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680i, Worth the potential issues?

J

Jpsheff

n00b
Joined
Jun 13, 2007
Messages
19
I have been reading a lot of reviews that say 680i boards are a real gamble as far as whether you will get a good board or not. I would prefer to not deal with the hassle of returning a few boards just to get a working one.

Is the speed of a 680i board worth the risk?
 
I myself do not own one but I have a friend that does and he absolutly loves it. I will make the switch to one when the GTX comes down in price. For every 1 bad review there are 10 good ones. You make the call. I say go for it. Also what risks are you talking about.
 
I asked that question about 7 months back, due to some bad publicity that I had run across...and now....I couldn't be happier with the 680i.

After the board had it's first few bios revisions, all was well.

Good Luck & Enjoy!
 
Looks like I might order one then :D. Any suggestions as to which board I should go with? I was thinking EVGA's nForce 680i SLI 775 A1.
 
i got 680i and man i love this board,only thing i dont like is i have a windowed case and that blue led above the ram is bright enough to light up my room at night.
 
Jpsheff said:
Looks like I might order one then :D. Any suggestions as to which board I should go with? I was thinking EVGA's nForce 680i SLI 775 A1.
Click to expand...

evga is pretty good but if I were to get a 680i I would buy an xfx one.

p.s. the 680i might kill your memory*happened to my friend*
 
Nick_Leo said:
i got 680i and man i love this board,only thing i dont like is i have a windowed case and that blue led above the ram is bright enough to light up my room at night.
Click to expand...

Get some sandpaper and rough up the LED top /very/ carefully.
 
Jpsheff said:
Looks like I might order one then :D. Any suggestions as to which board I should go with? I was thinking EVGA's nForce 680i SLI 775 A1.
Click to expand...

I second the EVGA recommendation. Remember to register it within 30 days of purchase, though. Great customer support. I've been very happy with mine.
 
I have an evga 680i A1 w/a e6600 and I'm at 3.35ghz stable on air w/pretty crappy memory.

This is a great board.
 
nvidiapwnsati said:
evga is pretty good but if I were to get a 680i I would buy an xfx one.

p.s. the 680i might kill your memory*happened to my friend*
Click to expand...

ONE example does not make the standard.
How does your "friend" know that the board itself killed the RAM? How does your friend know the RAM wasn't just set to go all on its own?
 
I have an EVGA A1 board and its been perfect since day 1. Absolutely love it.

However, I agree that if you're not going SLI, you'll be better off with a newer P35 board instead.

Mark.
 
I have built a few systems using the 680i. As far as functionality, all of the customers that I have dealt with have been happy and I have to say that it is the easiest board to work with. I dont know if it was just a fluke or if foxcon designed them the way they are, but they are very easy to build on. Everything is in a nice place.
 
Wolf-R1 said:
ONE example does not make the standard.
How does your "friend" know that the board itself killed the RAM? How does your friend know the RAM wasn't just set to go all on its own?
Click to expand...

I've had other people lose RAM on 680i. google is your friend but the nuts and bolts of it is that it seems to overvolt the ram.

I don't think it would be that big of an issue honestly except, at least for the striker, the board won't boot for some people at the default voltages. Forcing you to raise them on top of the board overvolting them.
 
sd11 said:
I've had other people lose RAM on 680i. google is your friend but the nuts and bolts of it is that it seems to overvolt the ram.

I don't think it would be that big of an issue honestly except, at least for the striker, the board won't boot for some people at the default voltages. Forcing you to raise them on top of the board overvolting them.
Click to expand...

In most cases it's people overvolting the RAM themselves and complaining when it dies.
 
silent-circuit said:
In most cases it's people overvolting the RAM themselves and complaining when it dies.
Click to expand...

Well self inflicted idiocy is always a problem. However why is it out of all current high end chipsets more people seem to be killing RAM on 680i boards then 975x, p965, or any of the other options out there?

The answer is pretty simple here. I'll use myself as a point here. My corsair dominator RAM is rated at 2.1 v. Now on my old 975x it worked completely fine at 1.9v at it's advertised speed and timings. On my 680i striker it does not work even at 2.1v for advertised speeds, 2.2v yes. And even then it's fishy since the 680i series is known for over volting RAM.

It's at least worth knowing that people using 680i boards have killed RAM so you can take precaustions to make sure it doesn't happen to you.
 
my 680i A1 from eVGA killed itself...on the 4th of July...fireworks style. Cap leaked, board no workie. RMA process already started. Fell back on my P5B Deluxe/AP-Wifi. I had dual 8800's in it, and due to the bpard failure, I'm dumping them to go to a GTX...then selling the 680i for a P35...then selling the P5B. I was happy, and now I'm pissed. Hey, what can I say? It's been 12 years since I killed a board (or had one die). I vote NO.
 
I had three 680i sli motherboards since 680 released. First EVGA, then EVGA A1, now XFX 680i sli. They all had their issues with the voltage drop, and still has it.
 
I haven't had any trouble with my evga 680i except not being able to take an e6600 and buffalo firestix farther than 3.35ghz on air... which really isn't that bad.

It's been great to me.
 
ASUS P5N32-E SLI really has been a pleasure to have.

Fast and responsive, I love mine.

8800 GTX SLI'd and just amazine gameplay.

Get one.

Just don't install ntune, whatever you do.
 
mito said:
May I ask why? :confused:
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Ntune was a buggy piece of crap for its first few months in existence... though it's mostly been cleaned up from what I recall (no longer have my SLI setup).

To answer OP, DON'T waste time with a 680i if you have no intention of using two NVidia cards. 680i run far too hot/are too difficult to get silent and they don't overclock as well as Intel chipset boards. Though the plague of problems have been fixed with A1 revisions and such, I would still stay away unless you're hellbent on SLI.
 
Just an update, I bought the EVGA A1 (along with a new Lian Li v1200, Tuniq Tower, and an 8800 gtx) and so far I'm loving it. My ram is running fine at 2.1v, I have my E6600 clocked to 3.2, and to the previous poster I am planning to run SLI so that pushed me to buy the board a little more.
 
Frankly I feel that the nForce 680i chipset has received an unfair share of FUD from many users. Clearly no board is perfect, and every manufacturing line will produce a few lemons, but show me where people are having more problems with current 680i products (A1 revision or equiv.) than competitive boards. I've already mentioned in an earlier post that I've never had a hint of trouble with my board, and I've been able to overclock easily and quite successfully.

I concur with the previous post about the rough start, and want to emphasize that a lot of the FUD concerning the 680i board is due to bugs in early units. If you're buying form EVGA, just make sure to get an A1 revision and you'll be set with an excellent motherboard. Still, the chief advantage to 680i boards is SLI support, so if you don't need it, you can get a cheaper yet still feature-filled P35 board that will perform as well, if not slightly better in the OC department.

Mark.
 
mito said:
May I ask why? :confused:
Click to expand...

Here's my take on ntune, some of it is hard fact and some is co-incidental (but really pissed me off, nonetheless) I have tried ntune 5.05.18,28 and 38.
First: ntune will not allow a GPU overclock to remain on restart. Once you restart the OC is reset to default, no matter what else you try to do (known bug)
Second: on ntune + 158.22 and above drivers + XP you cannot access fan controls.
Third: Case fan speeds cannot be controlled via ntune.

Fourth: 158.22 and above driver sets, clicking on GPU temp monitor from the home ntune page consistantly crashed the system.

Fifth: Before I reformatted my hard drive and just after installing 5.05.38 ntune my entire system became unstable in a random fashion........programs that had worked flawlessly crashed, games froze, I had no access to GPU controls.

So........this weekend I reformatted the HDD and things are back to absolute normal......there may have been more to it, its really hard to blame ntune for buggy behavior across the board,but when its the onlt new variable..............well..........

I have emailed nvidia support a bunch and their advice was simple: you should use Rivatuner. Unfortunately.....neither ntune or rivatuner will allow seperate OCs and fan adjustments under SLI as of yet............but rivatuner is far more advanced and stable for what I want than ntune currently is.
nvidia should have left coolbits alone, it worked flawlessly.:mad:
 
When mine comes back from RMA, Its going up for sale....
I will be looking at anything but a 680i board this time.
 
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