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.
