After quite a long while, the market has seen first motherboards based on new-generation NVIDIA chipsets for AMD processors. The most interesting products are motherboards built on the top-end nForce 780a chipset.

The major trait of this chipset is that albeit comprising two chips, the second one is not a "south bridge"! The first and the major chip (780a SLI) includes the PCI Express bus controller, "south bridge" features, as well as the integrated graphic core GeForce 8400. The second chip is the well-known nForce 200 "bridge" which is aimed at implementation of additional PCI Express v2.0 lanes. Due to this "bridge", the chipset supports 35 PCI-E bus lanes, which allows setting up an SLI system with two (16+16) or three video cards (following the 8+8+8 scheme).

The focus in expansion options of the new chipset has somehow changed as compared to the nForce 590 SLI. In particular, the number of USB 2.0 ports has gone up from 10 to 12, with the number of Gigabit LAN controllers gone down from two to one. The remaining specifications remained unchanged: audio HD subsystem, five PCI slots, six SATA II links (supported is RAID 0,1,0+1,5), and one IDE link (with the option to plug in two devices). The pack of proprietary technologies has not changed (but for some minor improvements): MediaSheild, FirstPacket, support for the NVIDIA nTune. Now a few words on the integrated graphic core GeForce 8400.

To start with, at speed and functionality that is a rather powerful and interesting core which offers support for NVIDIA PureVideo HD, DirectX 10.0, HDMI, and HDCP. Besides, nForce 780a implements a really attractive Hybrid SLI technology which offers two important features: GeForce Boost, and HybridPower. The former is an analog to the Hybrid CrossFire and is aimed at value systems. Its idea is simple: if the user installs a value external video card (GeForce 8500 GT or GeForce 8400 GS) and enables the GeForce Boost, the computational resources of the external video card and the integrated video core are consolidated. Due to that, the user gets some speed gain in 3D applications. The latter feature (HybridPower) is a tribute to modern fashion for power-saving. Assume that the user has a high-end system with two or three video cards merged into an SLI array. That results in an unparalleled high speed in the most advanced games and 3D applications. But once the user quits Crysis and launches a web browser (or solitaire), all these powerful video cards put quite a high load uselessly, thus adding to the electricity bills. This situation is fixed by the HybridPower feature which seamlessly disables all the external video cards thus switching the load to the integrated video core.

ASUS M3N-HT Deluxe Mempipe Specifications

Package

The board is packaged in a rather impressive box of stylish design:

Package bundle

The package bundle includes the following items:

• motherboard;
• 1x software & drivers DVD;
• User's Manual in English;
• one ATA-133 cable, one FDD cable;
• 6x SerialATA cables + a power supply adapter (2 connectors);
• a cap for the rear panel of the housing;
• bracket for two USB 2.0 and one Firewire ports;
• SLI connector, 3-way SLI connector;
• MemPipe cooling system;
• additional fan;
• Q-Connectors kit;
• HDMI=>DVI adapter.

The most interesting of the bundled items is the system for cooling memory modules, named MemPipe.

Most of the other items are standard. These are a user's manual, a DVD with drivers, utilities, and third-party software,

a kit of cables, a bracket for a FireWire and two USB ports. We also note a cap for the rear panel of the board in the package bundle (with noise-vibration-proof coating).

Among the non-standard items, there is an additional rotor fan and an HDMI=>DVI adapter.

We also note that the board offers all the required "bridges" to set up SLI arrays for two and three video cards.

Digital-Daily : Motherboard Reviews : asus_m3n_ht_deluxe_mempipe Print version ASUS M3N-HT Deluxe Mempipe (NVIDIA nForce 780a SLI) Author: Date: 09.09.2008 ASUS M3N-HT Deluxe Mempipe Chipset NVIDIA nForce 780a SLI CPU Socket AM2+ Memory DDR2 400/533/667/800/1066* HDD 1x UltraDMA/133(RAID) 7x SerialATA II (RAID) Extras High Definition Audio 10 USB 2.0 Gigabit Ethernet LAN 2х IEEE-1394 Price: ~$ 200 (Price.Ru)
	Content:
	Page 1 - Specifications Page 2 - Layout and Features Page 3 - Expansion options Page 4 - BIOS, system monitoring Page 5 - Overclocking and stability Page 6 - Performance and conclusions Top Stories: MoBo: ECS X58B-A (Intel X58) ASUS Rampage II Extreme (Intel X58) MSI DKA790GX and ECS A780GM-A Ultra MSI P7NGM (NVIDIA GeForce 9300) Intel X58 and ASUS P6T Deluxe MSI P45 Neo2 (Intel P45) Foxconn A7GMX-K (AMD 780G) VGA Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 – a new leader in 3D graphics! ECS HYDRA GeForce 9800GTX+. Water-cooled and SLI "all-in-one" Radeon HD 4830 CrossFire - better than Radeon HD 4870! XFX GeForce GTX 260 Black Edition in the SLI mode Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT DDR2 – better than GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic: exclusive, with unusual features Palit HD 4850 Sonic: almost Radeon HD 4870, priced as HD 4850 CPU & Memory: GSkill high-capacity memory modules CPU Intel Core i7-920 (Bloomfield) DDR3 memory: late 2008 CPU AMD Phenom X3 8750 (Toliman) AMD Phenom X4 9850 – a top-end CPU at affordable price CPU Intel Atom 230 (Diamondville) Chaintech Apogee GT DDR3 1600