Overclocking

Using our Core 2 Duo E6700, we managed to get 1505MHz QDR, or 376.25MHz FSB fully stable, but it didn't boot over that. There was no gradual decrease in capability, just a very astute on/off switch.

At such a "round" QDR FSB number, it did lead us to question whether Nvidia had intentionally limited the overclocking of the inexpensive nForce 650i Ultra chipset to keep it "good" rather than "great", but swapping out the CPU for a certain unreleased 1333MHz FSB Intel processor allowed us to easily exceed this limit.

With very little persistence, while keeping the memory in "sync mode" we managed to get the CPU up to 456MHz FSB (1825MHz QDR) although Prime95 failed after just 30 seconds. However, a quick drop back down to 450MHz FSB (1800MHz QDR) gave us a Prime95 torture test stable board that would run for many hours on end.

So much for just "good" overclocking, we'd suggest EVGA readdress that understatement a little. This is just with using stock cooling as well, with a bit more effort and a good CPU this board should go beyond these speeds all day everyday.

Stability

Stability was excellent, despite the temperature of the northbridge. This isn't too unsurprising since we had a good experience with the nForce 650i SLI chipset on the MSI P6N Platinum, and this chipset is simply a locked down single PCI-Express x16 variant of that. With this in mind, the BIOS should be reasonably mature by now, and since Nvidia run as close partners to EVGA, they'll both certainly want to maximise the noise that their boards are stable, especially after the nForce 680i SLI fiasco last November.

EVGA certainly has a solid board that completely survived our stress test of IOMeter, two lots of Prime 95 and a looping FarCry for 24 hours without the need for any additional cooling.

Power Consumption

Comparing to a similar mainstream board with similar features, the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R offers a slightly lower power (especially when the boards are idling) compared to the EVGA nForce 650i Ultra. This is hardly surprising considering Intel's R&D budget in silicon design and Nvidia's 6-series chipsets are notorious for pissing away electrical current as heat. We think that Nvidia needs to start employing some more aggressive power saving features into its chipsets.

In comparison, an E6300/7600 GS combination running at a full whack is only 3W more expensive to run than an X6800 CPU with 7900 GTX graphics card at idle. With a CPU-memory concentration, using a single hard drive, keyboard, mouse and DVD-RW drive offers a very economical 139W. Even when left idle, or close to it like a server or download box would be, it uses no more power than just leaving a light bulb on.

Warranty

There's no doubt that EVGA's warranty is industry defining. As is with its graphics cards, motherboards are also subject to a 10 year warranty after you register the board, as well as 24/7 technical phone support although there's no step up program for motherboards just yet.

However, the European phone support is in Germany, which isn't ideal for anyone that isn't in Germany, although EVGA offers support via email and forums for anyone that doesn't want to make an international call. One important thing to note is that you have to register your purchase within 30 days to receive the full warranty on your board. If you don't, you'll only get a single year.

The registration means that selling on your board will leave the next person without a warranty unless you fancy passing on your registration details as well. Also make sure to keep the receipt somewhere safe, because EVGA need that as well. The board will be returned to a UK address (for UK residents) should you need to send it back.

In all, the program looks good on the surface but on the condition you abide by the rules set out by EVGA. Most people we know never bother to register a product, but in this case it's certainly a necessity.

Conclusions

After a short discussion with EVGA we found out that it has just recently dropped the price of its nForce 650i Ultra board. The board is currently available from a few stores but it looks like Scan is easily the cheapest, with an extremely wallet friendly £62 (inc. VAT). Even though at the time of writing it doesn't have stock, we've been told that stock is due to arrive at Scan as early as tomorrow, so a pre-order won't be long at all. The price should drop elsewhere in due course, as the competition gets wind and as new stock arrives.

In comparison, other boards around the same price include the popular nForce 650i SLI chipset, of which many other manufacturers have boards based on. Many people have had good results with the Asus P5N-E SLI and we've previously had a good impression of the bigger brother to the MSI P6N-SLI FI. Although both of these still retail for a some £10 more expensive.

Alternatives to the nForce chipset from Intel is the P965, like the Abit IB9 which even offers a WiFi version, if you prefer a blue PCB and want to spend the same money. Or perhaps a newer P35 board like the vanilla Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3, younger brother to the GA-P35-DS3R we reviewed recently, which is even slightly cheaper than the EVGA nForce 650i Ultra.

At £60 this board is good value, but it's not good value at £70. That may seem a small margin for error but considering every other board we've listed looks better and most have more features, the mainstream segment is an extremely hard (yet popular) market to sell to. There's a ton of P965 boards that support Core 2 CPUs and still offer a fantastic performance. The great thing about the P965 boards is that their prices are being slashed because the newer P35 boards have arrived.

This is putting an additional squeeze on the nForce 650i-based motherboards, and the only thing going for these is likely to be special features like SLI. Not that we'd recommend mid-range SLI, but rather an investment in a faster single card or an update to the latest generation if you had intended to buy a second one later.

We obviously cannot comment on the stability, performance or overclocking of boards we haven't looked at, but on paper they just seem more attractive than the EVGA.

Overall the EVGA nForce 650i Ultra's performance is not quite as great as the other similar boards we've tested. We didn't expect it to reach the level of the nForce 680i LT SLI board we included in the comparison, but it should be competitive with the Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R, of which the GA-P35-DS3 is a direct derivative of, and the MSI P6N SLI FI which is closely related to the MSI P6N SLI.

Final Thoughts

There's no doubt EVGA is up against it in this market segment. It may have a silent board with three very useful PCI slots, but it's an unattractive board. The lack of additional extras, aside from automatic graphics card overclocking from a variety of just two graphics cards doesn't fair well in an extremely competitive mainstream marketplace.

What EVGA does do right is the bundle in the box, if that's important to you: EVGA has certainly got it right that's for sure. The boards it produces have a great warranty (on the condition you register), price and super solid, overclocking friendly motherboard. But it's all at the cost of other essential differentiating features and core performance.

As ever, it ultimately comes down to the value you place on each attribute. If you're never going to look at the board and take the performance with a pinch of salt, after all you get what you pay for, but you just want it to run quiet and capable all day everyday, then you're onto a winner.

• Performance
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• -
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• 7/10

• Features
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• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
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• 7/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Overall
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• x
• x
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• -
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• 7/10

What do these scores mean?