These support the latest PCI-E 2.0 specifications and, together with the single x16 PCI-E slot supported by the 780i SLI MCP (which is only PCI-E 1.0), allow the 780SLI to provide full-speed triple SLI. That's three high-speed graphics cards in one machine, if you have deep enough pockets.
One of the first boards to use the new chipset is the nattily named 780i SLI (MB-N780-ISH9) from XFX. Better known for its range of fast graphics cards, XFX has a small but steadily growing range of motherboards, all based around Nvidia chipsets.
As with all 780i SLI boards, it supports all Intel's Socket 775 processors, including the latest 45nm Penryns with front side bus speeds up to 1333MHz, and provides four DIMM slots which support up to 8GB of DDR2-800 memory.
Built on a black PCB, the 780i SLI is well laid out. The problems you may come across occur if you want to access the two USB headers (which are close to the x16 PCI-E slots): if you have gone down the triple SLI route, and if you have fat fingers, you may find yourself swearing at the 8-pin power connector which is tucked up tight against the MOSFET cooler.
As with so many high-end boards produced these days, the chipset is passively cooled, but unlike the majority with their extravagant copper designs, the design on the 780i is almost minimalist, with simple flattened pipework connecting both chipset bridges while a standard single pipe connects the passive MOSFET heatsink to the cooler on the 780MCP.
Some thought has gone into the main cooler, which is larger than the one on the 680i as it has to cool the nForce 200 chip. Angled backwards, it gives plenty of space around the CPU socket, and even if you use the provided cooling fan to give the chipset more cooling (which, thinking about it, you should, as this chipset gets very hot), there is still room to manoeuvre a third-party CPU cooler in place.
All three x16 PCI-E ports are coloured bright green and run at full x16 speed even in triple SLI mode. The reason for the extra long SLI connector in the box becomes apparent when you realise that for standard SLI mode, you use the first and third slots which are a fair distance apart.
Apart from these three slots there are also two standard PCI slots and a single x1 PCI slot, while both 7.1 audio and dual Gigabit LAN are integrated into the board. There are six SATA ports, two of which are edge-mounted and sit at ninety degrees to the motherboard, making for tidier cable runs, and all can be used to build 0, 1, 0+1 and 5 RAID arrays.
As this is a board aimed at enthusiasts, it comes as no surprise to see both power and reset switches on the board itself along with a POST LED to show visually any BIOS codes that the board may be hanging on.
The board comes with an impressive bundle of bits in the box: along with both the SLI connectors there are six SATA cables, single rounded ATA and floppy cables, a couple of 4-pin Molex to SATA power cables, a Firewire 400 backplate, a USB backplate with four ports and a rather good printed manual.
Comparing prices of 'XFX 780i SLI'
Motherboard 'XFX - 780i SLI'
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