First Nvidia 780i SLI review

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cookerjc

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The main difference between 680i SLI and 780i SLI:

1. support PCIe Gen2

2. 3 x PCIe x16

3. support 3-way SLI

Because the 780i SLI is using the 680i SLI's south bridge and north bridge plus a BR04 chip, so there is no huge difference between 680i SLI, even the hottest topic: 3-way SLI is only an driver upgrade, doesn't need any architecture changes.(NV later will release a 3-way SLI driver for 680i SLI.)

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Test bed:

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test reasult:

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for more info & scores pls go to the source: [FF not friendly..:(] http://topic.expreview.com/2007-10-18/1192682447d6049.html
 
Wow, that heatsink/fan for the chipset is large, though probably not as elaborate as the X38 ones.

It is surprising that of all the benchmarks, it beats the X38 and P35 in memory bandwidth only. Everything else it falls behind.
 
octoberasian said:
Wow, that heatsink/fan for the chipset is large, though probably not as elaborate as the X38 ones.

It is surprising that of all the benchmarks, it beats the X38 and P35 in memory bandwidth only. Everything else it falls behind.
Click to expand...

thats a bad sign. I thought 680i ran hot...

edit: FOURTY NINE PCI-E2 LANES!?!??!

.... wow.... thats why that thing runs so damn hot its got more pci-e throughput then AMD does memory bandwidth.
 
octoberasian said:
Wow, that heatsink/fan for the chipset is large, though probably not as elaborate as the X38 ones.

It is surprising that of all the benchmarks, it beats the X38 and P35 in memory bandwidth only. Everything else it falls behind.
Click to expand...

by an irrelevent/insignificant amount on beta drivers and a beta bios.

I think we can cut it some slack.

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According to above pics theres an outsourced bridge that, I assume, detects and compatabilizes the pci-e 2 bus from the north bridge into what format it needs to be in. But I cant find any new bridge on the card. Can any of you guys? On the NB wafer maybe?
 
I prefer a humoungus heatsink with active cooling than a nice and shiny looking craptastic heatpipe... I never understood why Nvidia released their 680i boards with a passive Nb heatsink... for my liking those heatsinks were underperforming from day one...

but seeing it being an "updated" 680i with extra bridge this will be a pass for me as the FSB holes will be still there , I just hope the quads will clock better now... and better 4 dimm compatability...
 
What makes me curious though is this:
If going by the first picture in the opening post that there are 2 780i chips for the northbridge and 1 southbridge, are the 2 780i chips under that giant heatsink/fan? Or, on one wafer?

It could explain the extra amount of heat generated. Next you know, these northbridge chips will be processors generating as much heat as a regular CPU, if not more.
 
leeghoofd said:
but seeing it being an "updated" 680i with extra bridge this will be a pass for me as the FSB holes will be still there , I just hope the quads will clock better now... and better 4 dimm compatability...
Click to expand...

You and me both. I just RMA'd my 680i for the 4th time and got so fed up with it having memory problems that I just sent the bastard back to NewEgg. X38 here I come.
 
Another thought that comes to me, look at that big Northbridge heatsink. It looks like it sits REALLY close to the top x16 PCI-E slot. Any card with a heatspreader on the back for instance might have a tough time fitting on there unless one removed it. I know of at least one or two EVGA 8800 GTX's that have a fairly thick heatspreader on the back as their stock heatsink, too for instance. And a couple aftermarket heatsinks that use kind of tall thumbscrews to secure them to the card, again that could be an issue.

Other comment, this board seems more evolutionary then revolutionary IMO. Probably too soon to really place any judgement, but right now I'd pass unless I just had to run SLI. But I also had a bit of a wonky 680i chipset board, so I'm forced to admit I'm basing that feeling more on it and making assumptions.

Do want to know why a bunch of the caps are pointing in odd weird directions. LOL to saying they are from Piza comment about them by the way. Guess the photographer missed that? :)
 
MrWizard6600 said:
by an irrelevent/insignificant amount on beta drivers and a beta bios.

I think we can cut it some slack.

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o142/MrWizard6600/DSC_3177b.jpg

According to above pics theres an outsourced bridge that, I assume, detects and compatabilizes the pci-e 2 bus from the north bridge into what format it needs to be in. But I cant find any new bridge on the card. Can any of you guys? On the NB wafer maybe?
Click to expand...

xpsango said:
max fsb? overclocking specs would be pretty sweet.
Click to expand...
Guys, you're both missing that this is just a regular 680i board with an additional bridge chip (BR-04) to add PCIe2 support. That giant NB sink is covering both the 680i NB and the BR-04 translator.
Don't expect any new performance or overclocking potential out of it, it is nothing more than an extra chip tacked onto the tried-and-tested 680i chipset. Memory is untouched, peripherals are untouched; the only thing that has changed is that your video cards have twice the theoretical bandwidth.
 
Man, after the 680i fiasco's I've been witness to, the Northbridge HSF arrangement BETTER be big.

Let's just hope they didn't give assembly out to the lowest bidder again and some folks won't be dropping 150-200$ to clean up someone else's shoddy thermal application job.
 
I swear cookerJC works for expreview, every thread he's started is one of their's review. He's probably just here to get his site more views.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
by an irrelevent/insignificant amount on beta drivers and a beta bios.

I think we can cut it some slack.



According to above pics theres an outsourced bridge that, I assume, detects and compatabilizes the pci-e 2 bus from the north bridge into what format it needs to be in. But I cant find any new bridge on the card. Can any of you guys? On the NB wafer maybe?
Click to expand...

are you talking about the NF 200 chip? it is under the BIG heatsink. the page 5 of the original post have some pic about that chip.

@azuldenial:
i dont think share the new progress of our work will harm your feelings. If so, sorry for that.
I am NOT forcing you to click in the original link to read the review.
I've already posting all the inportant score here.

you know, it is not easy to have a unrelease mobo.(NV will release the 780I SLI in 12th Nov.)

if you dont like me/our news/reviews, why you click the thread?
 
thanks for the early preview! This is esp. helpful for people like me who is considering a mobo upgrade soon.
 
Other than the wow factor of the third PCI-e 16x slot.......what can you do with this??

I think it would just suck money out of my pockets.:eek: THREE 8800 GTX!!!!!
 
"I think it would just suck money out of my pockets. THREE 8800 GTX!!!!!"

Isn't that the idea Magoo?? I'm not spending another dime on any Nvidia based mobo after the 680i fiasco. Intel x38 is where my $ will be going.
 
Hmm idk about that board, no solid state caps, same tiny bad vreg cooling the 680i had, I dont know...
 
anyone else think that looks like an on place for the SATA? seem cramped compared to newer boards. I like them on the edge just I dunno
 
loved my evga 680i for 8 months and got an ip35 pro just for a change. looks like i'll be going back to nvidia. especially now since confirmed no sli on x38. only way to go for multi gpu as far as i am concerned.
 
Pilot53 said:
Hmm idk about that board, no solid state caps, same tiny bad vreg cooling the 680i had, I dont know...
Click to expand...

6 phase digital? wuts wrong with that? and all the vreg is on solid state caps.

wrangler said:
680i gets Tri SLi anyway later.
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yeah but Nvidia drivers are based on card by card syncronization, result, 680i try sli = performance of 3 cards in SLI all with 8X pci-e lanes.
 
Tri sli??? Talk about senseless, Dual SLI in my opinion is overkill for most users (unless you run crazy high resolution). I wish they'd stop this "graphical horsepower" war. Will they come up with anymore ways for the consumer to drain their wallet over stuff they dont need much less ever be able to use??
 
I would like to see more then 1 x38 vs 1 780i vs 3 p35 before I can even draw a conclusion. Would be nice to see how the Maximus Formula stacks up against them as well. Reading some reviews it shows that Maximus is better then the Gigabyte board in many ways, as vice versa.
 
Not just one small loud whiny chipset fan, but TWO small loud whiny chipset fans. Nice.
 
It performs well with an early BIOS and drivers. I don't think they're going to be able to squeeze a ton of extra performance out of it but they'll get more out of it I'm sure.
 
I really don't understand the point of pci-e 2.0. AGP is finally getting it's bandwidth maxed out, and considering the vast performance of the 8800gtx on pci-e 1.0, what's the point really? Having more bandwidth that won't be utilitized seems just a little absurd. Honestly, I don't really see the point at this juncture. I'm pretty sure prices will drop on 680i boards when these launch, and if that's the case i'll most certainlly still be picking one up when I upgrade in november. Even if new video cards that are compatible with 2.0 are released, i'm sure the loss in performance between the two will be almost negligable. I'm not too hardware savvy, but it just seems that way... please feel free to mock/ blatently prove me wrong... I want answers!!!
 
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SLI-Reday Memory up to ddr 1200?

Whats SLI-Reday?

(i just found it amusing for no real reason.)
 
MooMooCow said:
I was under the impression that the 680i supports 45nm's. Don't see why the 780i would suddenly stop.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure 680i do not support 45nms. P35's were the first.
EDIT: I guess only certain boards with certain BIOS can run it. So I guess we can assume 780i has good support?
 
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