The best Nvidia 680i?

[Swany420]

i was wondering which 680i should i get for my new system?

there are a few ouit now and i am not buying the striker because the reviews arent good and last i heard the evga was the best 680i

am i wrong?

need too know

 

[Guest]

What reviews are you refering too? I don't think it's worth the price but that's another story, most review I saw were pretty good.

I am leaning towards the P5N32-E myself as I don't particularly like the eVga layout and I don't trust eVga for frequent Bios updates and so one.

You should know that any foxconn/eVga/BFG/video card manufacturer(xept for MSI) have the exact same board.

I suggest, if you can, to wait for the MSI/Abit/DFI board to come up and see who's the king. Abit should be among the best but it might no be before January, don't know if you can wait.

 

[Talon]

As labbby said its always prudent to wait at least briefly at a new hardware launch.

Having said that if I were to buy right this second I would buy the eVGA unquestionably.

I do know that there was an issue with some noises during sound playback on the 680i at release. eVGA working with Nvidia release a fix about a week and a half ago in the form of a revised bios. In my opinion this bodes well for this boards future if eVGA intends to stay on top of things at this pace.

I prefer the layout much over the striker but since you say you're not getting that its not an issue. They OC about the same "so far" and that goes for the new Biostar release as well.

The asus boards main downfall for me is in the layout. You lose a PCI-x1 slot to the sound card riser. You're also paying more for this feature which is wasted if you use an add-in sound card. Poor choices imo to force the cost of these things on people who as enthusiasts usually use higher end stuff to begin with.

At this moment the eVGA is a no-brainer if you want SLI now or as a future upgrade. If you can wait another week or two tho to see what others come up with by all means do so.

 

[NumenorLord]

eVGA has the most stable board right now. Even if Asus updates their bios and fixes the problem, at $60 less than the competition, the eVGA board is still undoubtedly a steal for the sheer amount of quality you're getting.

 

[Guest]

All of the above is true. I do like the riser option because I don't think I can see the difference between most audio card. And whatever about CPU utilisation, not worth it.

I want A+ cable routing so the eVga is really border line for me, in that respect the IDE on the P5N32-E isn't much better!

 

[Swany420]

this is my first time building a system and i would like to know if the evga is the best choice for me when i am going to be going for sli and overclocking?

BIG GAMER!! so i am looking for somethin to handle the overlclocking...........but what main problems would i run into besides the
p[layback sound noise?

if i get this board what do i download to fix the noise?

and where do i get bio updates?

 

[Swany420]

or do you think i should just wait????

if i wait what good new things are supposed to come out with all the things i want to come out of it?

overclocking!

SLI or Crossfire!

mostly for gaming!

here are some of the other 680i boards i was looking at..... these are the ones that just came out i think>..>>>>>>>>

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813135037

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813138044


any feed back on those two boards?

 

[cb62fcni]

The EVGA, Biostar, and ECS offerings are just basically the reference board provided by Nvidia. Nothing really different about them except the warranties. They should all perform almost exactly the same. In selecting one, you should just go with whatever warranty/bundle/deal you can find. If you want something a little different, wait for Abit's board. I'm not too impressed by the Asus offerings so far, they seem unreasonably priced for what advantages they offer, and most of what they "add" is pointless anyway. Kinda disappointed, hopefully they'll roll something else out soon.

 

[cb62fcni]

What reviews are you refering too? I don't think it's worth the price but that's another story, most review I saw were pretty good.

I am leaning towards the P5N32-E myself as I don't particularly like the eVga layout and I don't trust eVga for frequent Bios updates and so one.

You should know that any foxconn/eVga/BFG/video card manufacturer(xept for MSI) have the exact same board.

I suggest, if you can, to wait for the MSI/Abit/DFI board to come up and see who's the king. Abit should be among the best but it might no be before January, don't know if you can wait.

Isn't the DFI board going to be R600? Are they releasing a 680 board as well?

 

[Guest]

Just to clear thing up it's actually RD600 for the chipset, R600 is the codename for the video card.

DFI will release a 680i chipset around January, tottaly different layout. In my humble opinion, the real killer 680i boards should come from Abit and DFI, the striker seems like marketing to me.

@swany, if you have the luxury of being able to wait, I would hold of until january, the 680i will have matured, we will have a direct comparison with the RD600, I dont know if you're set on the video card but ATI will have it's offering by then.

Buying a PC is tricky, new stuff comes around every 6 month( total generality), like Core 2 Duo in august 2006, then all the good motherboard in january 2007. So then you don't want to by new un-tested stuff but when it's tryed and proven, new stuff is around the corner.
Anyway in january, we should have a clearer picture of the whole computer scene and be able to make an educated buy(as far as intel motherboard/graphic card goes)

 

[cb62fcni]

Yep I meant RD600 thanks, kinda tricky naming going on all over the place lately... You wouldn't happen to have any info on the 680i DFI board would you? I've been following their RD600 board info, it looks promising, but I'm not sure how well it will compare, regardless of who is tweaking it. With only one board with that chipset, well, draw your own conclusions. Time will tell...

 

[fowzee]

So I understand the eVGA is the best 680i right now for Core 2 Duo, but does it allow for an upgrade to Quadro?

The reason I ask is that I plan on getting a C2D for now and then upgrading to a Quadro in the future. If possible, I would like to avoid having to purchase another mobo and it doesn't look like the eVGA 680i mobo supports Quadro.

According to Newegg, the only two that support Quadro currently are:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?N=2010200280+1070625638&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=280

The Biostar TF680i SLI Deluxe and the ECS PN2-SLI2+

Any word on these mobos? Any advice?

 

[cb62fcni]

The eVGA will support quad too. All 680's will.

 

[insightdriver]

When it gets down to it, how can anyone say Evga is the better board when it's an Nvidia design and is the same board as the other manufacturers who chose to go with the reference design. I do think that Evga has excellent marketing, I do, I do. That's all folks.

I'm looking at the Abit IN9 32X-MAX offering right now.

I've been looking at the latest and greatest to advise a friend on his build and I'm just now starting to get up to speed on what's coming out and what all the choices there are out there.

What I have gleaned so far is that when a bunch of different boards use the same chipset, they tend to test out close enough to make performance a wash. The bottom line then, for me, is to look at layout and features and the retail bundle. Sometimes the bundle will swing the sale if it's better than the others.

 

[BUFF]

or do you think i should just wait????

If you can I would.
Apart from having a bigger choice later the eVGA (& others ) has definite problems at the moment that hopefully will be resolved with more BIOS development.

 

[Therlian]

The Biostar TF680i SLI Deluxe and the ECS PN2-SLI2+

Any word on these mobos? Any advice?

From personal experience at my work, I would stay far away from Biostar. We got about 40 machines for a Linux cluster fairly inexpensive and they all had Biostar mobo's. After less than a year, most of them had died due to the mobo's going bad, so we replaced the dead Biostars with ASUS boards and haven't had a single problem with those; in fact, the calculations that we are performing are 15% faster on the ASUS boards with the same chipset.

I'm not saying buy ASUS (although I like them), but I wouldn't recommend Biostar.

 

[cb62fcni]

Biostar has had some issues in the past, true, but this is simply a reference board, not a proprietary design, so it shouldn't be of less quality than the eVGA or ECS board. The main things to look for between the three are the quality of support and the warranty. Watch a few weeks and see who rolls out drivers and bios revs fastest, or who has the least rants on their forums. The design itself is sound.

 

[echoplex]

I am extremely happy with me 680i eVGA board. VERY happy. It's easy to use/setup, great overclocking, and it's completely stable. I havn't had a single issue with it and I've been on it for about a week straight playing games, doing office work, playing music/video, burning DVDs and surfin' the net, all at the same time lol. I have to update my sig...

 

[fowzee]

The eVGA will support quad too. All 680's will.

I just wanted to confirm that all 680i's will support Quad-Core. Can someone point me to a site?

I know Newegg's not a reviewer really, but it struck me as strange that they explicitly categorised their mobos into Quad-Core and Core 2 Duo-capable sections and in the Quad-Core section they only had the two mobos I mentioned above.

If all 680i's support Quad-Core upgrades, that would be great.

 

[cb62fcni]

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2869&p=3

There ya go fowzee

 

[Talon]

eVGA has the most stable board right now. Even if Asus updates their bios and fixes the problem, at $60 less than the competition, the eVGA board is still undoubtedly a steal for the sheer amount of quality you're getting.

Not sure if I worded my post correctly but thats exactly what I was trying to say. The eVGA is at the moment the "most" stable and the eVGA team is the one I was applauding for fixing an issue very quickly after release.

To OP: Bottom line for me is if I had to have one now it would be the eVGA without a doubt and I think anyone would be very happy with it. There is of course going to be several other boards released soon in the 680i line and if you can wait then by all means give it another week or two.

I've personally waited this long, a month ago it was killing me, now I'm over it and feel like since I've wanted to upgrade for several months now another week or two won't kill me. To each their own. Only you know your situation best. Peace.

 

[Arctucas]

I've been looking at the Striker Extreme. According to Asus;
http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3&l2=11&l3=397&model=1439&modelmenu=1
it supports Quad Core.

 

[Guest]

It's a 680i so yes it does!

 

[cb62fcni]

All the 680i boards support quad core, as I mentioned earlier. For the extra $150 with the striker you get some LED's, a fault-readout LCD on the back panel, a different layout, what looks to be about an extra dollar or so worth of copper heatsinks/pipes, and a different, arguably better, BIOS. From some preliminary benchmarks I've seen it only outperforms the eVGA in some gaming apps, but this could just be a bios issue. I know this sounds kinda harsh, I'm usually a pretty big fan of ASUS, but 400 is really pushing it in my opinion. If you're the kind of person that must have the absolute best regardless of cost, than the striker is probably your board. Otherwise, that 150 could be put to better use elsewhere.

 

[Crashman]

You'll have to wait until NEXT YEAR to find out what the "best" of the so called "current" boards are. Most of your choices aren't being produced yet, except for the Stryker and the reference board by Foxconn (sold as EVGA, ECS, and Biostar). ECS is moving towards manufacturing the same board on their own.