Its not a surprise to see one of the best video card partners matching their video cards with the best processor in town, the Core 2 Duo. Nvidia has manufactured the 680i motherboard for eVga so you wont find much of eVga's flare, but you will have an overall awesome board. There are a ton of features that I could talk about with the eVga 680i board but I will point out what I feel are its main selling points.</P>

To start off the 680i chipset was made with overclockers and gaming enthusiasts in mind. When looking at the board you will find not only two PCI-E slots but three. The first two are true x16 each for your SLi configuration while the third is a x8 speed slot. This one is used for physics cards, which hopefully we will see more games taking advantage of it. Having the ability to run two cards in SLi and a third for physics is truly a hardcore gamers dream come true. When it comes to overclocking this is where I feel that the board falls short. With my P965 express motherboard I was able to hit clock speeds in the upper 3.7GHz, lower 3.8GHz speeds, where the best I can muster with the 680i is 3.4GHz. Granted, havening say a 2.4GHz processor go up to 3.4GHz on air is not too shabby at all but compared to what it COULD do is where it falls short. This is due to the immature BIOS updates. For the immediate this is not exactly a con but it could shy some away fro the board. One thing to keep in mind is that there WILL be more BIOS updates and in the long run I believe that this board with it 680i chipset should be able to surpass the P965 and 975 chipsets with overclocking. Having the current overclocking ability matched up with SLI is a win win for me.</P>

The two last aspects of the eVga 680i board that I find to be awesome selling factors are the support of Quad Core processors and 1333Mhz FSB, and the built-in reset and power buttons. Since Intel already has three Quad Core processors its only realistic that the motherboards would support Quad Core. Well a lot don't, making them pointless for the users who will upgrade to a Quad Core processor. Well the eVga has that Quad Core support, so when you upgrade just drop it in and your running with 4 cores. The 1333Mhz FSB is also another great selling point because it give overclockers the extra headroom to push those speeds. Currently there aren't any 1333Mhz processors but once Intel has them shipping you can just drop one in and your rocking. Lastly I said that the built-in reset and power buttons were a great selling point, and you might be thinking woopie what a big deal. Well it is a big deal if you are overclocking, with the constant restarting trying to get your overclocks stable. For me this was a huge selling point that I was looking for.</P>

To sum it up the eVga 680i you are getting a motherboard that is currently future proof, with SLI support and a third PCI-E card for physics, and for most users overclocks like a dream. Plus all the extra features make this board a need for overclockers and gaming enthusiasts.&</P>






Recommended:
Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 240.00