Nvidia chipsets haven't been quite as popular these days as AMD chipsets since they bought ATI and also the success ATI has had with the quality of their integrated video parts. Also on the Intel side Intel basically has an exclusive license them selves to Core i7 CPUs. That said while Nvidia hasn't done any major revisions since the 750a and 780a chipsets there are still new motherboards being built around those chipsets. Today we'll be taking a look at one of these from Asus, the M4N72-E.

The Asus M4N72-E is based off of Nvidia's 750a chipset and is a Socket AM2+ motherboard but is built with support for the new Phenom II Socket AM3 processors as they are backwards compatible. The reverse is not true, you can't use a Socket AM2+ processor in a Socket AM3 motherboard so in a way Socket AM2+ is the most backwards compatible despite being an older interface.

Nvidia released the 780a chipset about a year ago but the price was a little too much for the price range you want in an AMD motherboard these days, and even with Phenom II being a much more powerful processor it's hard to drop as much on the motherboard as you are for a high-end processor. 750a is the mid-range fix for this with the main loss being only going to 19 PCI-Express 2.0 lanes allowing for 2-way SLI, not 3-way. Since even running SLI is not that common and especially 3 is incredibly rare thing to do and something where price/benefit starts to lose it's luster we don't think this is too much of a loss.

Unique features from Asus for the M4N72-E include support for DDR2 memory overclocked to 1.3GHz for higher bandwidth, an 8+1 phase power design for better overclocking and lower power consumption, and anti-surge protection. Asus also includes a lot of software with their motherboards to enable advanced features. This includes TurboV which allows for easier overclocking, TurboKey which allows the user to overclock with the push of a button, ExpressGate which is a tiny Linux distribution that ships with the motherboard that features a web browser, music player, Skype, and instant messaging capabilities, Q-Connector to allow for quick connection from the case front panel connectors to the motherboard, Q-Shield which removes the annoying metal tabs on the I/O shield with something that works instantly and is slightly padded.

BIOS features include O.C. profile which saves a user's custom BIOS, CrashFree Bios 2 which allows the user to recover a damaged BIOS, EZFlash 2 which allows for easy flashing from within the BIOS and MyLogo2 for a personal image for the boot screen rather than the standard Asus logo.

The M4N72-E has a good layout overall. There are two heatsinks one which covers the CPU and another which covers the chipsets in between the ports and the processor. The motherboard uses 4-pin CPU power, features two 16x PCI-Express slots which supports SLI, two additional PCI-E 1x slots, two PCI slots, 4 DDR2 DIMM sots on the rear next to the 24-pin ATX power, six SATA 2.0 ports, all next to one IDE connector. No floppy adapter on this board.

A close up shot of the two PCI-E 16x expansion slots, the one downside to ATI's dominance lately in the AMD chipset world is that there haven't been too many new motherboards with SLI support if you want to go that route and Nvidia's cards have been picking up in strength at least with the higher-end graphics market.

Here we see the IDE connector, SATA ports, and USB and Firewire front panel connectors.

4 DDR2 slots are featured, the Socket AM2+ socket, 24-pin ATX motherboard power, and 6 SATA ports.

The I/O devices on the back include six USB 2.0 ports, a PS/2 mouse and keyboard port, Firewire, Gigabit Ethernet, and 7.1 HD Realtek audio. One thing missing is the integrated video that comes with some 750a chipset based motherboards so keep that in mind if you're looking at this board: there is no onboard video output.

The bundle is fairly standard, I/O, SATA cables, case sticker, IDE and floppy cable, Asus Quick-Connectors, SLI adapter, and manual.

Technical specs from Asus.

CPU
AMD Socket AM2+ / AM2 Phenom™ X4/Phenom™ X3/Athlon™ /Athlon™ X2/Sempron™ AMD 140W CPU Support
AMD Cool 'n' Quiet™ Technology
Support AM3 Phenom™ II / Athlon™ X4 / Athlon™ X3 / Athlon™ X2 Processors
Support 45nm Phenom™ II CPU
Chipset
NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI
System Bus
Up to 5200 MT/s HyperTransport™ 3.0 interface for AM3/AM2+ CPU
2000 / 1600 MT/s for AM2 CPU
Memory
4 x DIMM, Max. 16 GB, DDR2 1300(O.C.)/1200(O.C.)/1066*/800/667 ECC,Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory
Dual Channel memory architecture
*Due to AMD CPU limitation, DDR2 1066 is supported by AM3/AM2+ CPU for one DIMM per channel only. Refer to www.asus.com for the memory QVL (Qualified Vendors Lists).
**Due to OS limitation, when installing total memory of 4GB capacity or more, Windows® 32-bit operation system may only recognize less than 3GB. Hence, a total installed memory of less than 3GB is recommended.
Expansion Slots
2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (Single x16 or Dual x8)
2 x PCIe x1
2 x PCI 2.2
Multi-GPU Support
Support NVIDIA® SLI™ Technology at x8 link
Storage

NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI chipset
- 1 x Ultra DMA 133 / 100
- 6 x SATA 3Gb/s ports (Legacy IDE operation is only supported on drives 1–4.)
- NVIDIA® MediaShield™ RAID supports RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5, and JBOD
LAN
Realtek 8211CL Gigabit/10 LAN controller featuring AI NET 2
Audio
VIA1708S 8 -Channel High Definition Audio CODEC
- Supports Jack-Detection, Multi-Streaming, and Front Panel Jack-Retasking
- Optical S/PDIF Out ports at back I/O
- ASUS Noise Filtering
IEEE 1394
VIA VT6315N controller supports 2 x 1394a ports
USB
12 xUSB 2.0 ports (6 ports at mid-board, 6 ports at back panel)
ASUS Unique Features

ASUS Power Saving Solutions:
- 8+1 Phase Power Design
- ASUS Anti-Surge Protection
ASUS Green Design:
- EPU
*ASUS EPU is supported by AM3/AM2+ CPU only
- ASUS AI Nap
Express Gate
ASUS Quiet Thermal Solution:
- ASUS Fanless Design:stylish heatsink solution
- ASUS Q-Fan2
ASUS EZ DIY:
- ASUS Q-Connector
- ASUS CrashFree BIOS 2
- ASUS O.C. Profile
- ASUS EZ Flash 2
Overclocking Features
Intelligent overclocking tools
- AI Overclocking (intelligent CPU frequency tuner)
-TurboV
-Turbo Key
SFS (Stepless Frequency Selection)
- FSB tuning from 200MHz up to 600MHz at 1MHz increment
- Memory tuning from 533MHz up to 1066MHz
Overclocking Protection
- ASUS C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall)
Special Features
100% All High-quality Conductive Polymer Capacitors! (5000hrs VRM, over 57 years operation lifespan at 65∘C)
ASUS MyLogo 2
Back Panel I/O Ports
1 x PS/2 Keyboard
1 x PS/2 Mouse
1 x S/PDIF Out (Optical)
1 x IEEE 1394a
1 x LAN(RJ45) port
6 x USB 2.0/1.1
8 -Channel Audio I/O
Internal I/O Connectors
3 x USB connectors (6 ports)
1 x Floppy disk drive connector
1 x IDE connector
6 x SATA connectors
1 x IEEE 1394a connector
1 x CPU Fan connector
1 x Chassis Fan connector
1 x Power Fan connector
1 x S/PDIF Out connector
Front panel audio connector
Chassis Intrusion connector
1 x COM connector
CD audio in
24-pin ATX Power connector
4-pin ATX 12V Power connector
System Panel (Q-Connector)
BIOS
8 Mb Flash ROM
AMI BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 2.5, ACPI 2.0, ASUS EZ Flash 2, CrashFree BIOS 2
Accessories
User's manual
1 x UltraDMA 133/100/66 cable
4 x SATA cable
I/O Shield
Support Disc
Drivers
ASUS PC Probe II
Express Gate
ASUS AI Suite
Anti-virus software (OEM version)
ASUS Update
Form Factor
ATX Form Factor
12 inch x 9.6 inch ( 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm )

The BIOS is a fairly standard advanced Asus BIOS layout with all the tweaking you needs for overclocking, power consumption, and adjusting your build exactly how you want it.

Our test system was Windows Vista Home Premium SP1 32-bit with ATI Catalyst 9.5 drivers and nForce 15.26.

 

The board seems to take slightly less power than the Asus M3A78-T probably because of the onboard video of the 790GX or possibly DDR3 taking slightly less power.

Not a major difference in transfer speed but the 790GX chipset comes out slightly on top.

Overclocking the motherboard we had some mixed results compared to the 790GX Asus M3A78-T, though the HyperTransport bus alone was able to go 200MHz above the 790GX overclocking our Phenom II X3 720 BE the processor came in 200MHz lower at 3.6GHz compared to 3.8GHz. The Nvidia chipests in general don't seem to overclock quite as well with AMD processors as ATI's but here we do see the bus went higher but we'd still prefer the CPU over the bus.