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.
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blackmetalegg - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
"Unfortunately, we ran into an issue with this process as the clear CMOS process sometimes required the removal of the battery for the jumper process to work. This process is not acceptable, considering how well other BIOS recovery systems work."Sounds a lot like the reviewer is too lazy to use his finger to release the battery from its holder.
Gary Key - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
Certainly not lazy as I removed the battery at least a dozen times during testing. The fact remains that having to remove the battery is not an acceptable option when the clear CMOS jumper does not work over 60% of the time because the bios self recovery routine fails 85% of the time when the memory settings are extended past the board's ability to boot properly. This only occurred a couple of times when setting the FSB past the board's limit.
kmmatney - Friday, March 24, 2006 - link
I hate removing the battery. I broke the flimsy battery clip off of one motherboard doing this, and had to solder new wires in place and dangle a new battery from it. Removing the battery for a BIOS clear is not good.cornfedone - Thursday, March 23, 2006 - link
Obviously this mobo wasn't tested before release or it wouldn't have all the problems it has.phillock - Thursday, February 1, 2018 - link
Sounds a lot like the reviewer is too lazy to use his finger to release the battery from its holder.https://jumjex.bandcamp.com/releases
Puddleglum - Thursday, March 23, 2006 - link
Not sure if it's worth fixing or not, but the Content Creation (Disk Controller Performance) chart shows the Biostar TForce4 in red, mistaken as the board being tested.smut - Thursday, March 23, 2006 - link
Is this going to be an Intel only board?Gary Key - Thursday, March 23, 2006 - link
Yes. The upcoming NVIDIA nForce 500 launch will address chipset updates to the AMD product family.
bldckstark - Thursday, March 23, 2006 - link
No, upon release the board will come with alternate CPU sockets included in the box. You got an AMD? Just pop out the Intel socket and plug in the AMD socket. Gat a VIA, Cyrix, or TI85 chip? Just break the chosen socket out of the plastic holders like a model car part.Oh, wait, I guess you want to know if ECS is going to make an AMD board. Duh.
Gary Key - Thursday, March 23, 2006 - link
Our next article will have a high resolution picture of the capacitors and other items of importance in a pop-up window. I am sure the capacitors utilized on this board will be of interest to you. ;->