¯\(°_o)/¯ - 790i Ultra chipset?
I know what you are thinking...
"Umm... a 790i Ultra chipset? You mean the same one from 2008?
This chipset is dead and out of production, why on earth would you start a thread for this chipset in 2015?"
Φ A bit of background first, from a GAMER's perspective...let's have some fun
If you are someone that knows the history of CPU chipsets and their capabilities and restrictions you may have noticed a trend the past 10 years or so...This trend has EVERYTHING to do with Moore's Law. I'm not going to cover Moore's law itself, it is a whole separate topic. This was just the core reason Intel and Amd needed to get crafty to sell processors at the same rate.
To make a very very long drawn out explanation shorter, when processors started to basically run out of headroom to go faster in clock speed, they were forced to just add more cores instead. Dual core, triple core (yup there were), Quad core, 6 core and now we are seeing 8 core pretty much mainstream.
Top Xeons have even more cores, like a crazy amount...
Consumers instantly went from a guaranteed performance increase with a 'CPU UPGRADE' to more of a "well depends" situation.
We saw how older single core CPUs were running at HIGHER clock speeds.
They were faster than newer dual core CPUs were, and winning at just about every "real world" test...
Software AT THE TIME that most consumers ran couldn't really take advantage of the extra core.
This meant many of us spend thousands of dollars on an upgrade, because of COURSE we needed a new chipset, new socket, new memory type, etc. etc. only to find out we may have not actually see much of a performance increase (if you are one of those that always wants the latest and greatest).
Fast forward to Quad cores, same deal.. it happened all over again..
Software is JUST NOW getting to the point where most of it will fully utilize 4 cores.
Intel adds hyperthreading back... everyone loves to look at all the CPU graphs in task manager
But we really couldn't use the extra 4 hyper-threading cores much and still can't today.
A quad with hyper-threading is 8 cores... what games are programmed to take advantage of 8 cores?
How many people went out an bought a Core i7 for that specific reason?
Ever see a minimum requirement on ANY game for 6 cores? Nope...
Six cores, yup same thing happened all over again to consumers...(12 cores looks cool in task manager..
)
Eight core CPUs are more common now. A whopping 16 cores in task manager.!
..
12 of which are not specifically programmed for in games (I didn't say they wouldn't be used).
PCI-E lane limitations!
P35, P45, Z series, etc etc how many chipsets do we need when almost nothing really changes!??
How many of these chipsets have HORRIBLY LOW PCI-E lanes?? (MOST)
So back to the purpose of this thread
So what IS the purpose of this thread? - 2 reasons
(1) I want to give credit where it is due! The NVIDIA 790i Ultra chipset wasn't perfect, and had some quirks of its own but should be considered a bit of a "going out on top" thing for NVIDIA. This was the last consumer chipset NVIDIA ever produced. This platform in 2008 was ahead of its time and with thanks MOSTLY to the issue following Moore's law lately, is actually still (barely) holding its own today in 2015. People were stuffing GTX 8800's in their systems in 2008 and today people are stuffing GTX 980's in them! They perform VERY well when tweaked just the right way for games and handle large PCI-E demands. Unfortunately they are limited to 8GB of ram because I think if they weren't the legacy might even have lasted longer.
I want to be clear, this is a VERY OLD chipset, and EVERYTHING NEW beats it.. There is no doubt, the newer boards are better, faster, more bling, features like M.2, SATA6, USB3 *BUT* take a look at what was brought to us in 2008... Not as a sales pitch or to suggest that everyone run out and pick one up used, but when you consider it is 2015 and we actually don't have MUCH BETTER than what we got back in 2008...
» 60 PCI-E Lanes
↑ Umm.. yeah... can't touch it..
» PCI Express 2.0 (GPUs still do not really exceed this limit today [16Gbps])
» DDR3 @ 2000Mhz (max) (We are just now seeing DDR4)
» SLI 16x16x16 (2.0/1.0/2.0)
» 1600 FSB and 45nm CPU support
and here it is 2015 and we are still playing the multiple socket, PCI-E lane limitation games..
INTEL IS EVEN LIMITING LANES IN THE PROCESSOR ITSELF!?! WTH
Despite what many might say, the 790i Ultra chipset was ahead of its time and a solid, quality platform. Unfortunately there were a lot of issues with the 780i chipset that gave the 790i a bad name, but were actually not applicable to the 790i at all...
(2) One of my computers I have is actually a 790i Ultra. In fact, I still have 2 running with this chipset. I have had a REALLY FUN TIME OVERCLOCKING this platform. Again, I wouldn't suggest that anyone go out any BUY ONE (lol), but IF you happen to have a 790i Ultra chipset you can simply throw a decent cooler on it and get ~4 Ghz relatively easily with a quad core. That's a frequency any game will thank you for.
If you've got one hanging around, it make a good overclocking project and since I may be one of the last ones around still familiar with the 790i Ultra with regard to overclocking, I figured I would offer my assistance so I'm throwing this out there and including a bit of my perspective and recognition for a piece of hardware that still compares today.
EDIT: GREAT post on 16GB with 790i Ultra!
https://www.overclock.net/t/1547699...16-2017-overclocking-gaming/300#post_25812137
and
https://www.overclock.net/t/1547699...16-2017-overclocking-gaming/300#post_25812178
UPDATE! 4-21-19
Looks like there are confirmed reports of compatibility issues with Turing based GPUs.
The most modern NVIDIA GPUs confirmed to work will be PASCAL based. 1060/1070/1080/1080Ti or ANYTHING older should work fine.
20xx and 16xx do NOT work.
I know what you are thinking...
"Umm... a 790i Ultra chipset? You mean the same one from 2008?
This chipset is dead and out of production, why on earth would you start a thread for this chipset in 2015?"
Φ A bit of background first, from a GAMER's perspective...let's have some fun
If you are someone that knows the history of CPU chipsets and their capabilities and restrictions you may have noticed a trend the past 10 years or so...This trend has EVERYTHING to do with Moore's Law. I'm not going to cover Moore's law itself, it is a whole separate topic. This was just the core reason Intel and Amd needed to get crafty to sell processors at the same rate.
To make a very very long drawn out explanation shorter, when processors started to basically run out of headroom to go faster in clock speed, they were forced to just add more cores instead. Dual core, triple core (yup there were), Quad core, 6 core and now we are seeing 8 core pretty much mainstream.
Top Xeons have even more cores, like a crazy amount...
Consumers instantly went from a guaranteed performance increase with a 'CPU UPGRADE' to more of a "well depends" situation.
We saw how older single core CPUs were running at HIGHER clock speeds.
They were faster than newer dual core CPUs were, and winning at just about every "real world" test...
Software AT THE TIME that most consumers ran couldn't really take advantage of the extra core.
This meant many of us spend thousands of dollars on an upgrade, because of COURSE we needed a new chipset, new socket, new memory type, etc. etc. only to find out we may have not actually see much of a performance increase (if you are one of those that always wants the latest and greatest).
Fast forward to Quad cores, same deal.. it happened all over again..
Software is JUST NOW getting to the point where most of it will fully utilize 4 cores.
Intel adds hyperthreading back... everyone loves to look at all the CPU graphs in task manager
But we really couldn't use the extra 4 hyper-threading cores much and still can't today.
A quad with hyper-threading is 8 cores... what games are programmed to take advantage of 8 cores?
How many people went out an bought a Core i7 for that specific reason?
Ever see a minimum requirement on ANY game for 6 cores? Nope...
Six cores, yup same thing happened all over again to consumers...(12 cores looks cool in task manager..
Eight core CPUs are more common now. A whopping 16 cores in task manager.!
12 of which are not specifically programmed for in games (I didn't say they wouldn't be used).
PCI-E lane limitations!
P35, P45, Z series, etc etc how many chipsets do we need when almost nothing really changes!??
How many of these chipsets have HORRIBLY LOW PCI-E lanes?? (MOST)
So back to the purpose of this thread
So what IS the purpose of this thread? - 2 reasons
(1) I want to give credit where it is due! The NVIDIA 790i Ultra chipset wasn't perfect, and had some quirks of its own but should be considered a bit of a "going out on top" thing for NVIDIA. This was the last consumer chipset NVIDIA ever produced. This platform in 2008 was ahead of its time and with thanks MOSTLY to the issue following Moore's law lately, is actually still (barely) holding its own today in 2015. People were stuffing GTX 8800's in their systems in 2008 and today people are stuffing GTX 980's in them! They perform VERY well when tweaked just the right way for games and handle large PCI-E demands. Unfortunately they are limited to 8GB of ram because I think if they weren't the legacy might even have lasted longer.
I want to be clear, this is a VERY OLD chipset, and EVERYTHING NEW beats it.. There is no doubt, the newer boards are better, faster, more bling, features like M.2, SATA6, USB3 *BUT* take a look at what was brought to us in 2008... Not as a sales pitch or to suggest that everyone run out and pick one up used, but when you consider it is 2015 and we actually don't have MUCH BETTER than what we got back in 2008...
» 60 PCI-E Lanes
↑ Umm.. yeah... can't touch it..
» PCI Express 2.0 (GPUs still do not really exceed this limit today [16Gbps])
» DDR3 @ 2000Mhz (max) (We are just now seeing DDR4)
» SLI 16x16x16 (2.0/1.0/2.0)
» 1600 FSB and 45nm CPU support
and here it is 2015 and we are still playing the multiple socket, PCI-E lane limitation games..
INTEL IS EVEN LIMITING LANES IN THE PROCESSOR ITSELF!?! WTH
Despite what many might say, the 790i Ultra chipset was ahead of its time and a solid, quality platform. Unfortunately there were a lot of issues with the 780i chipset that gave the 790i a bad name, but were actually not applicable to the 790i at all...
(2) One of my computers I have is actually a 790i Ultra. In fact, I still have 2 running with this chipset. I have had a REALLY FUN TIME OVERCLOCKING this platform. Again, I wouldn't suggest that anyone go out any BUY ONE (lol), but IF you happen to have a 790i Ultra chipset you can simply throw a decent cooler on it and get ~4 Ghz relatively easily with a quad core. That's a frequency any game will thank you for.
If you've got one hanging around, it make a good overclocking project and since I may be one of the last ones around still familiar with the 790i Ultra with regard to overclocking, I figured I would offer my assistance so I'm throwing this out there and including a bit of my perspective and recognition for a piece of hardware that still compares today.
EDIT: GREAT post on 16GB with 790i Ultra!
https://www.overclock.net/t/1547699...16-2017-overclocking-gaming/300#post_25812137
and
https://www.overclock.net/t/1547699...16-2017-overclocking-gaming/300#post_25812178
UPDATE! 4-21-19
Looks like there are confirmed reports of compatibility issues with Turing based GPUs.
The most modern NVIDIA GPUs confirmed to work will be PASCAL based. 1060/1070/1080/1080Ti or ANYTHING older should work fine.
20xx and 16xx do NOT work.