ASUS M2N32-SLI & Epox MF570SLI: AM2 Wunderkinder
by Wesley Fink on June 28, 2006 5:10 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Epox MF570SLI: Basic Features & Board Layout
The nForce 570 SLI is targeted by NVIDIA at the mainstream market. As such, it is fair to expect that 570 SLI boards will normally offer fewer features than 590 boards. The distinction is somewhat artificial, since the 570 SLI is a simpler one chip solution, but it supports dual X8/single X16 instead of the dual X16 supported by the 2-chip 590 solution. What we mean by artificial is the fact that you will be hard pressed to find any real evidence in today's market that dual X16 SLI can outperform dual X8 SLI. This distinction may exist in the future, but it is just not a reality with today's top graphics cards.
At this time, Epox is not manufacturing a 590 chipset motherboard, and they are to be congratulated for providing a very wide range of overclocking options and board features for their mainstream MF570SLI. This is a board that should sell very well based on an outstanding feature set, good overclocking options, and the kind of added value Epox often delivers on their recent boards. You even get an LED readout much like high-end DFI and momentary switches for mounting outside a case, just like the Foxconn 590 SLI board.
Overclocking options are exceptionally complete, and were it not for boards like the ASUS M2N32-SLI and the Foxconn 590 we would be singing the praises of the Epox BIOS options. As it is Epox manages to provide a DIMM voltage range of 1.8v to 2.5v, but without the fine adjustments found on the ASUS. About the only missing feature is Firewire, which will matter to some, but can be easily added with a card.
A VERY important addition for many will be the JMicron 383 SATA2 RAID chip. Not only does it add two additional SATA2 ports (total 8), but it also adds a second IDE connector for 2 additional IDE devices. Those who point out that Intel and NVIDIA have made optical drives a nightmare with the forced use of SATA optical drives that generally don't exist will be happy to see a manufacturer that listens to what they want.
Epox has been using a striking green and off-white oversize package lately, and the MF570SLI continues that new packaging. Not only is the box oversized, but it is crammed with all the round white cables you will need, white SATA2 cables, and a power pack with manuals, disks, heatsinks for a number of small chips, and a temperature measuring cable that attaches to the motherboard.
Epox uses a slick 4-phase board design with modular coils that certainly look very attractive compared to the manual wind coils often seen on motherboards. Layout of the green Epox motherboard is an area that generates very mixed feelings, however. The 24-pin ATX connector is smack in the middle of the board. Snaking the bulky power cable is difficult and there is danger of impeding air-flow to the CPU. We understand from discussions with manufacturers that a mid board power connector, near the PCIe slots, makes it easier to manage power to the PCIe slots, but this location is not an easy one for many case designs. The 4-pin 12V connector is better located at the top board edge.
The extra IDE connector is very welcomed, but its location, along with the floppy connector, at the bottom of the board makes it a difficult reach in some case designs. If you're using big video cards you will have trouble routing the second IDE and floppy ribbon. Thankfully the 8 SATA2 ports are thoughtfully located out of the way of video cards - even in an SLI installation.
With two double-width video cards like the 7900GTX, there will still be one usable X1 PCIe and two usable PCI slots. With standard width video cards in SLI mode you pick up a second X1 PCIe and an extra PCI slot. The two PCIe X16 slots are separated by three slot widths, which will make exotic video-cooling workable in most cases.
For a mainstream price you still get both Optical and Coax S/PDIF connectors, dual Gigabit LAN, PS2 keyboard and mouse connector, 4 USB, and six programmable mini-jacks for HD audio. Audio is powered by the Realtek 883 codec. You will not find serial or parallel ports on the rear. If you need Firewire you will have to add it.
While the layout could definitely be improved, once the Epox was installed it was exceptionally stable and trouble-free during out testing. Epox also covers potential BIOS flash problems with their Ghost BIOS feature which allows recovery from most "bad flash" situations.
| Epox MF570SLI | |
| CPU Interface | Socket AM2 |
| Chipset | NVIDIA 570 SLI (a single 590 SLI MCP) |
| Bus Speeds | 200 to 450 in 1MHz Increments |
| Memory Speeds | DDR2 at Auto, 400, 533, 667, 800 |
| PCIe Speeds | 100 to 145 in 1MHz Increments |
| Core Voltage | Auto, -0.2V to +0.2V in 0.025V increments (With 1.4V CPU 1.2v to 1.6v) |
| Chipset Voltage | 1.5V, 1.6v, 1.7v, 1.8v |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | Auto, 4x-25x in 1X increments |
| DRAM Voltage | 1.8V to 2.5V in .1v increments |
| HT Voltage | 1.2v, 1.3v, 1.4v, 1.5v |
| 1T/2T Memory | Auto, 1T, 2T |
| Memory Tuning | 33 Options |
| Refresh Row Cycle | Auto, 75ns, 105, 127.5, 195, 327.5 (Separately Adjustable for 4 DIMMs) |
| Refresh Rate | Auto, 7.8ms, 3.9ms |
| Clock Drive Strength | Auto, Increment, Decrement |
| CKE Drive Strength | Auto, Increment, Decrement |
| CS/ODT Drive Strength | Auto, Increment, Decrement |
| AADR/CMD Drive Strength | Auto, Increment, Decrement |
| Data Drive Strength | Auto, Increment, Decrement |
| DQS Drive Strength | Auto, Increment, Decrement |
| HyperTransport Frequency | 1000MHz (1GHz) |
| HyperTransport Multiplier | Auto, 1X to 5X |
| HT Width | 8up/down, 16up/down |
| Spread Spectrum | CPU, PCIe, SATA, HT Individually Adjustable Disabled, Center, Down |
| SSE/SSE2 instructions | Enabled, Disabled |
| Special IO for PCI Card | Enabled, Disabled |
| Smart CPU Fan Control | Full Speed, By Duty Cycle, By Temperature |
| Memory Slots | Four 184-pin DDR2 DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration Regular Unbuffered Memory to 4GB Total |
| Expansion Slots | 2 PCIe X16 2 PCIe X1 3 PCI Slots |
| Onboard SATA/RAID | 6 SATA2 Drives by 590 MCP (RAID 0, 1, 1+0, 5) PLUS 2 SATA2 Drives by JMicron 383 (RAID 0, 1, 0+1, JBOD) |
| Onboard IDE/IDE RAID | One Standard ATA133/100/66 (2 drives) PLUS One IDE (2 drives) by JMicron 383 |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394 | 10 USB 2.0 ports supported by MCP No Firewire |
| Onboard LAN | Dual PCIe Gigabit by Marvel 88E1116 PHYs |
| Onboard Audio | Azalia HD Audio by Realtek ALC883 codec |
| BIOS Revision | Award - May 17, 2006 |
The nForce 570 SLI is targeted by NVIDIA at the mainstream market. As such, it is fair to expect that 570 SLI boards will normally offer fewer features than 590 boards. The distinction is somewhat artificial, since the 570 SLI is a simpler one chip solution, but it supports dual X8/single X16 instead of the dual X16 supported by the 2-chip 590 solution. What we mean by artificial is the fact that you will be hard pressed to find any real evidence in today's market that dual X16 SLI can outperform dual X8 SLI. This distinction may exist in the future, but it is just not a reality with today's top graphics cards.
At this time, Epox is not manufacturing a 590 chipset motherboard, and they are to be congratulated for providing a very wide range of overclocking options and board features for their mainstream MF570SLI. This is a board that should sell very well based on an outstanding feature set, good overclocking options, and the kind of added value Epox often delivers on their recent boards. You even get an LED readout much like high-end DFI and momentary switches for mounting outside a case, just like the Foxconn 590 SLI board.
Overclocking options are exceptionally complete, and were it not for boards like the ASUS M2N32-SLI and the Foxconn 590 we would be singing the praises of the Epox BIOS options. As it is Epox manages to provide a DIMM voltage range of 1.8v to 2.5v, but without the fine adjustments found on the ASUS. About the only missing feature is Firewire, which will matter to some, but can be easily added with a card.
A VERY important addition for many will be the JMicron 383 SATA2 RAID chip. Not only does it add two additional SATA2 ports (total 8), but it also adds a second IDE connector for 2 additional IDE devices. Those who point out that Intel and NVIDIA have made optical drives a nightmare with the forced use of SATA optical drives that generally don't exist will be happy to see a manufacturer that listens to what they want.
Epox has been using a striking green and off-white oversize package lately, and the MF570SLI continues that new packaging. Not only is the box oversized, but it is crammed with all the round white cables you will need, white SATA2 cables, and a power pack with manuals, disks, heatsinks for a number of small chips, and a temperature measuring cable that attaches to the motherboard.
 |
| Click to enlarge |
Epox uses a slick 4-phase board design with modular coils that certainly look very attractive compared to the manual wind coils often seen on motherboards. Layout of the green Epox motherboard is an area that generates very mixed feelings, however. The 24-pin ATX connector is smack in the middle of the board. Snaking the bulky power cable is difficult and there is danger of impeding air-flow to the CPU. We understand from discussions with manufacturers that a mid board power connector, near the PCIe slots, makes it easier to manage power to the PCIe slots, but this location is not an easy one for many case designs. The 4-pin 12V connector is better located at the top board edge.
The extra IDE connector is very welcomed, but its location, along with the floppy connector, at the bottom of the board makes it a difficult reach in some case designs. If you're using big video cards you will have trouble routing the second IDE and floppy ribbon. Thankfully the 8 SATA2 ports are thoughtfully located out of the way of video cards - even in an SLI installation.
With two double-width video cards like the 7900GTX, there will still be one usable X1 PCIe and two usable PCI slots. With standard width video cards in SLI mode you pick up a second X1 PCIe and an extra PCI slot. The two PCIe X16 slots are separated by three slot widths, which will make exotic video-cooling workable in most cases.
For a mainstream price you still get both Optical and Coax S/PDIF connectors, dual Gigabit LAN, PS2 keyboard and mouse connector, 4 USB, and six programmable mini-jacks for HD audio. Audio is powered by the Realtek 883 codec. You will not find serial or parallel ports on the rear. If you need Firewire you will have to add it.
While the layout could definitely be improved, once the Epox was installed it was exceptionally stable and trouble-free during out testing. Epox also covers potential BIOS flash problems with their Ghost BIOS feature which allows recovery from most "bad flash" situations.
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Missing Ghost - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
yep the choice of I/O ports on the back panel is pretty poorLarso - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
Perhaps someone should clarify this for me. I have been noticing how there is a growing interest in how the motherboard makers have done the power conversion for the CPU. Why has this become an issue to investigate?I don't think there was a similar focus on the power converters for the netburst chips, which I believe soaked a lot more juice than these AMD chips. I believe they managed to deliver stable power to the netbursts without needing an 8 phase converter cooled by heatpipes??
I'm fearing that the motherboard producers will start to create extravagant and foolishly designed converters to please the reviewers. I believe there is no good reason to go for an 8 phase design, when a 4 phase would do the job, considering the money that can be spend on each phase. And that ASUS need to cool the converter by heatpipe seems to indicate that the convertion have a bad effeciency, is this really a step forward?
I really enjoy reading more about the technical solutions on the motherboards, but it just seems to me that the power converter should be less of an issue now, than with the power hungry netburts?
Operandi - Friday, June 30, 2006 - link
A 8 phase design is more efficient then a 4 phase, not less.Missing Ghost - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
It seems to me that the heatpipes are more for cooling the chipset in fact.erwos - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
What WiFi chipset does it use? "It has WiFi" is not terribly precise.-Erwos
Wesley Fink - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
The WiFi chip used on the Asus WiFi module is Realtek RTL8187L. The Features have been updated to reflect this.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
Asus refers to the Wi-Fi in specifications as "WiFi Home USB wireless module supporting IEE 802.11 b/g". There is no mention at all of the supporting chip. The module is attached to the motherboard and the chip is loacated behind heatpipes. We can't read the model number, but the logo is clearly Realtek.highlnder69 - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
On page 8 under Half Life 2 - SLI Gaming Performance, I think that the Asus Single/SLI results are labeled incorrectly. It's currently showing the Single card configuration with the highest FPS results and the SLI with the lowest.Wesley Fink - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
You are correct, the labels were reversed. They are now corrected.DigitalFreak - Wednesday, June 28, 2006 - link
Someone needs to teach the idiots at Asus about how to design the proper motherboard layout. With an SLI setup with dual width cards, there's no PCI-E slots available.