EVGA nForce 680i SLI Motherboard: The backbone of a great computer
Written: Jun 21 '08 (Updated Jun 21 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Many - read review
Cons: 64-bit software issues probably not related to the mainboard
The Bottom Line: I am happy with the motherboard. It has all the features I wanted in my new system and allows for various system configurations.
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| Gr8ful's Full Review: eVGA nForce 680i SLI (122-CK-NF68-T1) Motherboard |
A few weeks ago I built my latest computer for gaming, video editing, audio recording and to act as a secondary media server. I previously built a system using the nForce 650i chipset and it was a decent computer so I opted for its big brother for this build. The EVGA nForce 680i SLI seemed to have everything I wanted for my new system including support for SLI graphics using two NVIDIA SLI capable graphics cards. The motherboard supports up to 6 SATA 3Gb hard drives and that was a big selling point for me as well because I never have enough storage space for my video and audio creations. I ordered the motherboard in a bare bones computer package that included the processor, memory and hard drive. The processor I used was the Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz but the board also supports the Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Duo, Pentium EE, Pentium D and Pentium 4 processors that use the 775-pin socket interface.
In the Box
* EVGA nForce 680i SLI mainboard
* EVGA driver installation CD
* Rear case I/O panel
* 2 SATA data cables
* 1SATA power cable adapter
* 1 rounded ATA133 cable
* 1 rounded floppy cable
* SLI graphics card bridge
* Quick install guide
Mainboard feature highlights
* NVIDIA SLI ready
* NVIDIA Media shield technology
* Supports SATA RAID 0, 0+1, and 5
* 3 PCI-Express 16X slots
* 2 Gigabit Ethernet ports
* NVIDIA DualNet technology
* NVIDIA nTune utility
* NVIDIA FirstPacket technology
* 6 SATA 3GB/s ports
Graphics support
The mainboard has three PCI-Express 16X slots for graphics cards which allows you to have two SLI cards linked together and use a third for a secondary display. I have not tested this configuration so I do not know how well that works. I have two GeForce 8800GT cards linked together but no third card installed. Other than that, there are two PCI slots and one PCI-Express 1X slot for expansion cards. The PCI-Express 16X card slots are set so that when you link two graphics cards, they are not right next to each other. In fact, they are separated by three slots. The third graphics card slot is dead center between the two slots allocated for SLI use. This gives each graphics card an empty slot between each other unless you install other peripheral cards in those slots. It works great for keeping the cards cool.
I have one of the GeForce 8800GT cards in between a TV card and my SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS card and it is the one where I have the temperature sensor from my case installed. That card never has gone above 58º C even under heavy load playing 3D games.
Memory Support
The board sports four memory slots that support DDR2 533, 667, 800 and 1066MHz in a dual channel configuration. The board also supports SLI ready memory which increases the bandwidth of memory busses when coupled with select third party components using a single click implementation. The motherboard supports up to 8GB of RAM using 2GB per slot. I have 4GB installed and my operating system (Windows Vista x64) recognizes it all. If you are running a 32-bit operating system like Windows Vista or Windows XP, the computer will not utilize more than 3.5GB of installed memory because the 32-bit operating systems do not address memory above that amount.
BIOS
The BIOS (basic input/output system) allows you to control almost all aspects of your computer. You can set up raid configurations of your hard drives installed to the on-board SATA raid controller. You can set your boot option defaults (numlock on, full screen splash, self test, etc…), check your system fan speeds, check the CPU temperature, set the CPU bus speed, set the system voltages and set boot disk priorities.
The boot options allow you to choose a specific hard drive to boot from so you do not have to install the operating system to the primary hard drive if you choose not to. You can run multiple operating systems on different hard drives and choose which to boot from in the boot options. You can even boot from USB flash drives and memory cards if you have a card reader installed on the system. This can come in handy when troubleshooting problems or running diagnostics.
Networking
The mainboard sports two PCI-Express 1X Ethernet ports that support 10/100/1000 network connections. I am only using one at the moment but it may come in handy to have the second when I start recording later this fall because our band uses an Alesis HD recorder that uses Ethernet to connect to a PC when transferring the audio for editing and mixing. You could also use the mainboard in a server setting as a true server/firewall. The usefulness of two Ethernet ports is determined by what you plan to use the computer for but right now I am only using one to connect to my network and the Internet.
Hard drive support
The board supports one ATA66/100/133 hard drive with an optical drive installed or two hard drives with no optical drive through a single ATA controller. This allows one ATA master device and one ATA slave device. It also supports up to six SATA 3Gb hard drives and four of these can be set in a RAID configuration. RAID configurations supported are 0, 0+1 and 5.
RAID 0 is called striping and enhances the performance of the drives by using multiple drives at the same time configured as a single drive. All drives in a RAID 0 configuration should be the same capacity.
RAID 0+1 allows four drives (or more on other systems) to be configured as two striped drives mirrored onto two other drives. This configuration allows the enhanced performance with redundancy for data security. All drives in a RAID 0+1 configuration should be the same capacity.
RAID 5 (similar to RAID 0+1) combines data striping (for enhanced performance) with distributed parity (for data protection) to provide a recovery path in case of drive failure. All drives in a RAID 5 configuration must be the same capacity and should be the same make and model.
I am using the ATA controller to support two DVD burners so I am not using any ATA hard drives in this system. I have four internal Hitachi 1TB hard drives in this machine connected to the main dual SATA controllers and two 500GB Hitachi hard drives on the secondary controller for a total of 5TB of storage. I also have two Seagate 750GB hard drives in an external USB JBOD RAID enclosure.
JBOD RIAD means just a bunch of disks and allows striping across multiple disks regardless of their make, model or capacity.
This gives me a total of 6.5TB of disk space on this system. It seems like a lot but with the amount of video and audio recording and editing I do, it will fill up before too long.
Other ports
The motherboard support front panel audio but I am not using the on-board audio. Instead, I am using the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS with its front panel interface. The on-board audio is excellent and up to 7.1 surround is supported, but I need the standard RCA jacks on the Audigy panel for plugging instruments directly into the sound card.
The board has two FireWire 1394 ports, one is for front panel access and one is on the I/O panel on the rear. There are six USB 2.0 ports on the rear and four more for front panel access. The board also has a digital optical out for audio. There are no serial ports or LPT printer ports on this board. I guess you could say it is "Legacy Free".
My experience
I have Windows Vista x64 installed and other than certain 64-bit software compatibility issues I have not had any trouble with the motherboard. The computer is possibly the most stable system I have ever built and I am quite proud of that. I have used the system to record a couple of multi-track sessions at home but nothing professional yet although I will be doing some recording with my band later in the fall using this system. The program I use is Sonar 6 Producer Edition. I was given the option of installing the 32-bit version or the 64-bit version of Sonar from the installation CD and I opted for the 64-bit version. The program runs exceptionally smooth on this system and I have had no problem recording up to 32 tracks simultaneously.
I have captured video but not done any editing yet. The TV card I installed is not compatible with the 64-bit version of Windows Vista so I had to remove it. I can still capture video through the 1394 ports using Windows Movie maker and that works very well for capturing.
3D games run extremely well on this system. I have no lag what-so-ever and frame rates are very high. The two graphics cards work together flawlessly and my games are very fun to play. I have had some issues with games crashing in Vista x64 for no apparent reason and Windows is quick to blame the game software for the crash. This has happened with The Sims 2, CounterStrike: Source and Black & White 2. So far I have not found a solution or even the cause but the crashes are infrequent enough that it isn’t a major concern. I also have not experienced these problem using Windows XP Professional (32-bit operating system) on this system, only with Vista x64.
Conclusion
I am happy with the motherboard. It has all the features I wanted in my new system and allows for various system configurations. The BIOS allow for manual manipulation of system bus speed and voltages for a smooth overclocking experience (for those who may be inclined to tinker with their system) although I do not usually overclock my systems and have not done so with this new one. So far I have had a good experience with my new system and I continue to search for a solution to my 32-bit games crashing randomly in Vista x64.
Thanks for reading,
Gr8ful ;-)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 159.99
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