NVIDIA has now well and truly broken out as the number one chipset supplier for the AMD platform and they are also making their way onto the Intel scene. They have become so dominate on the AMD platform that they are now able to offer a wide range of supporting chipsets. They plan to offer total support to AM2 users with a range of four different chipsets, being the nForce 590 SLI, 570 SLI, 570 Ultra and 550. These chipsets all range in price and performance, with the features being much the same across the board. Of course the only features that are added to the more esteemed chipsets are performance enhanced features.

The two chipsets focused on performance are the nForce 570 SLI and nForce 590 SLI chipsets, both of which are designed to support NVIDIAs SLI technology. Motherboards supporting the nForce 590 SLI chipset cost roughly $90 US more than their nForce 570 SLI equivalents. The question is why does the nForce 590 SLI chipset cost so much more? What are the performance benefits and what new features can you expect to find? Just by looking at the NVIDIA website you will quickly learn that the nForce 590 SLI utilizes 46 PCI Express lanes and the NVIDIA LinkBoost technology.

The NVIDIA LinkBoost technology boosts the PCI Express and MCP HyperTransport buses by 25% which in term boosts the interconnect bandwidth from 8GB/s to 10GB/s. The nForce 590 SLI also includes a total of 46 PCI Express lanes, meaning SLI mode can operate at full speed. By this I mean both PCI Express x16 slots will operate at full speed when using two graphics cards. This is not a feature of the nForce 570 SLI chipset, which only operates each SLI card at PCI Express x8. The nForce 570 SLI on the other hand does not include the NVIDIA LinkBoost technology and only supports PCI Express x16 for a single graphics card. When operating in SLI mode the card will operate at PCI Express x8, which at this point in time has no influence on performance.

If you recall, not so long ago NVIDIA did release a full speed 46 lane PCI Express chipset for the nForce4 series. Known as the nForce4 SLI X16, this was another ultra expensive NVIDIA alternative and this version never really took off. Despite this, ASUS did create the A8N32-SLI Deluxe which to this very day, has been my favorite 939-pin motherboard and I continue to use it in my gaming system. Today the new nForce 590 SLI chipset is again being represented by the mighty ASUS, with their M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard. This board utilizes many of the same design features that made the A8N32-SLI Deluxe such a success in my eyes!

Then there is the not so expensive nForce 570 SLI chipset which is being represented by MSI. Given the fact that the nForce 570 SLI supports just 28 PCI Express lanes, it does not require a separate south bridge like the nForce 590 SLI. Therefore the nForce 570 SLI is more of a chip than a chipset. The fact that the nForce 570 SLI is a single chip helps reduce manufacturing costs, as fewer components are required and the board design is more simplistic. The MSI K9N SLI Platinum is an impressive looking motherboard, though sitting next to the M2N32-SLI Deluxe, it does look quite bland.

Despite both being SLI enabled chipsets I will not be comparing the SLI performance. Rather I will be testing these motherboards using just a single high-end graphics card (Radeon X1900XTX). More importantly I will be comparing the motherboards at their maximum overclocked frequencies. This is not something that I would usually include in a head to head chipset comparison, but it appears to be the only real strength of the nForce 590 SLI chipset. There will of course be those that jump up in arms with their pitch forks and shovels heading for the Legion Hardware labs because we are comparing a motherboard geared for overclocking (M2N32-SLI Deluxe) against a not so tweaked motherboard (K9N SLI Platinum).