NVIDIA’s nForce 650i Ultra is finally making an appearance in reference board form, despite a November paper launch. The NVIDIA nForce 650i Ultra is similar to the 650i SLI, with the exception of SLI support. Supported features of NVIDIA’s budget performance chipset include dual-channel DDR2-800, Gigabit Ethernet with FirstPacket technology and high definition audio. The chipset also supports Intel Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Duo processors with 1066 MHz and 800 MHz front-side-buses.

The reference board design, typically rebadged by EVGA, XFX, ECS, Biostar and others, is a simplistic design. It does not feature a fancy heat pipe solution, but instead has a single passive heatsink to cool the north bridge. Expansion slots include one PCIe x16, 2 PCIe x1 and 3 PCI slots. NVIDIA provides four SATA 3.0Gbps and one PATA port for hard disk and optical drive expansion with the nForce 650i Ultra.

The rear I/O panel of the nForce 650i Ultra reference board is relatively sparse with few ports. There are PS/2 keyboard and mouse, four USB 2.0 ports, Ethernet and 8-channel audio jacks. The reference board lacks an onboard S/PDIF input and output connectors.

Expect nForce 650i Ultra based boards to hit retail soon and cost somewhere between $50 – $100 USD.