Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6 Testing

Final F3 BIOS - http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/...e/N680SDQ6.rar

rockin! THX.

wow... all's quiet on ther western front.. or soemthing like that.. I get my board tonight.. how goes the F3 bios? maybe silence is the sign of good things? like enjoying a good meal?? ;)

Looks like a nice Board, but i am happy with my P5B Deluxe...^^
Does this Board have problems with Subzero cooling?

Best Regards
Dennis

in the bios, whats the difference between Sync, 1:1, and Auto under FSB-memory ratio?

sync is true FSB freq (like 425, not the quad pumped 1700) to mem ratio.. so, 425 on the FSB (1700) would yeild the memory @ 850 (425x 2 dual channel mode). Some say sync mode renders optimal cpu/mem performance.. some say it doesn't matter.. for running SLI I think memory BW is very important, especially on 8800GTS/GTX cards.. anyways, 1:1 is actual quad pumped FSB number to memory number, so if your FSB is 1066 then you're mem would also be 1066.. that would be hard to use for anyone wanting high FSB numbers.. I think Auto chooses what the machine deems is the best fit for the FSB and the memory rating..

I'm not crazy about this board, but seems a good ocker.

some peeps wanna share what they have their voltages at for 450+ fsb?? I'm just playing around with the board now.. I hate the way the bios doesn't show you what the actual voltages are.. just what you're adding to the default..

what do we use for monitoring the NB temp in windows? nvidia monitor doesn't seem to want to see cpu or nb temps.. maybe everest.. might need to buy that finally.. lol.

Update with multi 7 (i forgot to turn OFF EIST function so CPU-Z recognize it 6)

FSB 520 MHz

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...i32mfsb520.jpg


FSB 526 MHz

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...pi4mfsb526.jpg

BIOS F3 Official, but dunno why CPU-Z detect it as F2

526! lol.. not bad for release week. :)

what do you have your chipset & mobo component voltages at?

edit: a couple pics of my board and stuffs

PIC1
PIC2
PIC3
PIC4

and just before it went into the case:

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...ant/N680i8.jpg

revenant, is that a 60mm fan on the NB?

it's the 40mm from my TT extreme spirit II NB cooler.. I had to pry the gigabyte vanity plate off the top of the sink but there is still a flat part up there.. so not all the air is making it into the fins... but probably about 2/3s is.. so that should work ok. the fins are folded on the top, so if you want you can unfold them to get more air in there..

edit: I really like the cpu socket placement on this mobo.. it's more centered which enables much better access to the PWM area, as in, easier to add a fan while things are mounted and/or point one of those antec spotfans there..

edit: by request, a shot of the 9700 from above the mobo

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e4...nt/N680i10.jpg

it does stick past the edge of the board by just a tiny bit.. not even an inch tho.. just under 1/2 inch.

Revenant, are you able to remove the back plate on this board with removing the stock cooling for the NB/SB?

Yes you can remove all the back plates.. but for now, I have left mine on.. I wanted to see how well it did with them on... I am getting a new cpu and a Coolit Freezone very soon, so I am thinking when I pull the mobo I might replace the factory thermal compound with AS5.. but so far so good.. things seem to run pretty cool.. the NB sink doesn't get too hot tho which makes me think perhaps I am having a contact issue with the chip top and sink bottom.. maybe.. it warrants some investigation when I get the board out for the freezone install for sure.

edit: wait, do you mean can you remove the back plates while leaving the default NB and SB coolers on? the answer to that is, yes, but only the back plate behind the cpu, because the NB and SB sinks screw into the back plates behind those chipset chips.. the crazycool2 heatpipe backplate thing comes off easy, it;s only connected to part of the PWM sink..

Thanks, I should have this board tomorrow. Hopefully up and running by tomorrow evening. I use the Monsoon II and it has its own back plate. I thought I read somewhere that you can remove the CPU back plate on this board without removing the other NB/SB pipes but I wanted to be sure. Thanks again!

Nice... i'll be eager to see your results. I almost bought a monsoon II from a friend. It's a good cooler. anyways, I'm getting the freezone cooler next week, and am not sure about any backplate it might have.. but I might try and re-use the nuts I used to hold the 9700's bracket on with the cpu backplate.. we'll see.. not that I think it does much, but mine as well use it if I can.. ;)

I have this board and just set it up with 4 sticks of ocz 9200 flex, QX6700, a pair of 8800 gtx cards, and the system is liquid cooled.

I have flashed the bios with F3 and all is well leaving the settings stock, but the minute I try to do much of anything under the hood I get eratic starts and stops and bsod's.

Further, trying to enable sli crashes the system and results in cyclical bsod's until I safe mode boot and yank the nvidia drivers out.

When it has been running properly I hit at best 11700 on 3dmark06. With these identical components in an evga board I hit 13950....all running it stock.

Another peeve is the ctrl f1 to get the advanced chipset item in bios is lame. Also once there...you limited to only CAS...and no other memory settings.

Should I set the voltage of the memory to its factory spec of 2.35 right away?

Also, if anyone out there has this board and that memory and has a stable situation overclocked I would love to know what they have as bios settings...

Any comments from anyone on how to proceed with this would be appreciated.

SWhit

wow... nice system.. I hate the control + F1 thing also.. I also hate the voltages not listing their base values.. anyways, I would for sure put the memory at it's recommended vdimm.. the base is 1.80v, so add .550 or so to that to get to 2.35... that should help with stability.. also, try and move the NB (SPP voltage on the eVGA) and FSB (which is CPU FSB on the eVGA board's bios) voltages up a bit for stability when OCing.. +.25 or +.30 on the FSB, and +.15 or +.20 on the NB voltage... typically you can leave HT and SB voltages alone until you have exhausted all other options, then start playing with those.. if nothing else worked..

btw, I can get to all my memory settings, not just cas.. not sure why you can't get there.. are you sure your flash to F3 bios took? disable show full screen logo in the bios and see what bios version pops up on post.. should be near where the memory info is.

edit: right now I am linked + sync'd @ 400x8 stable as a rock, memort @ 2.2v 3-3-3-9 2t.., NB +.15, fsb +.25, SB auto, HT, auto, SB stndby auto.. I tried 457x7 but have some stability issues there.. which might be my crappy cpu not liking that high fsb setting.. not sure.. I am getting a new cpu this week which is known to be a good clocker.. I'm holding off more testing until I get that one installed.

I will push those voltages up a bit on the nb and cpu...and I got it set now at 2.30...2.35 for some reason seems a bit unstable...much better

I can confirm that F3 is installed by various methods...and the splash was one of the first things I canned...

I am still stuck with the issue that when i enable sli...and try to run 3dmark it crashes...and then I get BSOD several times until I can get back in an disable SLI...

I have the latest nvidia drivers....

Any ideas why enabling sli would make the system so unstable?

SW

Are you using Vista? The 100.65 are still SLI beta according to their website. They also have 101.41 Betas on the website. Did you try both of those?

For the SLI trouble, if on XP, maybe try, either (a) disable Link Boost, or (b) hard set your pci-e frequencies at 105mhz each (not 125 which it seems to want to do with Link Boost enabled). also try setting any spread spectrum settings associated with SLI to disabled. If on Vista, yeah, SLI is pretty unusable, but I think there are some new beta drivers around which support it now.

Using XP 32 Pro SP2...fully updated

As strange as it sounds I am going to pull the sli bridge and see if enabling it still does the same thing...without the bridge...I checked the resources on the cards and they are IRQ21 and 22....

Pulling the SLI bridge made no difference. Sam thing...crash crash crash

other trouble with SLI 8800GTX in this board : fowlow the BIOS post when staring : SLI 8x - 8x , n my score at SLI so :banana::banana::banana::banana: : ~ 18k 3DMark 2005 .

My spec : Gigabyte 8800GTX, E6700@3.5 Ghz n Corsair 5400C4

How to tweaking or BIOS problem ????

Hmmmm.... I am not sure.. I didn't touch a thing with my SLI options and it just worked right out of the box.. by board is in 16x 16x mode when I put both cards in.. slots 1 & 3. I did turn my pci-e frequencies to 105mhz, hard set.. I also enabled 'Nvidia GPU eX' on my board... this was disabled by default, but I tried it and it didn't harm anything.. not sure if it helped any.. I should bench it out. anyways..

this board is still so new and I have not founds much info on it.. as in what the good voltage settings are for NB, SB, HT, and FSB at a given FSB level. typically those surface or start to as more peeps start OCing with a board and want to show what's stable and what's not.. with any luck I will have my new CPU by early next week and I can start fiddling around with the bios more.. right now I am not sure if my current cpu is causing the slight instability issues I have at 450+ on the fsb or not.. the cpu I am getting is known to play well with high fsb numbers.. so I can rule that out..

anyways.. I wish I could be more helpfull.. but I am about as n00b to this board as anyone else... just for grins, have you tried pulling the video cards and reversing their sequence in the mobo? or just a re-seat of the cards in general might be good..

Maybe people could start posting their numbers in this thread, like processor, bios rev, then fsb, voltages, all that stuff.

?

I just got everything up and running a while ago. Haven't done much, just a OC to 3.4, Unlinked, 808(MEM) 5-5-5-12 2T(although CPU-z is reporting 5-6-6-12 2T) , CPUv 3.50, NBv +.10 and FSBv +10. So far I've ran one pass of memtest, one pass of 3D Mark 06 and Orthos for about 2 hours. No problems so far(Except for Vista wanting to reactivate). Much better than the Abit IN9 I had before this. I want to play around with it but don't have the time right now. I also want to do a fresh install, since it was the same chipset I just did a safe mode boot first and let all the drivers install then rebooted in normal mode. Not bad, first time since I installed Vista trying that.