ECS PN2 SLI2+ (680i SLI) Motherboard Review

Bundle and BIOS

The ECS PN2 SLI2+ comes with quite a bit of “stuff” in the box. You have your media that is included, which consists of 3 cds, the manual and a quick start guide. You also have you assortment of cables, including SATA, SATA power, IDE, floppy and even a cable for your lan. Also included in the box is your back plate, a USB/firewire header, and a fan for the northbridge. The bundle is actually quite good, which continues the trend we have seen with the Extreme series of boards.

The ECS PN2 SLI2+ uses the Award bios, which we are very comfortable with as it seems to be on the majority of boards we test. Since we conver this bios so much, let’s just look at the interesting and customized parts of the bios.

The Advanced Bios page is where we will find the options for our hard drives and CD/DvD drives. It also is where we can setup our boot order.

The Advanced Chipset page is where we will spend most of our time, as it contains the options that we will be adjusting the most as we set up the system and also as we get into our overclocking.

On the FSB and Memory Config page, we have a few interesting settings that are available to us. First off, this is where you set up your memory to run in SLI. You also have settings that are related to the CPU fsb speed, mem speeds and memory timings.

First off, your memory has the option to run up to 1400ddr. This is a pretty high speed, but we are getting closer to that every day!

The CPU fsb setting goes all the way up to
2500.

One nice feature that has started popping up on boards is the ability to run in linked or unlinked mode, which allows you to set the memory and fsb speeds of the CPU individually. This allows you to tweak to your hearts delight, and get the best performance out of each piece of equipment that you have.

ECS has chosen to put the most basic timings in the bios to be adjusted. For a first time overclocker, or those who just like to get the initial overclock and not spend days adjusting secondary timings, this will be a good thing. If you enjoy tweaking for days on end, this bios does not allow for it. ECS has included the option to adjust many of the system voltages within the bios. Take a look at all the options…

Vcore goes all the way to 1.8v! That is nice, especially for those phase change guys!

CPU fsb voltage allows up to 1.5v.

Vdimm is allowed a healthy 2.5v. Nice!

1.55v for the SPP.

And 1.75v for the MCP.

HT voltage between the SPP a MCP is adjustable up to 1.55v.

ECS does give us the option to save profiles in the bios. I personally love this option.

Drives and other peripherals are easy to set up. This is also the page that you configure your raid setup if you are running it.

The last page that I want to show is the health page. ECS gives us all the info we need here.

Let’s look at our test setup.