NVIDIA nForce4 SLI XE: Enthusiast Features on a Budget
by Gary Key on March 23, 2006 12:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Final Words
The ECS C19-A SLI is a very affordable entry level enthusiast board for the Intel market that provides an excellent feature set for around US $90. The performance of the board in the majority of the synthetic and game benchmarks was very good, but not class leading. However, the board was consistently competitive with the Intel chipset offerings while including the added bonus of certified SLI operation. The stability of the board was excellent in all areas of benchmark testing and general application/game usage. However, we were frustrated that upon exploring the limits of the board, we ended up in a clear CMOS activity that became annoying at times. The layout of the board is superb, save for the 4-pin ATX connector being too close to the CPU socket area for those wanting to utilize an upgraded CPU cooling solution.
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 slots provides certified SLI capability. The x16 slots will operate in x8 mode if dual card graphic cards or SLI is utilized. The secondary x16 slot can be utilized as an x1, x4, or x8 slot for PCI Express peripherals. This board and chipset will fully support Quad SLI operation once the technology is released. The performance of the board in SLI operation was similar to the Asus P5N32-SLI while performing better in the Call of Duty II benchmark. The board fully supported our ATI X1900XTX video card in limited testing.
In the on-board audio area, the ECS board offers the Realtek ALC-883 HD audio codec with full support for optical or coaxial S/PDIF output . The audio output of this codec in the music, video, and DVD areas is excellent for an on-board solution. The audio quality in gaming was very good, but it 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-883 is recommended for the majority of users and is perfectly acceptable at home in a HTPC system.
In the storage and network area, the ECS board offers the standard storage options afforded by the NVIDIA nForce4 SLI XE MCP. The board fully supports NVIDIA's Media Shield technology and offers RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 capability, NCQ, Hot Plug, and 3Gb/s support. The board also offers the standard eight NVIDIA USB 2.0 ports, but it does not come with Firewire capability as configured. Gigabit Ethernet is provided via the Marvell 88E1115 PHY and offered very good throughput along with excellent CPU utilization rates. Full support for NVIDIA's ActiveArmor Firewall application is also included.
In the performance area, the ECS C19-A SLI generated very good benchmark scores in the gaming, media encoding, and synthetic tests. The overall performance of the board in general application and actual game play was solid. The stability of the board was excellent during testing, provided we did not go beyond DDR2-720 settings with our memory.
We believe that with additional BIOS tuning, the performance of the ECS board can be marginally improved, but the overclocking potential is probably at the limit due to the BIOS options, board design, and components utilized. This is a trade-off made by ECS in order to offer an extensive feature set at a price point of US $90. A trade-off that the majority of users will be more than satisfied with accepting at this time. At times, it is better to strive for overall excellence than perfection.
The ECS C19-A SLI is a very affordable entry level enthusiast board for the Intel market that provides an excellent feature set for around US $90. The performance of the board in the majority of the synthetic and game benchmarks was very good, but not class leading. However, the board was consistently competitive with the Intel chipset offerings while including the added bonus of certified SLI operation. The stability of the board was excellent in all areas of benchmark testing and general application/game usage. However, we were frustrated that upon exploring the limits of the board, we ended up in a clear CMOS activity that became annoying at times. The layout of the board is superb, save for the 4-pin ATX connector being too close to the CPU socket area for those wanting to utilize an upgraded CPU cooling solution.
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 slots provides certified SLI capability. The x16 slots will operate in x8 mode if dual card graphic cards or SLI is utilized. The secondary x16 slot can be utilized as an x1, x4, or x8 slot for PCI Express peripherals. This board and chipset will fully support Quad SLI operation once the technology is released. The performance of the board in SLI operation was similar to the Asus P5N32-SLI while performing better in the Call of Duty II benchmark. The board fully supported our ATI X1900XTX video card in limited testing.
In the on-board audio area, the ECS board offers the Realtek ALC-883 HD audio codec with full support for optical or coaxial S/PDIF output . The audio output of this codec in the music, video, and DVD areas is excellent for an on-board solution. The audio quality in gaming was very good, but it 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-883 is recommended for the majority of users and is perfectly acceptable at home in a HTPC system.
In the storage and network area, the ECS board offers the standard storage options afforded by the NVIDIA nForce4 SLI XE MCP. The board fully supports NVIDIA's Media Shield technology and offers RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 capability, NCQ, Hot Plug, and 3Gb/s support. The board also offers the standard eight NVIDIA USB 2.0 ports, but it does not come with Firewire capability as configured. Gigabit Ethernet is provided via the Marvell 88E1115 PHY and offered very good throughput along with excellent CPU utilization rates. Full support for NVIDIA's ActiveArmor Firewall application is also included.
In the performance area, the ECS C19-A SLI generated very good benchmark scores in the gaming, media encoding, and synthetic tests. The overall performance of the board in general application and actual game play was solid. The stability of the board was excellent during testing, provided we did not go beyond DDR2-720 settings with our memory.
We believe that with additional BIOS tuning, the performance of the ECS board can be marginally improved, but the overclocking potential is probably at the limit due to the BIOS options, board design, and components utilized. This is a trade-off made by ECS in order to offer an extensive feature set at a price point of US $90. A trade-off that the majority of users will be more than satisfied with accepting at this time. At times, it is better to strive for overall excellence than perfection.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
12 Comments
View All Comments
mindless1 - Saturday, March 25, 2006 - link
Well, you could just tell us. Previously ECS used a lot of OST caps but these may be Panasonic FM? (at least some, the 10mm x 25(?)mm look like it in the VRM. More significant might be the lack of capacitors for memory, could be part of why the board is a bit fickle about o'c.Per Hansson - Saturday, March 25, 2006 - link
Sounds very good Gary ;-)