My geeky little heart was performing parabolas of joy when I first saw a motherboard with the 780i chipset, represented by the Asus P5N-T Deluxe. Although supposedly delayed until early next year, our friends at Asus were able to secure for us what looks like a retail product of this new Nvidia – based motherboard.

The reason for my high expectations, as well as the general anticipation displayed by many enthusiasts is primarily due to the position Nvidia chipsets hold in the enthusiast’s market – due to the SLI capability and the performance plus overclocking capabilities of the chipset (after the heat problems and driver issues were ironed out) made the 680i chipset boards a favorite among buyers who treated their rigs as more than working appliances.

                                             Note the third chip near the northbridge - NF200.

The 780i is the follow-up to this chipset, explaining all the excitement following Nvidia’s initial announcement for a November 12 release. The 780i chipset is basically a refinement of the old 680i, although the accuracy of labeling its conception as a refinement is debatable. That is, the 780i actually consists of the same 680i and MCP pairing, with an additional NF200 chipset grafted on to add support for some cutting-edge features.

                                             The NF200 chip (plus some enhancements) is what turns the 680i into the 780i.

And therein lies the shortcoming of the motherboard based on it – for all the anticipation expended on this chipset and the motherboards sure to be released based on this, the result is basically some additional features which may or may not be utilized, on an older chipset that does not give the performance increases expected of a new release. Worse, the 780i chipset is simply designed to bridge the gap between the older chipsets and the upcoming 790i which will be the chipset to have the truly cutting-edge technology.

Of course this is no fault of the motherboard itself; motherboard manufacturers concentrate on the execution and the implementation of the myriad features made available to it by any particular chipset and this is where Asus excels. First we must cover the features that separate the 780i from its follow-up, before we delve into the Asus-exclusive features that make the Asus an extremely attractive buy.

                                             Three's a crowd, but it's a good crowd.

The main talking point of the motherboard is undoubtedly its ability to support three PCI-E videocards in SLI. Tests show that this configuration yields excellent performance scaling, giving nearly thrice the performance of a single card. Unfortunately, certain limitation apply – only the 8800GTX and Ultra will be able to support 3-way SLI, and for owners of these expensive cards who at the same time are willing to spend more dough to acquire one or two additional cards to take advantage of the 780i’s main feature will undoubtedly be liquid enough (and savvy enough) to wait for the 790i.

Whereas the 780i boasts of 1333MHz FSB and support for DDR2 due to its 680i roots; the 790i faces no such restrictions – as a whole new chipset it can support 1600MHz out of the box and supports DDR3 for next-gen memory upgradeability. Another strike is the fact that the 780i cannot support 45nm quad core (Penryn) processors – so even if the 780i states support for “45nm” and “quad core” – this is in fact referring to two separate things – 45m dual cores and 65nm quad cores. The 790i will have no such limitation.

                                             There is no DDR3 support for this chipset.

The NF200 chip grafted onto the 680i also ups the ante by proclaiming PCI-E version 2.0 support plus 32 lanes (16 lanes per) for the two PCI-E x16 slots that it’s responsible for. The 680i chipset provides another x16 slot, but of the 1.0 variety, which shouldn’t matter at all, since the 2.0 spec is more or less a paper tiger – it improves theoretical maximum bandwidth, but does not actually increase the throughput of data. In other words, two Ultras in SLI can’t even saturate the PCI-E 1.0 spec, who actually needs version 2.0 now? Future proofing would have been a valid course, except for the fact that this board will be discarded by enthusiasts for newer ones when cards that can saturate 2.0 have come out.

                                             The 3-way SLI connector  - most important piece in the bundle.

I also have to wonder about the speed of a 3-way setup on the 780i; surely we can expect some kind of slowdown due to the physical separation of the NF200 chip from the northbridge and thus the CPU and memory subsystems, compared to an integrated chipset like the upcoming 790i.  Summing up, the 790i will be worth waiting for, and investing in an interim solution like the 780i is not a prudent move by enthusiasts.

We must note though that not all buyers will be enthusiasts, and for most of them, the here and now purchase based on current ability and future upgradeability (to the extent of a non-enthusiast’s scope) is the most important consideration. When all the said features are tallied up, the buyer is left with an impressive list of capabilities, as well as Asus exclusive features that will stand them in good stead.

                                             The whole box is a list of all the features of the board.

These features include the Energy Processing Unit (EPU) that controls both energy efficiency factors as well as providing a full complement of overclocking and tuning facilities. Asus also includes several integral design features thatprovide a solid base for further energy savings – namely the Stack Cool 2 design of the PCB itself, and 8-phase voltage regulators composed of solid  capacitors, as well as a prominent heatpipe system that covers the North and south bridge as well as the NF200 chip.

                                             Rear panel has a little bit of everything, but can benefit from additional USB sockets.

Design and layout is as uncluttered as a triple PCI-E board with dozens of connectivity features can be, although it is obvious from a glance that Asus has designed good clearance into the board for when three double-slot video cards are plugged in. Suffice it to say for now that the board is up to Asus’ usual level of quality, it is only the fact that the chipset is limited from the enthusiast’s perspective and thus must provoke careful consideration before its purchase. Further details regarding the P5N-T Deluxe will be covered in our print edition. Watch out for it!

More pictures to follow.