PCB Design and Functionality

The usual beginning phrase about the mainboard looking good at first glance without any serious design flaws may have already become too boring, because it starts all our recent reviews. However, we should be pleased with the manufacturers’ success is designing mainboards, because practically all recently reviewed boards look superb and hardy have any design flaws. ZOTAC nForce 790i-Supreme will show beautifully how hard it must have been for Nvidia engineers to come up with a smart design and how brilliantly they coped with this task:

The chipset cooling system looks pretty interesting: it is designed as a single unit:

The chipset South Bridge heatsink is extended up to the North Bridge heatsink with heatpipes running beneath it. Heatpipes circle the processor socket and connect two additional heatsinks on top of voltage regulator MOSFET and a heatsink next to the memory DIMM slots. Of course, it may be challenging to install large processor coolers, but efficient chipset cooling is of utmost importance, too. This is also the reason why the chipset North Bridge heatsink has an extra section in it.

This cooling system ensures flawless operation in nominal mode. However, if you are up to overclocking, you may want to use an enclosed fan:

The fan casing is designed with special stops and a clip, so it can be easily installed and removed. It looks very stylish and goes well with the rest of the chipset cooling, however, this solution has two evident drawbacks. First, it will be hard to replace, if it breaks down. And second, it is too loud, despite the operation fan rotation speed management technology.