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NVIDIA nForce 500 Series mainboard chipset

The components used in this review are:

• Foxconn C51XEM2AA-8EKRS2H (Socket AM2 nForce 590 SLi)
• AMD64 Athlon FX-62 processor (Socket AM2)
• AMD64 X2 4000+ processor (Socket AM2)
• Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 (SLI-Ready) DDR2 DIMMs (CM2X1024-8500C5)
• Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4 800MHz low-latency (SLI-Ready) DIMMs (CM2X1024-6400C4)
• Zalman CNPS9500 AM2 cooler

As you know a lot is happening this month with regards to hardware releases. Hey, the Computex is near and companies need to have their hottest gadgets and latest hardware from this industry presented. So by the time you are reading this article AMD released their all new socket AM2 processors. The big advantage primarily focuses on the fact that this new series can finally can manage DDR2 memory with a built in DDR2 controller on the CPU. However, along with that big AMD release mainboard manufacturers obviously jump onto that media bandwagon and are announcing their full support for that AM2 platform as well.

One company though decided to wait for AMD and equally launch something new of their own. The good people from NVIDIA have now unleashed their latest beasts in the mainboard segment, the NFORCE series 500 chipset solution. NVIDIA has been extremely successful with the NFORCE series chipset for mainboards so far, and I know a lot of our readers actually own an NVIDIA nForce based PC. They seriously do kick ass in gaming and features.

So the question rises .. how can you improve a platform like the incredibly successful NFORCE 4 ? Well believe me .. NVIDIA did it. The idea is simple, take the best of NFORCE4, add a bucket load of new features, additional connectivity, throw in a handful of enthusiast tweaking gadgets and focus on raw gaming performance .. that's what NVIDIA NFORCE 500 is all about as the mid range and high-end segment are really targeted at you guys - specifically gamers and the guys that build their own PCs.

In this article we'll specifically test the NFORCE 590 SLI platform, yet obviously we'll also have a brief look at the entire NVIDIA NFORCE 500 series of chipsets and some other new products released this week.

Let me introduce to you the NVIDIA nForce 500 chipset Series for the AMD AM2 platform.

• nForce 590 SLI
• nForce 570 SLI
• nForce 570 Ultra
• nForce 550

You'll notice these four new mainboard chipsets on the market. Obviously the 570/590 SLI series is targeted at the readers of this website, highly tweakable mainboards targeted at the enthusiast user that from A to Z aims for performance, likes to tweak, overclock and demands all the cool features we love so much. We'll show you the differences between the chipsets on the next pages.

Second and third on the list is the nForce 570 series. A slightly less tweakable board but offering substantial performance to that big part of our userbase .. gamers. Obviously for a slightly better price offered in a single and dual graphics card slot configuration.

Last on the list is the product that will likely be sold the most, a slightly cut down version of the previously mention chipsets, targeted at value and mainstream users .. the nForce 550 series mainboard chipset.

Now I already told you that nForce 500 is a nice improvement over the already fantastic nForce 4 series. What makes this product series better then ? Would be a logical question coming from your side. Well a maximum performing chipset guaranteeing you the best tweaks, overclocks compared the the previous generation chipset yet also a bucket load of cool new features like "LinkBoost", "SLI Memory", "FirstPacket technology" and also the option for connecting 6 SATA drives in RAID.

You know .. I'm just starting here as this is going to be an exceptionally long article. Please let me invite you to the next page where we'll start explaining the differences between the products and obviously the cool new features as I just mentioned above. Also we'll have a look at some really cool new DDR2 memory from Corsair, A rather "cool" AM2 processor cooler from Zalman and obviously AMD's latest flagship processor, the AMD64 Athlon FX-62.

It's like porn for geeks isn't it ? Next page please ;)