Opinions on EVGA 680i...

C

coachjohn

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 10, 2006
Messages
234
....from anyone that is currently using one. Likes? Dislikes? Issues? Drivers? BIOS updates? Recommendations regarding the board? Most of what I've read in the line of reviews has been solid...always interested in hearing what day-to-day users and early adapters have to say about hardware as well.

Have a good one.

John
 
Well, let me be the first person to tell you to use the search function. It's really helpful, and I know that MANY threads about the eVGA 680i will come up. I know I've posted in probably all of them.

Additionally, the HardOCP review of the eVGA 680i was excellent. Morry and Kyle had a great experience with the board. After buying one myself, I have not had a good experience. Mine has been plagued with problems and there seems to be no end in sight.

I'll be returning the board and exchanging it for the third time tonight. Seeing if I can get a better board, or what.

Basically right now, the reviews, and real world experiences with the board are mixed. Some experience no issues, and others experience a huge amount of them.
 
Yeah some folks are having a great time with them and some arent. There seems to be a steeper learning curve when overclocking the 680i than previous mobos I hear as well. Some hsf match up well with them and some dont which upsets some folks. Future BIOS updates should smooth out many of the problems concerning performance/stability.
 
Skott said:
Yeah some folks are having a great time with them and some arent. There seems to be a steeper learning curve when overclocking the 680i than previous mobos I hear as well. Some hsf match up well with them and some dont which upsets some folks. Future BIOS updates should smooth out many of the problems concerning performance/stability.
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The eVGA board has far more overclocking options in the BIOS than most boards. The ASUS Striker Extreme doesn't have near the amount of settings the eVGA board has.

The other problem is that the nVidia reference design has resistors mounted on the back of the motherboard in the CPU mounting area. This sucks bad because it creates a situation where many after market heat sink and fan solutions won't fit. So far everything I've looked at would work, but requires modification.
 
Well I have had all three of the Nvidia chipsets; the Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe, Asus P5N32-SLI Premium and now the EVGA 680i board. I have been lucky with all three. No problems with either of these boards and I have been running Raid 0 in all three with the Raptor 150s and a 6800x C2D. But with the 6800 I can overclock using multiplier so FSB overclocking is not so important. I like the EVGA board but as Dan_D has said some people have had problems including Dan-D. I must admit this is my first non-Asus board in awhile but my experience has been good. I also use power supplies that provide more then enough stable power. Just bought the Toughpower 850 watt supply for my next upgrade to 8500 GTXs. I'm sure EVGA is working on these problems if they really want to compete in motherboard business.
 
I'm one of the positive experiences and can honestly say I absolutely LOVE this board. The bios is close to perfect, all of your overclocking options are readily available, the layout and design is really pleasing to the eye. Some people have issues with the NB fan being loud under load, but mines actually not that bad. Ive seen drastic increases in memory bandwidth, True 16x sli is beautiful too. I myself have nothing bad to say about the board except the price, its the most ive spent on a motherboard in quite sometime, but its one of those parts that you can justify the price with what you get. It does however, have some duds out there and its unfortunate, because this boards amazing. Oh, and the cpu voltage is very stable, unlike alot of other boards ive had which jump around a few .01v, not this thing.
 
wee96 said:
I'm one of the positive experiences and can honestly say I absolutely LOVE this board. The bios is close to perfect, all of your overclocking options are readily available, the layout and design is really pleasing to the eye. Some people have issues with the NB fan being loud under load, but mines actually not that bad. Ive seen drastic increases in memory bandwidth, True 16x sli is beautiful too. I myself have nothing bad to say about the board except the price, its the most ive spent on a motherboard in quite sometime, but its one of those parts that you can justify the price with what you get. It does however, have some duds out there and its unfortunate, because this boards amazing. Oh, and the cpu voltage is very stable, unlike alot of other boards ive had which jump around a few .01v, not this thing.
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Well I am debating trying another eVGA 680i or not. I may just go with the Striker. In any case, I will decide all of this tonight.
 
I'm another one of the "no problems whatsoever" people. Flashing the BIOS, updating the chipset drivers, etc... have not had a single problem.
 
Dan-D
I'm sure that Striker will be really good since I've never had a problem with Asus boards. Unfortunately I bought the EVGA 6800i before I new about the Striker. Let us know if you get the Sriker how you like it. Good luck.
 
fentzinator said:
Dan-D
I'm sure that Striker will be really good since I've never had a problem with Asus boards. Unfortunately I bought the EVGA 6800i before I new about the Striker. Let us know if you get the Sriker how you like it. Good luck.
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I already have a Striker, but I haven't installed it in my personal machine yet.
 
Dan_D
Just wondering if you feel the Silencer 750 power supply is enough with the two 8800GTX in SLI? Not that it was the problem with the EVGA but just wondering if you should have a 850 watt for the two 8800GTXs?
 
I spoke with two different people at PC P&C and was told that the Silencer750 Quad was certified by Nvidia to handle 2 8800gtx cards in SLi. It appears that Nvidia has been slow to update their website.

Hope this helps
 
The actual full power load of an 8800GTX SLi system is around 500Watts. My PSU should cover it.

Though I've been talking to nVidia and they don't think so. Considering I've had some stability issues as of late, they might be right.
 
So, with everything being considered; would you guys recommend one to someone who is completely upgrading their system and will be doing minimal to moderate OC'ing?
 
Vegasr said:
I spoke with two different people at PC P&C and was told that the Silencer750 Quad was certified by Nvidia to handle 2 8800gtx cards in SLi. It appears that Nvidia has been slow to update their website.

Hope this helps
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The Silencer 750 Quad has 60A on the 12v rails. Which seems to be (according to jonnyguru.com) the threshold for 8800gtx SLi certification (along with four "native" PCI-E power connectors). So it would make sense that the "quad" version would be certified.

It doesn't sound like Dan_D's Silencer 750 is the quad version. But, of course, all this means is that he has two PCI-E power connectors instead of four. So, if his power supply isn't enough, the only thing you could conceivably blame it on would be the molex-to-PCI-E adapters that he's probably using. And, to my uneducated brain, that seems unlikely (could they really add that much resistance?).

It's possibly more likely that the people at nvidia are stumped and are just trying to find something to blame. . . and they've latched on to his uncertified power supply as the easy target.
 
Viperman5000
I would recommend it because mine has worked flawlessly. Asus does have two versions of the 680i you might want to look at.
Hurin
What power supply are you using with the two 8800GTXs?
 
fentzinator said:
Viperman5000
I would recommend it because mine has worked flawlessly. Asus does have two versions of the 680i you might want to look at.
Hurin
What power supply are you using with the two 8800GTXs?
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Well, keep in mind that I was only using this for a week before my 8800GTXes went back to BFG. . . and they still haven't shipped out my replacements! But, upon doing some research over at jonnyguru.com, I went with the Seasonic M12 700W. There was no indication that power has been a problem. But, since I wasn't as impressed with modular cables as I had thought I would be, I actually placed an order for a PCP&C 750W Quad which just arrived an hour or two ago.

I was experiencing the slow down bug with my 8800GTXes. But many people have as well and it appears the newest drivers (97.28) have fixed it in the vast majority of cases.

Man, I just want my 8800s back! :D I suspect that their wherehouse may be a bit short on stock and rather than sending three back to me (I'm also building for a friend) and keeping three other customers waiting, they'd rather ship one each to them and leave me (just one guy) waiting. :(
 
Right after Xmas I'm hoping to get two 8800GTXs myself. I bet they are sweet!! I just got a Thermaltake toughpower 850 watt with 4 Pci connectors so I should be set.
 
Do the Tt Toughpower 850w model have the same buzzing sound problems that the 750w model has?
 
Well, happy to say I am one of the few without any problems with my Evga 680i which I got the day after it's release from Mwave. I have been able to OC my E6700 to 3.62Ghz without any problems and my load temp never goes above 53c even after 4 hours straight of FEAR @ 1920 x 1600 with average 105fps, but I have read about all the problems here and in the Evga forum as well. Don't know but I personally think a lot of the people having problems could be due to undrepowered psu's, I would at least have a 750 watt psu if I had even one 8800GTX just to be on the safe side, but that's just my opinion as I have had zero problems ever since I got my 1kw beast of a PSU. :p :cool:
 
Skott said:
Do the Tt Toughpower 850w model have the same buzzing sound problems that the 750w model has?
Click to expand...

I tried one of these on my second rig with 2 7800GT's in SLI and it was bad out of the box with the -5v line dead, I just returned it to Fry's and got the Ultra Xfinity 600 and that one works just fine (I have this same psu on my son's pc and it has been going strong for over 1 year with a XT1800XT). I really don't like these toughpower psu's at all. :mad:
 
Viperman5000 said:
So, with everything being considered; would you guys recommend one to someone who is completely upgrading their system and will be doing minimal to moderate OC'ing?
Click to expand...
I would totally recommend one to you. Sure eVGA is relatively new to the mobo world but the price point (~$260US) and features are hard to beat. The comparable products from ASUS, Abit, MSI, and ECS are either more expensive or can't hold a candle to eVGA's support.
 
I have the eVGA board and have had zero problems other than my DD RBX not fitting because of the caps around the CPU socket. I would highly recommend this board.
 
First, an apology to Dan...I did use the search function, read several threads on the 680i, and I did read the excellent review on the board done by HardOCP...my reason for starting this thread was that many of the other threads asked a specific question, I wanted more general responses from those using the board; HardOCP gave a Gold rating to the board, yet there was a flurry of problems reported here...to be honest, I found it a bit confusing and wanted to solicit additional information...maybe I should have stuck to just following the other threads.

The reason for my interest is simple; I had an Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe in a build from Velocity Micro and was experiencing random reboots. I initially traced it down to an issue with Everest Ultimate, but later found that I was still occasionally - albeit rarely - getting a random reboot. VM is checking out the PSU and the memory, yet, while they have my PC, I made the decision - based heavily on the review from HardOCP! - to have them upgrade me to the eVGA board (and to a Raptor 150 for my OS). I have a 550W PSU, two optical drives, two storage drives, and Audigy4 sound board, and I was looking to see if, in this thread, any of those posed an issue; knowing the folks at VM, it will be thoroughly tested before it is on its way back to me, but information is always a good thing.

Again, thanks...I will follow this thread with interest...and my apologies, Dan...I will continue to use the search (every 20 seconds :D ).

John
 
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