- Jul 27, 2002
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OK, I own an EVGA 680i SLI A1 board. This is the revised board from original "AR" board, and it's been joyous and problem-free so far.
From various reports and my own experience, it's pretty obvious the original 680i's design has a serious flaw with 590 SLI chip as south bridge. General system stability was a hit or miss, and now I'm seeing all these 680i boards are switching the SB from 590 SLI to 570 SLI. Also hearing that the reason is because of 'bad yields'.
What bad yields?
590 SLI boards for AMD seem to be merrily selling for over a year now. I haven't heard that all 590 SLI boards are replaced by 570 SLI boards on AMD side. 'Bad yields' aren't the best excuse, IMO. So what is going on? I have to wonder.
There can be many possibilities. It could be simply that 590 chip wasn't meant to be a south bridge and the whole design of original 680i using 590 SB was flawed. Or it could be that the 590 chip that were used on 680i is a slightly different revision from what's being used on AMD platform, and the chip is bugged. Or if I were to give NV a benefit of doubt (which I wouldn't knowing this company's outstanding marketing department), the 590 chip that's used on 680i should meet different criteria than those for AMD, and in that sense the yields maybe weren't that good. And so on..
For whatever the case is, to me it's obvious that NV still shipped 680i boards with 590 south bridge chips that were not perfect, and people who paid premium prices for those boards may or may not encounter problems. If you do not have a problem, maybe you have a good south bridge. But what if you have a problem tracked down to SB? Or you don't experience the problem for now but do later when you add/upgrade parts? (Especially folks who paid a lot of money for ASUS Stryker or Gigabyte DQ6)
While I've solved my problem by RMA (thanks to EVGA), I wonder why issues like this aren't discussed or addressed on any of the review sites? Why does NV have to 'quietly' replace the critical part of their board design, and how can they get a way with such a non-sensual excuse like 'bad yields', without any inspection or discussion in the community? And what does happen to folks who purchased a board with a bad SB, made by not-so-generous-as-EVGA companies?
From various reports and my own experience, it's pretty obvious the original 680i's design has a serious flaw with 590 SLI chip as south bridge. General system stability was a hit or miss, and now I'm seeing all these 680i boards are switching the SB from 590 SLI to 570 SLI. Also hearing that the reason is because of 'bad yields'.
What bad yields?
590 SLI boards for AMD seem to be merrily selling for over a year now. I haven't heard that all 590 SLI boards are replaced by 570 SLI boards on AMD side. 'Bad yields' aren't the best excuse, IMO. So what is going on? I have to wonder.
There can be many possibilities. It could be simply that 590 chip wasn't meant to be a south bridge and the whole design of original 680i using 590 SB was flawed. Or it could be that the 590 chip that were used on 680i is a slightly different revision from what's being used on AMD platform, and the chip is bugged. Or if I were to give NV a benefit of doubt (which I wouldn't knowing this company's outstanding marketing department), the 590 chip that's used on 680i should meet different criteria than those for AMD, and in that sense the yields maybe weren't that good. And so on..
For whatever the case is, to me it's obvious that NV still shipped 680i boards with 590 south bridge chips that were not perfect, and people who paid premium prices for those boards may or may not encounter problems. If you do not have a problem, maybe you have a good south bridge. But what if you have a problem tracked down to SB? Or you don't experience the problem for now but do later when you add/upgrade parts? (Especially folks who paid a lot of money for ASUS Stryker or Gigabyte DQ6)
While I've solved my problem by RMA (thanks to EVGA), I wonder why issues like this aren't discussed or addressed on any of the review sites? Why does NV have to 'quietly' replace the critical part of their board design, and how can they get a way with such a non-sensual excuse like 'bad yields', without any inspection or discussion in the community? And what does happen to folks who purchased a board with a bad SB, made by not-so-generous-as-EVGA companies?
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