EVGA 680i TR is NOT compatible with an OC Q6600

[Martinm210]

My once true happiness on my E6600, has become my worst nightmare trying to overclock the Q6600.

I litterally can not get anything but stock stable on this board regardless of the great temperatures I'm getting with the chip and the overkill watercooling setup. The same exact setup with an E6600 ran happily stable at 3.3Ghz for almost a year straight.

Anyhow after a weeks worth of pulling my hair out, flashing over a dozen different times between P28 through P32 Bios revisions, I finally decided to contact EVGA about the issue and they do confirm the TR revision is not compatible with the Q6600 overclocked, only stock with the latest bios.

So basically now my options are:
1) Run the Q6600 at stock speed - Not acceptible considering I wanted to do a whole bunch of waterblock testing.
2) Tear the system down and water cooling and wait a month through an RMA process to get a replacement that hopefully does what the retail box said it would.
3) Buy a new board.

I think I'm taking door number 3 after I save up some $$. Just thought some of you dual core 680i owners might like to know if you're thinking of a quad upgrade, the path may not be as shiny as your dual core overclock.:down:

Here is a very unstable 2.9Ghz 1.37 (Vdroop) idle temp shot, somehow I don't think it's the heat..It loads in the high 30s..:(
http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/4657/coretempwierdnessvi0.jpg

http://img116.imageshack.us/img116/4518/crystalfontz3um9.jpg
Anyhow, sorry for the complaining, but this last week has been one of the most frustrating overclock experiences I've had. Nothing like high hopes of a shiny new Q6600 on what I thought was an enthusiast board getting cooled by three separate water cooling loops, only to be successful at running STOCK!!!:eek:...:(

[HotGore]

I say get a new board, but RMA the old one anyways.

[Martinm210]

I think I will, looking at the DFI X48 for the replacement and I'll save the old 680i for another mother-in-law system upgrade...:D

[karl_eller]

The 680i boards have always been absolutely horrible for quad-core overclocking since the day they first came out. Every now and then there is the odd board (or very skilled overclocker) who can get some fairly good overclocks out of a Q6600 + 680i, but aside from that they tend to suck with quads. I had an eVGA 680i A1 that could handle my Q6600 at 3.0Ghz with 1.24v, but it wouldn't budge an inch over 3.0Ghz, no matter what vCore, FSB or multiplier.

Dual cores they tend to handle rather differently, on the other hand :p: Which is probably the 680i's only redeeming feature.

And I don't think you'll get much luck trying to RMA it due to it not handling overclocking. I don't think it's covered under warranty, since it's not actually a defective board (runs everything at stock speeds, so it's "fine").

Eller

[Martinm210]

That's what I'm hearing. I guess I was only following the board until I came to a good stable overclock on my E6600 which I thought was pretty easy.

I'll probably just keep the board for the E6600 and upgrade one of my family or friends PC's.

EVGA did by the way offer to replace the board with a new T1 revision regardless of the fact that it does run a Q6600 stock. I think they realize people buy the board for overclocking and it's not acceptable to deny an RMA because it's capable of running stock.

Anyhow, between these problems and the 790i corruption issues I'm hearing about, I think I'm going with an X48 chip next.