Asus 680i board for sale now P5N32-E SLI

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ExCrow

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Oct 14, 2006
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I spotted that early this morning at NewEgg, but I spent a few minutes reading the product description before deciding to place the order, and by then the status had changed to 'out of stock'. I bit later, though, I went to add it to my wish list and noticed that it showed up as 'in stock' again, so I pulled the trigger. Now it's listed as out of stock again, and my order has been sitting at step 1 of the process for much longer than it normally takes, so I wonder if they actually have a board to ship. I'll give 'em a few hours and then call customer service if there's no change. Meanwhile, I think I'll take a quick drive to Fry's to see if by some chance they have the board.

UPDATE - No Asus 680i board at the Sacramento Frys, although they do have the eVga board on the shelves. NewEgg now says my order is at 'step 3', which I take as a good sign. Once the board arrives (along with an e6700), I'll finally have all the pieces I need for my new build.

UPDATE2 - It's on the way, with a projected Tuesday delivery date. Unfortunately that means I'll not have it up and running until next weekend at the earliest. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed. I'm not normally an 'early adopter', but I'd been waiting for weeks for the final pieces of this build, and the combination of new G80 cards and the 680i chipset was simply far too tempting to pass.
 
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davidos

Senior member
Nov 29, 1999
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Originally posted by: Gary Key
We received one yesterday. Will have a review up near Thanksgiving.
Click to expand...

Gary, do you like the layout? Anything that jumps out at you? I may get this board because (as you know) the DS3 still has Micron D9 issues and waiting for a bios update has just driven me crazy... that and the lack of firewire on the DS3.
 
lopri

lopri

Elite Member
Jul 27, 2002
13,312
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I thought this thing and the Striker thing were the same, but apparently not? So is the Striker thing really $400?!
 
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imported_RedStar

Senior member
Mar 6, 2005
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question: why is there no eSATA port? (or is it eSATA ready like the evga one)
Why is there no active cooling on the northbridge?

a quick comparison..and i think the evga board is actually better.
 
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ExCrow

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Oct 14, 2006
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The board finally got delivered late this afternoon. I'll be spending the evening checking it out. Unfortunately, UPS seems to have 'misplaced' the e6700 that I ordered along with the board. That's the final piece I need in order to get this beast up and running.
 
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ExCrow

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Oct 14, 2006
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Well, I'm finally making progress with this new board. Win XP MCE is formatting the drive at the moment.

I've run into a couple of annoying problems during the install, but none seem to be board related. First, I kept getting BIOS intrusion alarm on boot, so I suspect the microswitch on my case (TT Armor) might be faulty. Solved by simply disabling the feature. Second problem was a case fan that wouldn't spin, although the LED lit. Solved by removing and reconnecting fan plugs. Third (and most bothersome) is that my USB keyboard isn't recognized either within the ASUS RAID setup menu, or at the initial 'press F6 to load drivers' Windows prompt.

Other than that everything looked pretty good on first boot. All three SATA drives recognized correctly, as was the IDE DVD-RW drive. Both sticks of Cosair DDR2 800 loaded at default SPD settings.

I'm not going to play around with any of the tweaking/overclocking possibilities until I'm satisfied that the defaults are stable.

If I spot anything worthy of comment, I'll post again here.


 
TBSN

TBSN

Senior member
Nov 12, 2006
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ExCrow-- It's great that your board is working well so far. Do you know what the differences are between the asus 680i and the evga one are? Also, what's up with that sound-card like thing that is pre-installed on the board? Thanks!
 
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ExCrow

Member
Oct 14, 2006
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I really don't know all the differences between the two boards, although I vaguely recall spotting a thread discussing that somewhere on the web. If I find it I'll point you to it.

As far as the ASUS sound card is concerned, it's still in the shrink wrap. I've installed an SB Xi-Fi Gamer instead.

One more update concerning the board. CPU (e6700) temps at idle hover right around 29-30C, using a Zalman 9700, with MB temp around 34-35 at idle.
 
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Skott

Diamond Member
Oct 4, 2005
5,730
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Supposedly since the nVidia reference mobos (eVGa, ECS, BFG, etc.,) and the Striker Extreme share the same exact 680i chipset that OCing should be about the same. But being ASUS is a 1st Tier mobo it'll have more features and possibly make for a better BIOS giving better stability and a easier time of OCing. Of course its too early to say for sure.
 
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mrphones

Golden Member
Jul 2, 2001
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I have the evga setup along with an e6700 and 8800gtx. All I can say is WOW...What a crap load of settings in the bios for changing and modifying everything.

I'm running at 3.4ghz @40C with stocking cooling, have not decided on a replacement.

I'm really happy with the evga board...
 
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Skott

Diamond Member
Oct 4, 2005
5,730
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Originally posted by: ExCrow
I really don't know all the differences between the two boards, although I vaguely recall spotting a thread discussing that somewhere on the web. If I find it I'll point you to it.

As far as the ASUS sound card is concerned, it's still in the shrink wrap. I've installed an SB Xi-Fi Gamer instead.

One more update concerning the board. CPU (e6700) temps at idle hover right around 29-30C, using a Zalman 9700, with MB temp around 34-35 at idle.
Click to expand...

Looks good on the temps. Cant wait to see what OC results you get and the temps when doing so. No problems installing the 9700 I take it?
 
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Skott

Diamond Member
Oct 4, 2005
5,730
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Originally posted by: mrphones
I have the evga setup along with an e6700 and 8800gtx. All I can say is WOW...What a crap load of settings in the bios for changing and modifying everything.

I'm running at 3.4ghz @40C with stocking cooling, have not decided on a replacement.

I'm really happy with the evga board...
Click to expand...



Can you give us a rundown of your system components for comparisons? Thanks.
 
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ExCrow

Member
Oct 14, 2006
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Originally posted by: Skott
Looks good on the temps. Cant wait to see what OC results you get and the temps when doing so. No problems installing the 9700 I take it?
Click to expand...

Only prob was that I wasn't happy with the first application of Arctic Silver, so I had to clean things off and reapply. The overall installation process was straightforward. I sure wouldn't want to do it with a smaller case, though.
 
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ExCrow

Member
Oct 14, 2006
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Well, I've run into the first major problem. I've installed the one hardware intensive program that I spec'd this build to run - MS Flight Sim X. I can't run it for more than a few minutes, however, without a random reboot.

I suspect this is a memory issue, but unfortunately won't have time to really dig into the problem until the long holiday weekend. Then I'll recheck all bios settings and run some hardware diagnostic tools.
 
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Skott

Diamond Member
Oct 4, 2005
5,730
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Interesting. MSFSX is also one of the most pc demanding games availble. They say even with a high end Conroe and a 8800GTX the game is way more than a rig can handle. So I have heard anyway. MemTest will tell you if you got a bad RAM module or two. The XS forum has a good P5N32-E SLI thread going. Might want to check it out.
 
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ExCrow

Member
Oct 14, 2006
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Originally posted by: Skott
...The XS forum has a good P5N32-E SLI thread going. Might want to check it out.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip. Can you post a link pointing to that forum? It's not one I'm familiar with.
 
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msgclb

Junior Member
Nov 19, 2006
23
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Originally posted by: Gary Key
We received one yesterday. Will have a review up near Thanksgiving.
Click to expand...

Gary if I eat my turkey today will that help get this review out faster.;):D
 
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ExCrow

Member
Oct 14, 2006
28
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Originally posted by: Skott
There's more than one thread at this time. At least three. Here's the link to the main Intel mobo section. At the time of this post all three threads are on page 2 but they may pop up again to first page by the time you go to look. So just thumb through it a little if need be.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=59
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Great info. I think it's going to help. Since I don't have much time for tweaking things until the weekend, I just went into the BIOS and made a few changes to 'dumb down' things as much as possible. I changed AI Tuning from Auto to Standard and set SLI Memory to disabled. I then spent a half hour or so in Flight Sim X, trying to duplicate the reboots. This time, no problems.

I think I'll just sit back for a few days and really dig into the various forums, letting others with far more knowledge than I push the board to its limits.
 
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