NVIDIA nForce 500: Biostar and MSI Aim for the Gold

Final Words

The Biostar TForce 590 SLI Deluxe offers a significant set of features and excellent performance for around US $200. The performance of the board was superb in our testing while providing very good overclocking capabilities. In fact, the overclocking aspect of this board with our less than capable 4800+ processor was almost amazing. The stability of the board was excellent in our benchmark, gaming sessions, and general application testing whether the board was at stock or overclocked settings. This is an indication of a well built board, stable BIOS, and a very good core-logic chipset.

However, the board is not without its shortcomings. We certainly have an issue with this board not providing additional memory voltages along with more granular settings for these voltages. The requirement to change a jumper and then be locked into a 2.3V memory setting is not something an enthusiast is expecting or requires from a board of this caliber. While we can understand Biostar's reluctance to offer additional memory voltages due to the potential issues of a user destroying their new DDR2 modules, we cannot accept this limitation on a board targeting the overclocking enthusiast. We have already witnessed how newer DDR2 memory modules respond very well to voltage settings in the 2.2V~2.4V range in our latest DDR2 memory review.



With that said, let's move on to our performance opinions regarding this board.

In the video area, the inclusion of dual PCI Express X16 connectors provides full SLI support with sixteen PCI Express lanes per graphics connector. The performance of the board under SLI testing was excellent. The performance and stability with the current range of ATI based graphics cards was very good in both stock and overclocked settings.

In the on-board audio area, the Biostar board offers the Realtek ALC-882 HD audio codec. While we would have preferred the ALC-882D codec offering Dolby Digital Live support at this price point, the ALC-882 is a good compromise. The audio output of this codec in the music, video, and DVD areas is very good for an on-board solution. The lack of S/PDIF ports on the I/O panel was perplexing but the board does offer S/PDIF in and out connectors on the board. The audio quality in gaming was good but did not match the output of the Sound Blaster X-FI. If you plan on utilizing this board for online gaming, then our recommendation is to purchase an appropriate sound card for consistency in frame rates across a wide range of games. However, the Realtek ALC-882 is recommended for the majority of users looking to save money on a discreet audio solution.

In the storage area, the Biostar board offers the full compliment of storage options afforded by the NVIDIA SLI 590 chipset. The board offers four SATA 3Gb/s ports along with two e-SATA 3Gb/s ports and RAID 0, 1, 0+1, and 5 capability. Single port UDMA ATA133 capability is provided for two PATA drives. The performance of the on-board controllers was very competitive throughout our testing with measurable improvements over our nForce4 board although performance continues to trail the ATI/ULi offerings.

In the connectivity area, the Biostar board offers IEEE 1394a capability by way of the VIA VT6307 chipset that outperforms the TI 1394a chipset. The board has ten USB 2.0 ports available when utilizing the two USB 2.0 headers. The performance of the NVIDIA USB 2.0 solution is excellent and consistently leads other AMD based solutions in our benchmark tests. We never witnessed any incompatibilities with the USB or FireWire ports during testing with several different peripherals.

In the networking area, the Biostar board offers the revised NVIDIA dual GbE design with the Marvell 88E1116 Ethernet PHYs interfacing to the MACs. This solution offers excellent throughput performance and very competitive CPU utilization rates with or without TCP/IP acceleration turned on. NVIDIA has also added Teaming, Fail-Over, FirstPacket, and improved TCP/IP acceleration features to their networking engine. Additional details about these new features can be located here.

Overall, Biostar has done what they do best, taking the latest chipset technology and producing a very capable board that offers excellent performance for the money.

The MSI K9N SLI Platnium offered impressive performance along with a feature set that will satisfy most users for a very reasonable US $135. The performance of the board was excellent in our testing while providing very good overclocking capabilities. The stability of the board was without question during our testing regimen regardless if the board was at stock or overclocked settings. While the board does not offer LinkBoost, EPP, or X16 PCI-E SLI capability like the 590 SLI boards, the feature set is still extensive for a mid-range market board.

We had a few minor quibbles with the board that centered on its stability at high HTT speeds dropping off quickly once you exceed the board's capability. This usually happened within a few increases of the HTT clock and would result instantly in a board that required a CMOS clear. Our only other noticeable issue was the board's inability to work in SLI operation with the new but still beta 91.28 video drivers. MSI is working on this issue currently and believes it to be BIOS related. Our other NVIDIA AM2 boards work fine with the 91.28 driver set.



With that said, let's move on to our performance opinions regarding this board.

In the video area, the inclusion of dual PCI Express X16 connectors provides full SLI support but with eight PCI Express lanes per graphics connector unlike the nForce 590 SLI which offers sixteen PCI Express lanes per video slot. This apparent disadvantage did not cause a measurable change in our video test results but we have witnessed differences at the higher 1920x1200 resolutions with 8xAA/16xAF operation in some of the more graphically demanding titles. However, for the vast majority of gamers still stuck at 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 resolutions, X8 SLI operation still meets their needs without issue.

In the on-board audio area, the MSI board offers the Realtek ALC-883 HD audio codec. The audio output of this codec in the music, video, and DVD areas is very good to excellent for an on-board solution. The inclusion of optical and coaxial S/PDIF ports on the I/O panel is a nice touch by MSI and should please HTPC users as will the silent cooling solution on the board. The audio quality in gaming is very acceptable but does not match the output or features of the Sound Blaster X-FI. If you plan on utilizing this board for online gaming, then our recommendation is to purchase an appropriate sound card for consistency in frame rates across a wide range of games. We firmly believe the Realtek ALC-883 is a recommended solution for the majority of users looking to save money on a discreet audio solution.

In the storage area, the MSI board offers the full compliment of storage options afforded by the NVIDIA SLI 590 chipset. The board offers six SATA 3Gb/s ports and RAID 0, 1, 0+1, and 5 capability. Single port UDMA ATA133 capability is provided for two PATA drives. The performance of the controllers were in alignment with the balance of our nForce 500 based boards but still trailing that of the ATI/ULi offerings slightly. This performance difference is not noticeable during general usage of the board.

In the connectivity area, the MSI board offers IEEE 1394a capability with the VIA VT6307 chipset. The board has ten USB 2.0 ports available when utilizing the three USB 2.0 headers. We never witnessed any incompatibilities with the USB or FireWire ports during testing with several different peripherals ranging from keyboards to external optical and hard drives.

In the networking area, the MSI board offers the now standard NVIDIA dual GbE design with the Vitesse VSC8601 Ethernet PHYs interfacing to the MACs. This solution offers excellent throughput performance and very competitive CPU utilization rates compared to the Marvell product solution. Like the Biostar board, it includes the new Teaming, Fail-Over, FirstPacket, and improved TCP/IP acceleration features.

MSI has launched a nForce 570 SLI board that is very competitive with the 590 SLI offerings while providing a slightly reduced feature set. Given the considerably lower price of the MSI board, the missing features will probably not matter nearly as much to most performance enthusiasts as the dollar savings, equivalent performance to top-line 590 boards, and the excellent overclocking capabilities of the MSI.