EVGA 780i/750i Thread

[lopri]

There are 780i boards out there in quantities and some are getting their 780i as a Step-Up offered by EVGA. I figured I'd make a thread about this specific chipset so that we can share information in one place. I will update this first post if needs be.

AnandTech Reviews 780i

The board has a near-identical layout as that of 680i, which isn't really a bad thing, IMO. The layout is actually very good with everything in right places. The cumbersome location of front panel connector moved to the bottom of the board so that's one positive.

One thing I do not like about this board is that it doesn't allow a single graphics card in any other PCIe slot but the first x16 slot. There is probably a technical reason (latency or circuitry), but I think that is a mistake. On 680i, I had a graphics card in the bottom PCIe x16 slot along wit a Q6600 and it helped preventing concentrated heat in upper-left part of the board. There was a negligible performance hit but it was worthwhile.

http://img143.imageshack.us/im.../9618/ultra1vr6fw9.jpg

When I attempted to install a graphics card in either 2nd or 3rd PCIe x16 slot, I was greeted with the following screen.

http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/2065/noslism3.jpg

Also there are reports of hot running MCP, which I experienced first-hand. A cheap and effective solution to this problem has been conceived by an EVGA forum member, and I have used the same method successfully. Basically you want to buy a 60mm fan that can move at least 8~10CFM of air. The allowable thickness of the fan depends on your choice of CPU heat sink. Unfortunately there aren't many choices of such small fan in the market, so you may have to spend some time to hunt. I bought a CPU heat sink (made for CPUs of 10 years ago) which comes with a 60mm fan for $9.99 at a local MicroCenter. The fan is 60x60x15, and the clearance for majority of after-market cooling should be fine.

1. This is the fan
   
   Stock HSF for E6x00 fits without problems
   
   Scythe Andy Samurai is my favorite
   
   Ultra-120 shouldn't be an issue, either
   
   Neither should Scythe Infinity
   
   Love stock heat sink's perfect contact

So far the storage subsystem is much more stable than that of 680i. I am currently running 2 x Raptor in RAID0 for OS and applications, and 2 x 500GB in RAID1 for data. My setup is

• E8400 @3.6GHz (9x400, 1.18V)
  4 x 2GB generic DDR2-667 @DDR2-800
  2 x 74GB Raptor (RAID0)
  2 x 500GB SATA (RAID1)
  2 x Samsung DVD-RW (on 5th and 6th SATA ports - I disabled legacy IDE in BIOS)
  1 x 8800 GT (will borrow another for SLI)
  Corsair 620HX
  Vista Home Premium 64-bit

Edit 1: VR-Zone has managed to compile the current and upcoming NV chipsets for both AMD and Intel. We can see that NV is recycling the MCP55 (NF570 SLI) once again for 790i.. That chip certainly wins the-most-promiscuous-south-bridge-in-history award.

http://img233.imageshack.us/im...3657/nvchipsetswc5.gif

 

[lopri]

Reserved

 

[krnmastersgt]

Nice case, same as mine In any case I've told people before that 780i isn't worth spending the money on if you already had a 680i board, the 790i is a worthy upgrade for the DDR3 non passive cooling and(I've heard) absence of the nforce 200 chip.

 

[lopri]

Dunno.. I checked the price of 2GB DDR3 sticks (2x2GB set), and they were like $700~800.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Yeah but for future uses it's nice to have DDR3, although with Nehalem coming out within a year I don't really see the point either. In any case its a vamped up 680i, no reason to upgrade unless it doesn't cost you anything or you were going to get a new board anyways like I was. I wonder what the scaling with 3 9 Series cards will be like.

 

[Narse]

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
Nice case, same as mine In any case I've told people before that 780i isn't worth spending the money on if you already had a 680i board, the 790i is a worthy upgrade for the DDR3 non passive cooling and(I've heard) absence of the nforce 200 chip.

Did they fix the issue with 45nm Quad Cores on the 680i? Thats the only reason I am in the que to upgrade from eVGA

 

[krnmastersgt]

From what I've heard they had a BIOS revision for some of the newer 680is to support Penryn. I'll see what else I can dig up.

On a lesser note lopri, that looks just like the fan the guy who did the mod in the EVGA forums ([p]wnzor right?) used, a P3 cpu cooler?

 

[krnmastersgt]

For Narse: http://evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=57172
Looks like EVGA has/will have a BIOS update for your 680i if thats the only reason you're stepping up to 780i best to save the $90.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
On a lesser note lopri, that looks just like the fan the guy who did the mod in the EVGA forums ([p]wnzor right?) used, a P3 cpu cooler?

Yes it's from an EVGA member but I don't know the user. MicroCenter had several 60mm fans, and whether it comes with a heat sink or not the prices were all $8.99~$9.99 so I picked up one with a heat sink, thinking it might be of use in some distant future. (doesn't hurt, I guess)

Originally posted by: Narse
Did they fix the issue with 45nm Quad Cores on the 680i? Thats the only reason I am in the que to upgrade from eVGA

I wouldn't really count on 680i running Penryn. It may or may not run, but the point is that NV revamped 680i for these 45nm CPUs as well as applying numerous fixes they exercised on 680i via revisions. I'm already amazed that my RAID arrays haven't been degraded or destroyed yet. 2 arrays with 4 disks isn't something that I'd dare on my previous 680i board, after dozens of OS installations and whatnot.

 

[krnmastersgt]

How's the noise/performance compared to the stock fan that EVGA gave you? I wish this damn cpu cooler didn't have such a string screw to hold the 80mm fan in place, I wanna get a stronger on :/ I might end up ducting the cpu cooler and placing a powerful 120 or 200mm in front of the duct

 

[Narse]

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
For Narse: http://evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=57172
Looks like EVGA has/will have a BIOS update for your 680i if thats the only reason you're stepping up to 780i best to save the $90.

That kink unfortunatly does not mention quad cores, and from what I have read on posts like this one

45nm Quad Core

Is that 45nm dual core work but the quads don't.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Oh right, forgot the quads were the problem, seems like DFI (and maybe Asus) have updates for it but they don't use nVidia's layouts and whatnot. Guess it's either a step-up or a new board.

 

[lopri]

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
How's the noise/performance compared to the stock fan that EVGA gave you? I wish this damn cpu cooler didn't have such a string screw to hold the 80mm fan in place, I wanna get a stronger on :/ I might end up ducting the cpu cooler and placing a powerful 120 or 200mm in front of the duct

Oh the stock fan's noise was ridiculous @100%. Even @40% it was too loud for my liking. A big reason to swap the fan, actually.

I've got SLI to work using two 8800 GTs. Will report back with the impression.

 

[lopri]

Here is a pic of the interim build. The casing will be CM690. ($19 AR!) After many hours of Crysis playing, I decided to abandon the stock Intel HSF. Also seriously considering the Accelero S1/S2 for the top GPU. The revised NB cooling blows hot air to back of the top GPU, and it became unbelievably hot. Alternatively, the case's side fan might do a trick so the GPU heat sink swap will have to wait. I'm not a big fan of custom cooling. (except nForce chipset cooling.. lol)

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/5913/slikd4.jpg

On a side note, I tried to use a couple el cheapo PCIe x1 RAID/eSATA cards in the middle PCIe (x16 physical) slot, only to no avail. One card is SiI 3132 based RAID0/1 card ($19), and the other one is JMicron JMB360 card ($12) that provides an eSATA port. Neither works on 780i (both work on 975X), so folks who want to utilize an expensive RAID card might want to double-check if the cards are compatible with the board. Maybe the real hardware solution like an $600 Areca card will work? I thought the slot was faulty at first, but when I inserted a GeForce 6200 TC it worked - so basically all PCIe slots only worked with video cards so far.

 

[lopri]

SLI so far has been working quite painless in both XP and Vista, except sometimes AA doesn't work. I think that behavior is dependent on game titles.

3DMark06 (Single 8800 GT, 700/1000)
http://img444.imageshack.us/im...23/3dmark8800gtzm9.jpg

3DMark06 (8800 GT SLI, 700/1000)
http://img176.imageshack.us/im...mark068800gtslizt2.jpg

Oh and I tried network teaming and it works.
http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/5827/teamingft1.jpg

You can see the Task Manager showing the theoretical limit of 2.0Gbps. In the screenshot the file transfering is clearly bottlenecked by hard disk performance (a cheapo 250GB NAS), but it's nevertheless a decent showing. The only downside so far is somewhat high CPU usage. When teaming is implemented, the CPU usage usually hovers around 5~9% - more than double that of single gigabit transfer.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

Originally posted by: lopri
SLI so far has been working quite painless in both XP and Vista, except sometimes AA doesn't work. I think that behavior is dependent on game titles.

3DMark06 (Single 8800 GT, 700/1000)
http://img444.imageshack.us/im...23/3dmark8800gtzm9.jpg

only 13.5k from 8800gt sli & dual core? 3dmark06 is so cpu weighted lol

i get 14k+ with Q6600 + 8800gt

 

[krnmastersgt]

That's a single GT, SLI gave him 17.25k, I don't see the point of having gigabit ethernet ports considering you'd have to pay a fortune every month to get anywhere near that kind of speed, also its useless for anything except a massive data transfer related business. In any case after the recent article on the ESA stuff, how do you like the dynamic bios/device manager so far lopri? I've been messing with options for a while since I got my system up and running.

 

[Hauk]

oops..

 

[lopri]

Currently, yes. Gigabit Ethernet is kinda overkill for home network. (But it doesn't really have to do with Internet, I think?) Because more than anything else, bottleneck will be elsewhere (i.e. HDDs). And unless a home is pre-wired, wireless is a lot easier, and to be honest it's not that bad (wireless g/n). Though, if I had a regular Fast Ethernet the Task Manager will show 60~70% of traffic even with the slow external HDD. (3% of 2Gbps -> 6% of 1Gbps -> 60% of 100Mbps) In a few years, when high definition media becomes more prevalent and people start running Windows Home Server, things can be different. But no one knows future for sure so I should say the teaming isn't really a deal breaker (or maker?) I just wanted to see how it works.

ESA works impressively for the most part, but I don't know whether it's at 100%. When 1GB/2GB of system was norm, I used to fiddle with timings to see the improved results. Now that I have 8GB generic RAM (no brand name on the sticks, and overclocked to DDR2-800 from DDR2-667), I just copied over the settings I used on 680i previously. On a side note, achieving 1T with 1GB sticks were easier compared to 680i. However, I don't see the dramatic performance increase from 1T like I did on 680i. NV must have eased the BIOS for better compatibility. Normally I'd grumble about it, but with the current trend going favorably to capacity, I'm rather glad that 8GB works fine without any headache yet.

On the other hand, the NVMonitor is an abomination. Not only that thing doesn't report correct values, but also that it completely renders the system useless. I understand NV's desire to show off 3D desktop, but that's not the right way to do it.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Gotta agree with you on the 3D component, utterly useless imo. In any case I like the performance tweaking features and I don't use the monitor at all so I guess it isn't a problem.

 

[lopri]

Pic of the rig before I put it in the case (CM690)

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/7433/outsideks5.jpg

 

[krnmastersgt]

Nice heatsinks from the GTs. Still using the stock cooler for your E8400 eh?

 

[lopri]

Yeah. I thought about it in many ways. It gets the job done while keeping things under 65C @3.6GHz, and it's so much easier to take out if needs be thanks to its small footprint. And I try to avoid heat sinks with back plate because that often times means being stuck wit that heat sink or the brand who makes it. I wanted to have a gaming rig as quiet as possible, and this setup is only slightly louder than my main rig which is whisper quiet. The biggest noise come from the fan on the SPP. :disgust: I found the Thermalright heat sinks for the vid cards contribute to 5~6C lower temps for GPU. (70C instead of 75C) It's a passive solution so that was the main consideration. And I think they look cool.

 

[lopri]

Build is complete and I'd like to share (i.e. brag) the pics.

http://img120.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cm6901vt5.jpg
http://img120.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cm6902wz5.jpg
http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cm6903uv5.jpg
http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cm6904tr1.jpg
http://img168.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cm6905ad2.jpg

 

[zod96]

I'm thinking about getting the 780I board, but I don't want to use the fan for the north bridge. I want silence in my pc is it possible to not use the fan or is it a must? I won't be overclocking everything will be run stock...