Conclusion

ECS has introduced a fairly good mainstream motherboard that should cater to the casual user who might want to dabble in overclocking, but not into the fantasy regions of Extreme(ly expensive!) high performance. The option of utilizing dual nVidia GPUs for SLI performance is always welcome, but more importantly the ease at which one can change a lowly, tearful 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo into a screaming 3.0GHz hottie should be enough to attract anyone’s attention. However, the NF650iSLIT-A is not without its problems, be it in the physical or the digital world.

In the physical world, the installation of computer components can be a bit troublesome as the spacing of certain components turns out not to be particularly ideal when the cables and devices start appearing. Even with the barest of items to plug into the motherboard, there are spacing issues waiting to occur beside the ATX 24-pin header and also by the IDE and front-panel system headers. Also, it was readily apparent that pairing up two giant video cards would not be the best idea for cooling. In the digital world, we saw that the more “hard core” BIOS options were removed and that the voltage settings were somewhat limited, particularly for the memory.

However, taking a step back, these “issues” are really the considerations of a demanding individual (me!) thinking about putting high-performance and high-cost hardware into a mainstream motherboard. The SLI spacing issue wouldn’t be much of a problem if one pair of mainstream, single-slot GPUs were paired together, and the memory voltage is only an issue if you happen to have the memory that costs hundreds and hundreds of dollars. The point is that this is not the motherboard for a person with otherwise high-performance hardware.

For those looking for an affordable motherboard with solid performance and moderate and easy overclocking, the ECS NF650iSLIT-A is just the board to consider instead of something more luxurious that just demands more costly hardware by nature. It’s a great value.

Pros

• Able to do some Awesome CPU overclocking (1.8GHz to 3.0GHz right off the bat? Come on!)
• Affordable price for the minimalist (who uses all the extras anyways? Not everybody…)
• SLI option to expand upon middle-range GPUs (buy a second mid-range performer later down the road)
• Solid stock performance and stability (great stuff for the casual user)

Cons

• Some tight spacing during installation
• Why is the front panel header in between the IDE headers?
• Why is the audio header at the bottom left and barely reachable?

Overall Rating: 8.5 / 10.0

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