• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

eVGA 680i First Review :

After reading this and a couple other reviews I have to say I'm unimpressed. Don't get me wrong it's a solid board and offers alot, but at the same time it didn't live up to the hype. Lets face it, nothing ever does although this time I expected something I haven't seen before. I can do everything this board does on my P5B Deluxe (minus the SLI support). I was toying with the idea that this could possibly be a replacement/pre mature upgrade, for my P5B-D but I see no reason to do that after seeing the performance which basically mirrors the top few boards around (Aw9D-Max, P5B Deluxe, DS3). I'll never use the SLI.

What it's going to take for any real improvements for Intel is a move toward hypertransport and abandonment of the FSB entirely. Otherwise what you see today is the best the motherboards are going to get for Intel.
 
Why the hate? This looks very promising. I know -- it's NOT a quantum leap over the current best but it is a nice step forward.

The review shows that this is arguably the best chipset out there if you've been holding back in an upgrade path and want the absolute best for the enthusiast. I would think that any board that can reach that FSB without upping the volatge is a sure thing. Current chipsets/boards have had months and months to upgrade revisions and bioses... so this will only improve. My only question really is how will this new chipset work from company to company. If they were this impressed with an Evga offering, how will they be when the DFI comes out or Abit?

Now to find one for sale!!

2 X ATI X1900XT for sale!!
 
Originally posted by: Mango1970
Why the hate? This looks very promising. I know -- it's NOT a quantum leap over the current best but it is a nice step forward.

The review shows that this is arguably the best chipset out there if you've been holding back in an upgrade path and want the absolute best for the enthusiast. I would think that any board that can reach that FSB without upping the volatge is a sure thing. Current chipsets/boards have had months and months to upgrade revisions and bioses... so this will only improve. My only question really is how will this new chipset work from company to company. If they were this impressed with an Evga offering, how will they be when the DFI comes out or Abit?

Now to find one for sale!!

2 X ATI X1900XT for sale!!
Click to expand...

yeah, but the way people were talking it seemed like it was night and day and it's not. Even the At review put some fancy spins on the numbers that they posted. They like to say "dramatic increase" and other phrases that wow people and in reality...what they've had access to all along was not any worse. For people who are looking to buy soon, this is good, for people who already bought something...there's no need to "upgrade" and deal with reformat etc In fact I was going to buy one, reformat and install windows over again if the numbers showed that there was any worth to doing so. They just don't... a few points in sandra (no overclocked FSB and memory bench scores shown either did you notice?) and a few fps in a game doesn't drive me personally to spend $270 on a board again.
 
Aye well said. Perfect for someone who has held out but again if you currently have a P5B deluxe or P5W-DH etc... and it's running nice and dandy... it's not that dramatic at all.

Actually now that you mentioned yah no mention of bench scores at all. They did mention it "performed" as good as anything 975X could dish out but that's subjective.

Edit: Actually now I that I read it again.... I am not getting the warm and fuzzies I thought I had. Oh well hoping to see better soon then.
 
Originally posted by: Mango1970
Aye well said. Perfect for someone who has held out but again if you currently have a P5B deluxe or P5W-DH etc... and it's running nice and dandy... it's not that dramatic at all.

Actually now that you mentioned yah no mention of bench scores at all. They did mention it "performed" as good as anything 975X could dish out but that's subjective.

Edit: Actually now I that I read it again.... I am not getting the warm and fuzzies I thought I had. Oh well hoping to see better soon then.
Click to expand...

I would really like to see some numbers that show how the memory performance ramps up when you increase the FSB (therefore increasing the CPU speed)

So say 400Mhz FSb @ DDR2-1000 on a P5b Vs a 680i at the same settings. Is there a difference in memory performance?

I don't care about stock, I want to know how much difference overclock vs stock is. They didn't include P965 in the memory numbers in the AT review did they? I know it's a bit slower than the 975x at stock, but overclocked the P965 gets into a different strap setting and the performance can really shine.
 
It puts out more heat than 975X but not more performance? Why on earth would you buy this board other than for SLI on intel?
 
I like how it overclocks using default voltages. The overclocking part is probably its biggest gain. Its certainly much better than the 590 SLI mobos currently availble. They couldnt get much past 320 fsb in OCing. Personally, I dont expect much from eVGA mobos anyway. Lets see what Intel, ASUS, Gigabyte, DFI, and MSI can do with a 680i chipset.
 
Originally posted by: Skott
I like how it overclocks using default voltages. The overclocking part is probably its biggest gain. Its certainly much better than the 590 SLI mobos currently availble. They couldnt get much past 320 fsb in OCing. Personally, I dont expect much from eVGA mobos anyway. Lets see what Intel, ASUS, Gigabyte, DFI, and MSI can do with a 680i chipset.
Click to expand...

Intel is making a 680i board? I think not lol

Also I don't know many people who need to increase voltages on a P5B-D to get good overclocks. The CPU is always going to need voltage at a certain point though.
 
What I would like to know is how stable the thing is. I haven't had much luck with nforce 4 (stability issues) so hopefully nvidia have cleaned up their act here. Their boards seem fine, its the drivers that are lacking.
 
Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
Originally posted by: Mango1970
Aye well said. Perfect for someone who has held out but again if you currently have a P5B deluxe or P5W-DH etc... and it's running nice and dandy... it's not that dramatic at all.

Actually now that you mentioned yah no mention of bench scores at all. They did mention it "performed" as good as anything 975X could dish out but that's subjective.

Edit: Actually now I that I read it again.... I am not getting the warm and fuzzies I thought I had. Oh well hoping to see better soon then.
Click to expand...

I would really like to see some numbers that show how the memory performance ramps up when you increase the FSB (therefore increasing the CPU speed)

So say 400Mhz FSb @ DDR2-1000 on a P5b Vs a 680i at the same settings. Is there a difference in memory performance?

I don't care about stock, I want to know how much difference overclock vs stock is. They didn't include P965 in the memory numbers in the AT review did they? I know it's a bit slower than the 975x at stock, but overclocked the P965 gets into a different strap setting and the performance can really shine.
Click to expand...



We will have a full comparison of the memory performance in the actual board review. There is a 4FPS difference between this board and the P965 in Quake4 (1280x1024) when setting the memory to 1T at DDR2-800. This chipset loves 1T and low latency settings above DDR2-800. Otherwise it performs equally at stock settings as the 975X and P965 in most applications.
 
The board was made by Foxconn and is a direct reference to an Nvidia design and just has the evga logo branded on it. For a reference board it's not so bad.
 
Damn, ya'll really are brand specific type of folks. I had the P5B. It was a POS. It took 5 installs to get the OS up and running without any quirks. If you had a IDE hard drive connected to the JTmicro (or JTmicron, I don't remember), the computer would slow down to beat all hell (WITHOUT the JT drivers installed). With just a IDE CDROM and a SATA hard drive, you put anything into the CDROM, and the computer would slow down while the drive spun up. I tried to play a music CD and work on some photoshop stuff, and the cursor was studdering like all hell. Now, your probably going to blame me for being a moron, except my buddy bought the cheaper Gigabyte board, and still had problems.

When I attempted to over clock, I could only get 2.8 out of my E6600 before the machine would become unbootable. I figured I had a memory problem ...

I bought the EVGA, on the first install of windows I was done installing. No 2 or 3 times is a charm. So far, I've been able to overclock to 3.02gig on default voltage, with air cooling without a hitch. (I've not tried for much more right now). I've not messed with the PCI-E bus, but I had Ntune do some profiling, and it was able to overlock the bus by about 45%.

To me, this is quite the leap from the POS P5B I had. Everything works like a champ, no hick ups, nothing.

Also, the board reports itself as made by Nvidia ... if that matters to anyone.
 
Originally posted by: clevere1
Damn, ya'll really are brand specific type of folks. I had the P5B. It was a POS. It took 5 installs to get the OS up and running without any quirks. If you had a IDE hard drive connected to the JTmicro (or JTmicron, I don't remember), the computer would slow down to beat all hell (WITHOUT the JT drivers installed). With just a IDE CDROM and a SATA hard drive, you put anything into the CDROM, and the computer would slow down while the drive spun up. I tried to play a music CD and work on some photoshop stuff, and the cursor was studdering like all hell. Now, your probably going to blame me for being a moron, except my buddy bought the cheaper Gigabyte board, and still had problems.

When I attempted to over clock, I could only get 2.8 out of my E6600 before the machine would become unbootable. I figured I had a memory problem ...

I bought the EVGA, on the first install of windows I was done installing. No 2 or 3 times is a charm. So far, I've been able to overclock to 3.02gig on default voltage, with air cooling without a hitch. (I've not tried for much more right now). I've not messed with the PCI-E bus, but I had Ntune do some profiling, and it was able to overlock the bus by about 45%.

To me, this is quite the leap from the POS P5B I had. Everything works like a champ, no hick ups, nothing.

Also, the board reports itself as made by Nvidia ... if that matters to anyone.
Click to expand...


That's because it is there exact design, just branded with the evga logo. I have one on the way and looking forward to it. 🙂
 
Originally posted by: mrphones

That's because it is there exact design, just branded with the evga logo. I have one on the way and looking forward to it. 🙂
Click to expand...

Some advice, screw down the northbridge fan prior to installing the board 🙂 Otherwise, it's a PITA.

 
Originally posted by: clevere1
Damn, ya'll really are brand specific type of folks. I had the P5B. It was a POS. It took 5 installs to get the OS up and running without any quirks. If you had a IDE hard drive connected to the JTmicro (or JTmicron, I don't remember), the computer would slow down to beat all hell (WITHOUT the JT drivers installed). With just a IDE CDROM and a SATA hard drive, you put anything into the CDROM, and the computer would slow down while the drive spun up. I tried to play a music CD and work on some photoshop stuff, and the cursor was studdering like all hell. Now, your probably going to blame me for being a moron, except my buddy bought the cheaper Gigabyte board, and still had problems.

When I attempted to over clock, I could only get 2.8 out of my E6600 before the machine would become unbootable. I figured I had a memory problem ...

I bought the EVGA, on the first install of windows I was done installing. No 2 or 3 times is a charm. So far, I've been able to overclock to 3.02gig on default voltage, with air cooling without a hitch. (I've not tried for much more right now). I've not messed with the PCI-E bus, but I had Ntune do some profiling, and it was able to overlock the bus by about 45%.

To me, this is quite the leap from the POS P5B I had. Everything works like a champ, no hick ups, nothing.

Also, the board reports itself as made by Nvidia ... if that matters to anyone.
Click to expand...

If you researched a bit you'd see the P5B IS NOT THE BOARD for anything beyond an E6400. Because the P965 chipset has a brick wall after 320Mhz FSB until you get to around 400Mhz. And not many E6600 will do 400Mhz FSb unless you drop the multi. The Jmicron stuff...well, I only use it for my DVDRW so I can't comment.
 
Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
If you researched a bit you'd see the P5B IS NOT THE BOARD for anything beyond an E6400. Because the P965 chipset has a brick wall after 320Mhz FSB until you get to around 400Mhz. And not many E6600 will do 400Mhz FSb unless you drop the multi. The Jmicron stuff...well, I only use it for my DVDRW so I can't comment.
Click to expand...

Try burning a DVD and doing something else, you may not like it. I'm good with the EVGA board ... I'm sure others are as well. Everything, no matter who you buy it from, has it's quirks.

 
Originally posted by: tranceport
Again.. unimpressive. I think I'll go with a 975x.
Click to expand...

this mobo is an option for people that want to go sli and have a c2d. like mango said, its not a puantum leap, but this mobo offers something to sli lovers that want to have a c2d, it offers overclockability, at least, more so than the 590 EVER did. i just got this mobo and paired it with a e6600. once XP was installed and all my other crap, i started OCing and within 10 min i had my c2d running at 3.6GHz and i havn't even begun to tweak 😀. then, i left two instances of prime95 running all night and day, came home from work and prime was still going strong. you say unimpressed...so be it. but you need to understand that this board was designed for people that want the OCing power similar to that of a 975, sli, and a c2d.
 
Originally posted by: clevere1
Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
If you researched a bit you'd see the P5B IS NOT THE BOARD for anything beyond an E6400. Because the P965 chipset has a brick wall after 320Mhz FSB until you get to around 400Mhz. And not many E6600 will do 400Mhz FSb unless you drop the multi. The Jmicron stuff...well, I only use it for my DVDRW so I can't comment.
Click to expand...

Try burning a DVD and doing something else, you may not like it. I'm good with the EVGA board ... I'm sure others are as well. Everything, no matter who you buy it from, has it's quirks.
Click to expand...

I have done ALOT of burning while playing FFXI and it works fine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top