overclocking will know this is an absolutely pointless feature, but who knows, one day it may shows its worth, and i'll be sure to check when G80 comes to the table to see if the extra PCI-e Bandwidth is in any way desirable. Just for the record, the bandwidth increases from 8GB/s to 10GB/s with LinkBoost. Other than PCI-e lanes and Linkboost, both chipset's offer a similar feature set, all of which are explained onwards. We now find 7.1 HD audio as standard on both chipset's with the choice of codec up to the manufacturer. This really is a nice upgrade from nForce4 and will no doubt please many.Some of the most interesting additional to nForce5 can be found in the ethernet connectivity. The first up is Nvidia Dual Net, which brings a set of features to the table such as hardware TCP/IP acceleration and two types of teaming. Teaming allows you to link both of the hardware accelerated gigabit connections into a one, allowing for a 2 gigabit link and the ability to continue streaming data without interruption should one of those connections fail.Next up is First Packet, which allows packets of data to be prioritized in hardware so that if you're playing a game and downloading a file you can keep the affect on your ping to a minimum. Above you can see a basic demonstration of this in action. First Packet makes sure that your chosen applications are given first priority in the queue, allowing the ping of the game to be less affected. Anyone who's tried to download something "legal" on Bit torrent and jump in for a quick session of counter-strike at the same time will know how badly affected the game ping will become, and why this is an excellent feature.Generally speaking, there are enough additional features here to make nForce5 stand out against nForce4, too. As you can clearly see, there's not just a new socket and DDR2 support offered here. With this out of the way, let's take a look at the first board on review today, the Foxconn C51XEM2AA.
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