CPU Socket

Based on the Intel version of the NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI, the P5NSLI motherboard is targeted at both the Intel Core Duo, as well as the newly launched Core 2 Duo processor.

The area around the LGA775 CPU socket is relatively clear of surface-mounted components. More importantly, there doesn't seem to be much impediment to the installation of large CPU coolers.

The MOSFETs (Metal-Oxide Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistors) of the motherboard's switching voltage regulator are located just beside the CPU socket. They are passively cooled by an aluminium heatsink which should be great news for enthusiasts of silent computing.

The nForce 570 SLI Chipset

The NVIDIA nForce 570 SLI MCP is located directly next to the LGA775 socket, covered by a garishly pink heatsink. As mentioned earlier, we didn't quite think it was a suitably masculine colour. The rose amongst the thorns in this team, strawroot, actually thought it was eye-catching. Perhaps, there's something to be said about the colour pink, and girls.

The heatsink is held in place by two spring-loaded clips. They are easily removed and once you pop them, the heatsink comes right off.

Underneath is the north bridge chip, in a FCBGA (flip-chip, ball grid array) package. The north bridge chip gets pretty hot, so the flip-chip packaging method allows it to better dissipate heat to the heatsink.

But that won't do much good if there's no thermal conductive material to quickly wisk heat away from the chip. In the case of the P5NSLI, ASUS chose to use thermal tape.

The chip itself is surrounded by a thin piece of rubber. This isn't thick or hard enough to serve as a shim. It only serves to protect the surface-mounted components on the package from contact with the heatsink base.

The south bridge chip, on the other hand, uses a standard BGA package. It doesn't require any additional cooling. Hence, ASUS left it "naked".

The BIOS Chip

The ASUS P5NSLI motherboard uses the Winbond W39V040CPZ flash chip to store the BIOS.

The Winbond W39V040CPZ is a 4Mbit CMOS flash memory chip with an LPC (Low Pin Count) interface. Using a 32-lead PLCC lead-free package, it uses a 3.3V power supply and draws 30 mA of current when active and 10 mA in standby mode.

It has a read access time of 11 ns, which gives it a maximum read speed of 90.9 MB/s. That's really very fast for a BIOS chip. With a data retention of 20 years and 50,000 write cycles, this flash memory chip will last a very long time in its capacity as a BIOS chip.