XFX nForce 790i Ultra SLI Motherboard Review

We are comparing our results from the XFX 790i Ultra motherboard to the results we got from the Intel P35 based ASRock 4Core1600P35-WiFI+ and the Gigabyte GA-X38-DQ6 motherboard that is based on the Intel x38 chipset. In the coming weeks, we will also be able to have results from many of the x48 based boards as well.

You can see in the results that each board has its shining moment. Any one of these boards would be fine for most users today. Our Sandra testing really was a mixed bag and showed us scores from each board that were very close to one another. In our Everest Memory Bandwidth testing, the XFX 790i Ultra board gives us read scores that are far above the other two boards represented here. The POV Beta results are very close to each other, so there was no real clear winner there. However, the real-time render testing shows us that the XFX board lags behind by 1fps, which again, is not much.

The XFX takes the cake in our Cinebench 10 testing, beating the ASRock P35 board by 3 seconds and the Gigabyte x38 based board by 1 second. The XFX does not fair so well in the 3dMark06 testing as it is outpaced by the X38 board, though once again, not by very much. FEAR results show the XFX board and the P35 board neck and neck at 105fps, with the X38 board trailing by 3fps.

Our Crysis and Vantage testing is where we see the XFX 790i Ultra board separate itself from the pack a little bit. In Crysis the XFX board comes in well above the other two boards. In fact it is not even close, as the XFX 790i Ultra board with low settings is nearly 20fps faster in the CPU testing and between 13-16 fps in the GPU testing. In high settings, the XFX board comes in at 8-9fps faster than both of the other boards in the CPU testing and anywhere from 4-6 fps faster in GPU testing.

In our Vantage testing, the XFX board takes six of the eight tests by a pretty hefty margin. The ASRock P35 board takes the other two tests by a very slight margin over the XFX.

All in all, the XFX does a very good job in all of our testing, and a little more maturity of the board and fine tuning will likely see the board scoring better yet in all of our testing.