Two New 650i Motherboards At The Egg

T

The Doc

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jan 2, 2005
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Two more 650i motherboards to choose from, and here they are:

Abit Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813127022

ECS NF650iSLIT-A
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135047

The ECS is great at stock speeds and can handle some mild to moderate overclocking (currently topping out at around 385FSB)

The Abit version is going to be the better overclocker, but most people may avoid this board due to its "Fatal1ty" branding. Oh more one tidbit of information regarding this board is that it comes factory overclocked.
 
Maximum Memory Supported 32GB on the Abit board looks nice! Next question.. where to buy 8GB sticks?
 
Hmmm...

The Fatal1ty board fails to impress because it's not as well laid out as the Asus and MSI boards, it's missing useful features like Firewire and e-SATA, and that ridiculous Fatal1ty branding is all over it... and it's more expensive than the Asus P5N-E SLI ($130), the MSI P6N SLI-FI ($110-115), and the ECS NF650iSLIT-A ($120). Unless it does unheard-of overclocking, pass...

Speaking of the ECS NF650iSLIT-A, I'd rather put a smoldering pile of dog crap inside of my computer case, and I'd expect said fecal matter to perform better than anything ECS can make. The layout is miserable, MSI has a better featured board for a lower price, and, unless a miracle has happened and ECS found a way to make their motherboards perform like everyone else's (and copying off of Nvidia's reference 680i board doesn't count!), for this community, you're money is better spent elsewhere. That, and I have yet to have owned an ECS board that worked properly without lots of unnecessary struggling, whereas every other motherboard I've owned has just worked without fuss. Pass...
 
ECS is not meant for overclocking.... they are fine for stock settings and people buy them cos thier cheap...... I built a computer for my sister and used ECS mobo with intergrated cpu ( thats right, integrated cpu lol ) and shes had no problem with it....
 
yojimbo said:
The Fatal1ty board fails to impress because it's not as well laid out as the Asus and MSI boards, it's missing useful features like Firewire and e-SATA, and that ridiculous Fatal1ty branding is all over it... and it's more expensive than the Asus P5N-E SLI ($130), the MSI P6N SLI-FI ($110-115), and the ECS NF650iSLIT-A ($120). Unless it does unheard-of overclocking, pass...
Click to expand...
Layout is subjective, imo it's better than the P5N-E (which I have).
It's also got a socketed BIOS unlike the soldered 1 on the Asus, it's a full width PCB so that the rh of the board is supported unlike the Asus which can flex when you push down.
Yes, you lose firewire (never, ever used by me) & eSATA but you gain onboard power & reset buttons, better power circuitry & cooling.
In short it's horses for courses.

What it does need is some more BIOS development but that's also true for the Asus (3 months later & they still haven't improved on the release imo which isn't perfect) & going by the reviews also the MSI.
 
Maybe it is just me here, but are people missing the point here?
Who gives a shit that it has Fatal1ty branding, if it is a good OC'r people will buy it.
Another thing to consider is that it is $135. Not $250+ like most other boards mentioned thusfar.
I might "take one for the team" and pick this one up, and post results with it. If it is a crap board, then I am only out $1xx instead of $25x

PS- I agree, I think companies like Abit that market these kinds of products towards enthusiasts like us, should realize that we could give a shit less who this Fatal1ty guy is, nor do we want his name posted all over our stuff. If they only knew that this wasn't helping their marketing efforts, if anything it hurts them.
My $0.02

/rant ;)
 
If they were to drop the Fatal1ty branding from the board, Abit could also drop the price of the boar to be more inline with the others out there as well...............:eek: But I guess they still have a contract that they have to full fill............:eek:
 
BUFF said:
Layout is subjective, imo it's better than the P5N-E (which I have).
It's also got a socketed BIOS unlike the soldered 1 on the Asus, it's a full width PCB so that the rh of the board is supported unlike the Asus which can flex when you push down.
Yes, you lose firewire (never, ever used by me) & eSATA but you gain onboard power & reset buttons, better power circuitry & cooling.
In short it's horses for courses.

What it does need is some more BIOS development but that's also true for the Asus (3 months later & they still haven't improved on the release imo which isn't perfect) & going by the reviews also the MSI.
Click to expand...

As an owner of the P5N-E as well I can also attest that its far from perfect. BUFF hit it right on the head pointing out the advantages of the Abit. I'd also like to point out that the SATA ports on the Asus aren't in an ideal location, my cables are bent flat just to get in my 2nd video card that has an AC silencer on it. The Vdroop is HORRIBLE, i lose about .07 under load. And personally the eSATA is fairly useless at this point, the controller was making my board really unstable until I disabled it. The audio is subpar as well, I get alot of line noise at higher volumes, my DFI SLI-D was MUCH better for audio.

Sadly Asus had the only <$200 intel SLI board out back in January when I upgraded. I most likely would have been torn between the MSI plat and the abit if I had had them available as a choice at the time.
 
hyt3k9 said:
Who gives a shit that it has Fatal1ty branding,
Click to expand...
Apparently quite a lot as they always sell well.
Personally I would rather that they had spent the money that they pay for Fatal1ty branding on fitting uGuru but they aren't marketing it to people like me.
 
The Doc said:
Actually it held its own in quite a lot of the benchmarks. A BIOS update should fix the boards overclocking issues.
Click to expand...

True enough, but then the same can be said for the competitors at (or under) that price, with similar features and a fully working x16 PCI-E single slot (in non-SLI mode).

Personally, I don't see a 8x8 PCI-E SLI configuration as a huge drawback (compared to 16x16 on the 680i-based boards), so 650i-based boards are a reasonable/good/excellent option (depending on your needs), but it gets a little harder to make the "no 16x electrical PCI-E slots at all" (and no Firewire) leap.
 
I have the Asus board and just based on looks I like both of them better. The have better NB and SB heat sync, ecs even has a fan for NB. Asus doesn’t even have anything over there SB had to buy one.

If they are less picky about ram and have sata ports that work I'd rather have either of them.
 
Wow. if these are anything like the 680i...
the Abit's chipsets are going to cook without any fan.
 
The Asus certainly runs hot when overclocking & I presume that the MSI P6N SLI-FI will as well.
Mind you that hsf on the ECS looks pretty weedy too ...
 
BUFF said:
The Asus certainly runs hot when overclocking & I presume that the MSI P6N SLI-FI will as well.
Mind you that hsf on the ECS looks pretty weedy too ...
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm sure to reach full OC potential on these 650i boards, some extra chipset cooling should be added. I know the Asus required it. A minor annoyance considering the savings over the 680 boards.
 
yojimbo said:
Hmmm...

The Fatal1ty board fails to impress because it's not as well laid out as the Asus and MSI boards, it's missing useful features like Firewire and e-SATA, and that ridiculous
Click to expand...

I just returned an Abit mobo because it did not have Firewire. Totally pissed me off.
 
Obvious question, why did you buy it in the 1st place - didn't you check the spec. beforehand?
 
My abit Fatal1ty FP-IN9 SLI is coming in tomorrow but I won't be able to give any user opinions about it because the Egg fucked up my order with them hardcore so I canceled it.

Sure it's probably get quite a bit of problems but oh well...I like the color scheme a lot better than the others and will end up modding the case around the red/black colors at some point.
 
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