Where Are The Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6 Motherboards?

[TheBeagle]

Has anyone seen any other sources for these new boards? I didn't buy one from ClubIT because the price was so high, and now I'm wondering if I should have bite the bullet and just not eaten for a few days to make up the difference in the cost. LOL TheBeagle

 

[TheBeagle]

A reliable source indicates that we may have something to read tomorrow (Friday, 02/23/07). And all of His people said, Amen! TheBeagle

 

[justinburton]

I think I was right when I said the DQ6 boards go into mass production mid-February and will be available to us retail at the end of February. So I am guessing in the next week you can buy them online, and the will hit store shelves in two weeks.

 

[TheBeagle]

Well Justin, all we can say is from your lips to His ears! I just hope the folks who got the few early product arrivals at ClubIT.com didn't get some beta models, put into retail packaging. TheBeagle

 

[ProNooB]

One of the suppliers i use has it advertised for £170, due in 3-4 days.

Thats only £20 more than the Asus P5N-E 650 Sli.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Originally posted by: ProNooB
One of the suppliers i use has it advertised for £170, due in 3-4 days.

Thats only £20 more than the Asus P5N-E 650 Sli.

I always get confused as to the money units. Is "£" a euro or a British pound?

In anycase, if it is a euro, it is a good price. If it is a British pound, well, that is freaking expensive.

 

[Beaglestorm]

Maybe the $329 (Now $339) at ClubIT was not bad after all....

Now In-Stock at NewEgg for $358

GIGABYTE GA-N680SLI-DQ6 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard

 

[Beaglestorm]

BAD news continues...

Price raised to $370 at ZipZoomFly!

 

[Gary Key]

Originally posted by: Beaglestorm
BAD news continues...

Price raised to $370 at ZipZoomFly!

Faints....

 

[Gary Key]

Sorry about the big delay, had a couple of issues come up away from work and also with the board. Unfortunately, all of Gigabyte Taiwan is on holiday this week so several questions will not be answered until next week. I will post a preview instead of a full review tomorrow (after lunch) and follow up next Friday (680/650 performance roundup) with additional results like SLI, Quad Networking, and Audio with some additional overclocking numbers.

Here is the gist of the results -

1. Quad Core Overclocking - 325FSB Max
2. Dual Core Overclocking - 505 Max (this is where we had the most issues, one BIOS did 525, the next one did 480, etc.,)
3. RAID Data Corruption - Yes, it did happen but was fixed in a beta BIOS release, but overclocking dropped from 525 to 505 on the dual cores.
4. Audio/SLI Issues - Occurred in two BIOS releases early on, not anymore.
5. Overall Performance - the same as the rest of the 680i boards, the EVGA has the best memory performance and general application scores, the Asus Striker and Gigabyte boards have better slightly Gaming performance.
6. Memory compatibility - still working on it, but so far so good, even with the ProMOS modules that are just now working right on the ASUS boards. However, up top , the Striker is a better board on holding lower memory timings.
7. All options work in Vista, hopefully some test results next week as we just finished our Vista benchmark test suite.
8. Not worth the premium the e-tailors are charging and neither are the other boards at first launch. Best I can tell is that MSRP is now $279, waiting on Gigabyte to confirm, they were trying to hit a $250 street price originally.

 

[Beaglestorm]

Whew.. perfect timing Gary THANKS! Was about to do an "impulse buy" hoping to be one of the first to get the holy grail of boards. I actually was on the final conformation page, but made myself check here one last time just in case you had some tidbits for us. Now I am comfortable waiting for the full review and letting prices stabilize.

 

[TheBeagle]

I had to have one - so it bought it from NewEgg, along with an E6600 and Zalman 9700 - went for the whole thing. I'm starting to cut the food rations in half for the next few weeks to compensate. LOL NewEgg is selling the board for $349, with a couple of bucks shipping. Thanks for the heads up Gary on your initial findings, and we'll look forward to seeing the full initial review tomorrow, and the followup review next week. BTW, NewEgg says the boards are "in stock and shipping." Enjoy. TheBeagle

P.S. Gary, where can we get copies of the various BIOSes that you used? The only BIOS I saw on Gigabyte's web site (Taiwan) was the F2. Thanks for any source info on this.

 

[Flankerspanker]

Originally posted by: Gary KeyHere is the gist of the results -

1. Quad Core Overclocking - 325FSB Max
2. Dual Core Overclocking - 505 Max...

Hello,

Ok can someone explain to a noob how this works? Isn't this board supposed to support 1333FSB in native mode? How does "325" count as "overclocking?"

I'm looking for a board that will support 1333FSB when running with the future Intel quad-core, without any overclocking. What should I get?

 

[TheBeagle]

This board is in the early stages of BIOS tweaking, so don't be too concerned right now with the ultimate performance at the 1333 FSB level with a Quad-Core CPU. The Intel 1333 CPUs won't be available for several months, and by then the BIOS revisions on this board will have that worked out like a charm. However, you are very wise to select a board, such as this one, that has native 1333 FSB support, although some of the other boards have been upgraded to that spec by BIOS revisions along the way. I bought this board and an E6600 CPU today, and plan to use it, overclocked to about 3.8 GHz, until the 1333 Quad-Core chips are available and somewhat reasonable. One of the most important things to buy correctly right from the start is very good, high speed memory, at least 4 GB, and at least PC2-8000 speed. That way you won't have to change that out if you go to a higher performing CPU in the future. Buy one of these boards - after all, it's only money! LOL TheBeagle

 

[AstroDogg]

Ok First off: Let me say I do not appreciate the fact that I had to make a new Email to re-join this site, I have had the same Email for about 10 years now, and this ISP for 4 years and never made an email with them. I dont think your personal problems from users should hamper the convienece of the rest of us. I think it's just plain and simply poor poor judgement to make the users have to make additional email(s) just to contribute valuable insites to the computing world. I was a member in the past and haven't posted in a long time. Only to find this major inconvience(that was the short grip believe you me), And I'll fight myself to leave it at that. I hope this may influnce the return of free-email accounts when thats what the norm is unquestionably..

Ok with that said: I been following the 680i chipset for nearly 6 months and have had the money in my pocket to buy another dual Pci-e@16x motherboard. After buying unsupported Pc800 memory for my Gygabyte GA-8N-SLI Quad Royal(not realizing DDRII is not backwards compatible) eight months ago when it was hard to decide on a Intel 920 with the lowest multiplier or the 955 or 965 with unlocked mutipliers and hyperthreading as it turned out I selected the 920 after 6 months and the price dropped, but not on the 955 and 965. So my $3500 dollar build continues to waste away. Worth less than half of the cost and never been used other than a test at my local comp shop with some barrowed memory and cpu to flash the bios to support the dual-core cpu.

I have now waited two more months; For nothing it looks like. Waiting on Asus(never a fan of) with major problems and a rediculous price I'm still laughing at the people(poor poor suckers) who bought this. What do they have over a 125 dollar P965 board by the time the 1333 procs come out the Intel boards will be ontop again with the Bearlake chipset and they could of bought both boards for that price, And then the Abit with support going downhill a price to high and then waiting for the Gigabyte with a promised lower price only to be jacked-up(or maybe im being jacked-off: ) with one hand and they got thier fingers on my wallet with the other hand))at introduction.

There is no sense in being stupid about this whole thing after investing so much money and an unbelivable amount of time(8 months) to build a PC I could kick myself REALLY!!
I'm going to order a referance board and be done with this I cant see how spending 100 to 200 more leafs of lettuce for 5-10fps in a game box can be worth it. I like the eVga but I need to take a closer look at the ECS's warranty mainly and the price.

You all can wait for the MSI diamond if you want but I'm feed up with it all and making a purchase within 24 hours.

 

[Flankerspanker]

Hmm... Thanks for the reply but I'm afraid it doesn't really answer my question.

Specifically, in an earlier message Gary says "1333 works" but now he says quad-core overclocked to "325FSB Max" - am I msunderstanding something? Is "1333FSB" only supposed to be an attribute of single-core processors?

And what about this guy, with a 2000.1 MHz "Rated FSB" on a Core 2 Duo?
What's the difference between "Bus Speed" and "Rated FSB," and which one of the two is Gary quoting?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134000

 

[TheBeagle]

Hello Spanker Man,
It might have been a mis-type on Gary's part. I'd wait for the review posting tomorrow to see if that explains what he is referencing. You are correct, as stated, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Although the posting right above your's by Mr. Astro didn't connect too well either! Have a nice evening. TheBeagle

 

[Beaglestorm]

Originally posted by: Flankerspanker

Originally posted by: Gary KeyHere is the gist of the results -

1. Quad Core Overclocking - 325FSB Max
2. Dual Core Overclocking - 505 Max...

Hello,

Ok can someone explain to a noob how this works? Isn't this board supposed to support 1333FSB in native mode? How does "325" count as "overclocking?"

I'm looking for a board that will support 1333FSB when running with the future Intel quad-core, without any overclocking. What should I get?

I believe he means :

1. Quad Core Overclocking - 325FSB Max - So 325*4=1300 FSB MAX
2. Dual Core Overclocking - 505 Max - So 505*4=2020 FSB MAX

So the BIOS still has a way to go before supporting 1333FSB for Quad Cores, Gigabyte should have it fixed and purrring by the time they are avaliable.

 

[Gary Key]

Originally posted by: Flankerspanker
Hmm... Thanks for the reply but I'm afraid it doesn't really answer my question.

Specifically, in an earlier message Gary says "1333 works" but now he says quad-core overclocked to "325FSB Max" - am I msunderstanding something? Is "1333FSB" only supposed to be an attribute of single-core processors?

And what about this guy, with a 2000.1 MHz "Rated FSB" on a Core 2 Duo?
What's the difference between "Bus Speed" and "Rated FSB," and which one of the two is Gary quoting?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134000

Our E6850 (1333 Bus Speed (Quad Pumped) Dual Core, 333FSB Base) works perfectly fine, it overclocks about 20~25FSB higher than the X6800.

Gigabyte still has some fine tuning left to do before the board will be ready for the 1333 Quad Cores as do most of the 680i board suppliers although with the 1002 Beta BIOS the Striker is doing 410 now.

 

[Heidfirst]

Originally posted by: ProNooB
One of the suppliers i use has it advertised for £170, due in 3-4 days.

Thats only £20 more than the Asus P5N-E 650 Sli.

eh no, it's about 2.5x the cost of a P5N-E but about £20 more than a P5N32-E.

 

[Arctucas]

We all know how this works: Supply and demand. Wait a couple of months and the price will drop. I personally am waiting on nVidia G9x and Intel 45nm.

 

[ProNooB]

Originally posted by: Heidfirst

Originally posted by: ProNooB
One of the suppliers i use has it advertised for £170, due in 3-4 days.

Thats only £20 more than the Asus P5N-E 650 Sli.

eh no, it's about 2.5x the cost of a P5N-E but about £20 more than a P5N32-E.

The GA-N680 Sli-DQ6 is £170 ( Pounds Sterling)
Asus P5N-E 680 Sli £150 ( Pounds Sterling)

You were correct!

I've had it now, i'll buy a Asus 650 Sli for £80 and buy a 680 when theres one worth buying.

Now i here tell of a new chipset placed between the 680/650! Some thing along the lines of 680 T?

 

[Flankerspanker]

Originally posted by: Gary Key
Our E6850 (1333 Bus Speed (Quad Pumped) Dual Core, 333FSB Base) works perfectly fine, it overclocks about 20~25FSB higher than the X6800.

Gigabyte still has some fine tuning left to do before the board will be ready for the 1333 Quad Cores as do most of the 680i board suppliers although with the 1002 Beta BIOS the Striker is doing 410 now.

Ok, so bottom line if I want to buy a board & processor now, and then later drop-in upgrade to a new quad-core "1333FSB" processor without having to know anything about overclocking, then the Striker is still the better choice?

Tangentially... (noob mode on)
(1) What do the words "native," and the "over" in "overclocking" actually mean?
If the DQ6 claims native 333 Base, isn't 325 max then some sort of a bug or failure to meet spec, rather than an "over"-clock? Or is "overclocked" just another word for "base speed?" I.e. if 325 is overclocking, what was the default, non-overclocked speed?

(2) Is the multiplier always understood to be 4x? Does this have anything to do with there being four cores? Because 4x seems to apply also to dual core.
Is this guy using a 7x multiplier, or is "CPU Clock Ratio" something completely different?
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134000

(3)How can we tell if a quoted bus speed includes the multiplier or not? Until now, I always thought the suffix "FSB" implied the multiplier was included, e.g. "1333FSB", while "MHz" meant that it was not, e.g. "333 MHz."

(/noob)

Thanks for the prompt reply..

 

[Gary Key]

Article sent off for final edits, should be up this evening. I did a major edit this morning, kept it short and sweet until the 680/650i roundup, but enough info that you can make a purchasing decision on. Like most boards launched recently, it is going to take some BIOS work to get it up to speed.

 

[AstroDogg]

Well: Bad news continues anyone that ordered the GA-N680SLI-DQ6 from excaliberpc.com for 325 is going to get a call saying it was a computer error they dont have the board never did. Waiting on a call back now of a guaranteed shippment of 7-8 days.