The eVGA 780i "-A1" motherboard

[BonzaiDuck]

I'm dead certain -- and my 680i Striker Extreme board is certainly dead -- that I blew out the Chipset. This second Striker board was configured for SLI with a pair of 9600 GT's. The NBCore voltage reading under "auto" was around 0.27V higher than when a single graphics card was used, and I didn't attend to NB cooling before finding some preliminary -- and stable -- over-clock settings. So I had shut down the system one evening, attempted to boot up the next day, and the symptoms point to the motherboard. I can swap vid cards, swap memory kits, and swap CPUs, but the system won't post; and it won't even bring the monitor out of sleep mode.

I've seen this sort of thing before, and -- yes -- it was a dead motherboard. [R-I-P, Striker, you sorry P-O-S.]

Others have expressed near-contempt for this board, although it was among the best performers and least troublesome among the 680i offerings. Certain problems with those boards by other manufacturers had been circumvented by ASUS. But at stock multipliers, getting beyond 400 Mhz was "pretty if-fy."

Determined to stick with an SLI configuration, after reading three or four reviews, noting the frequency-count and average inclination of customer-reviews at the Egg, and seeing that remarks were similar to the the reviews by Striker buyers [suggestions that positive or negative really separated "the men from the boys] -- I settled on this to complete my project and move on with my life:

eVGA 780i "-A1" for DDR2

Some forums noted certain minor shortcomings that can be fixed if needed:

The NB fan, necessary for clock speeds well above 400 Mhz, is noisy.

SOMETIMES, the board ships with insufficient contact between the NB heatsink and the NB. There are DIY articles on replacing thermal paste and insuring better contact.

Any of you using this board -- feel free to offer constructive comments. I'd be interested in your remarks.

EDIT: Also, I was a bit dismayed in my impatience that this thing only has 6-cycle voltage regulation and the caps are not solid-state. In this respect, I may have taken a half-step backwards on the voltage regulation and a whole step backwards on the choice of components. But it seems to be a popular board, with good performance and published reviews, positive customer-reviews, etc. It was either this -- to use my DDR2 kits -- or paying more without the life-cycle covering the next generation.

 

[BoboKatt]

Well I don't have the board you mention but I do have the eVGA 680i SLI. Been using it now with my Q6600 and 2 X 8800GTX and have had some issues latey. OC'ing the quad is pretty useless... I can get it stable for testing up to 3000mhz and then in games it just crashes. Works fine on stock but that's about it. No matter the volts I throw it at.. currently with a quad it bites. If I drop my e6850 it's an amazing board but I just like the quads now... so... you know.

I was all set on getting a newer nVidia board and was about to pull the trigger on the 780 like you link, but decided to get the 780i FTW edition from eVGA. You might want to look into that as a variant... all solid state... and stick to eVGA. When they FTW came out NCIX had it on sale here in Canada and for like the same price as that 780i, it's a no brainer.

I was thinking of dumping my whole SLI thing tho.. my 2 8800GTX are plenty fast but got an offer to buy them and I will be putting money in my pocket even after getting a 9800 GX2 so really... I can then get ANY chipset and still get good performance.

I actually want to get away from the nVidia chipset period. My other comp is a plain Intel p35 which has been running FLAWLESSLY for so long. I have used it with crossfire and a Q6600 oced to 3200-3400mhz from day one and I have never seen/felt/heard of a crash from it. It's just so simple and it was such a cheap board and no matter what RAM I throw into it, it simply works. The 680i experience kinda killed it for me.. anyhow... if you insist on the nVidia chipset and stay with SLI, get the FTW... if you can find it and at a reasonable price.

 

[Mango1970]

If you must... must stick with nVidia... get the FTW series at the least. Heck even the 750i FTW was actually a good board. I can find the 780i FTW for the same price if not cheaper at some online places.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

You guys are both right about solid-state components. I notice on this "-A1" board, even with non-solid-state caps, the other components are what you'd expect, or probably what you'd find with the FTW.

The 8-cycle regulation and solid-state caps were features I'd deliberately chosen with my deceased Striker board. Here, I get 6-cycle.

So I wish I'd chosen the only slightly pricier FTW. Now, I'm trying to decide if asking for an exchange is worth the trouble. If I push this board or the FTW to 400+Mhz @ 1:1, I'm not inclined to run it that way 24/7. I'll probably configure the memory on a 4:5 divider for regular use.

and our common experiences make me think that SLI is asking for more trouble than it's worth in performance advantage.

I'll say this though -- pay attention to Northbridge cooling, however you plan to do it. I may try and replace that flimsy fan with a tip-magnetic 70mm unit I have laying around here.