HardwareXL

The year 2007 is almost past and we have seen a lot of changes. Intel still going strong with their Core 2 Duo and Quad cpu’s and the popularity for the P35, X38 and the up and coming X48 chipsets left nVidia on the back burner for a while now. There have been alot of issues with the nForce680i chipset in the past and the 780i should solve most of them. Strange part is that the 780i is in fact a 680i with an added additional PCIe 2.0 bridge chipset. Here is a shot of the board and it’s layout, do keep in mind that this is not the retail version.

 

Here are some specs;
- Support Intel® next generation 45nm CPU”””’’s (no support for quad 45nm only dual).
- Intel® Quad-core CPU Ready
- Intel® Core™2 Extreme/Core™2 Duo Ready
- NVIDIA nForce® 680i SLI™ plus PCIe 2.0 bridge (dubbed nForce® 780i SLI) 
- NVIDIA Triple-SLI™ Ready
- Dual-channel DDR2 800/667/533
- 1333/1066/800/533MHz
- Stack Cool2 and Heat-pipe Thermal Solution
- 8 Phase Power Design

Here is a shot taken viewed from the top. Sorry for the lame picture quality but my camara broke down so I had to take these with my Nokia N73;-) As you can see it looks simulair to the Asus P5N32- E SLI apart from the extra usb connector and the PCIe 2.0 bridge.

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Next shot shows a clear view of the 8 phase power design.

Here you can see three PCIe slots which should be able to run Triple SLI. Do note that when installing for example three 8800GTX”””’’s there will be no room left for a additional soundcard. 

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Next up the backplate of the P5N-T Deluxe, which seems to have gotten a facelift. No second lan connector (didn””””t use it anyway). 

Formor backplates had annoying part stick out, this backplate has been covered with isolation. It even has a small honey grill to get more cool air to the back heatsink. 

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They moved the power indicator towards the bios, seeing when you have installed three 8800GTX”””’’s you would not be able to see it (it use to be in between the PCIe slots). 

So what does PCI Express 2.0 bring to the table? Basically, PCI Express 2.0 doubles the maximum bandwidth from 2.5Gbps to 5Gbps. A single x16 connector will now be able to achieve up to 16Gbps (8Gbps each way) total transfer rate..

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The next shot shows the extended heatpipe design which covers, normaly you would add the optional fan on top of the heatsink when using a watercooling setup but with design it”””’’s no longer needed, temps stay low even when the motherboard is installed upside down (cpu part of the mainboard facing to the bottom of the case) .

Just like the nForce heatsink this one has a nice slick desinged heatsink cover, though it might be more effective if taken off.

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Lats but not least the back standalone heatsink, which is not connected to the main heatpipe design.

As you can see it”””’’s installed by using a copper backplate. One thing is clear that most watercooling blocks which are compatible for P5N32 Sli and Striker are compatible for the P5N-T Deluxe as well. 

Well this covers a small portion of our preview of the Asus P5N-T Deluxe, do keep in mind that the example is not the final retail version. The retail version might have more improvements, maybe Asus decides to paint all the PCIe slots pink who knows. 

Want to see some testing results? Go over to the forums to check them out. While your there feel free to post your thoughts, it”””’’s free:-)
I would like to thank ASUS for making this preview possible.