[First Look] DFI 680i LT NF-680i LT SLI (56K Warning~~~)

[dogchainx]

C'mon man they 30" dell is wayyy better than a tv. 2560x1600 no HDTV has a resolution like that. Get your money back on that sharp and get the dell.

I'm telling you this because i tried the tv thing first. No comparison! Now my dell is my most favorite piece of equipment. It's truly amazing. Best money i've spent for my system.

Uh, i want a TV, not a monitor.

Can you tell the difference at 8 feet if a 37" screen is 720p,1080p, or 1600p? Now try a 30" small screen.


Anyways, semi-on topic: I'm booting my evga 680i right now, overclocking max's out at 3400Mhz on a e6600 L704A945. I'm on water, and still testing this thing out.

[Praz]

I'm just a spectator for the moment (my Evga works just fine) watching to see how things shape up. If I see folks getting good results with high memory clocks I may try one out in a month or so.

Considering the post made by bingo being a spectator might be the thing to do .

I really think you guys should go with the EVGA board!

Not bad advice actually....

[nugzo]

Uh, i want a TV, not a monitor.

Can you tell the difference at 8 feet if a 37" screen is 720p,1080p, or 1600p? Now try a 30" small screen.


Anyways, semi-on topic: I'm booting my evga 680i right now, overclocking max's out at 3400Mhz on a e6600 L704A945. I'm on water, and still testing this thing out.

mine is 24" from me, my bad. Just didnt want you to make the same mistake i did.

[scarface]

who's cares about what monitor,tv or movie theather screen you use, Where's The Freaking Board!!!!

[nugzo]

who's cares about what monitor,tv or movie theather screen you use, Where's The Freaking Board!!!!

Just for that i hope you miss the first round..

Has anybody done anymore testing on this board? We havent talked about actual testing in a looong time. How is the new bios?

[adamsleath]

Dell 3007WFP-HC 8ms G2G 30"WS LG.Philips S-IPS (LM300WQ1)

HP LP3065 6ms G2G 30"WS LG.Philips S-IPS (LM300WQ1)


it is a nice panel...hp 30" is better at 6ms...but more expensive. they look to be identical panels.

is hp telling fibs about response time? or just using a different measuring system

[Jobeo]

it is a nice panel...hp 30" is better at 6ms...but more expensive. they look to be identical panels.

ya funny you mention it i just ordered mine from newegg earlier today. they have a $100 off rebate that just started yesterday.

i can't wait till this sucker is at my door ! ! hahaha .. oooh yeah baby. with dual 8880GTX driving this sucker it should be sweet.

ya now where is the damned MB

oh BTW the major difference is the HP comes with 3 DVI input the dell only has 1 input

[adamsleath]

should be one helluva panel...not just size but high quality s-ips type panel as well....

[scarface]

Just for that i hope you miss the first round..

[virtualrain]

Considering the post made by bingo being a spectator might be the thing to do .

I've been a spectator on C2D for too long... time to jump in with both feet!

There is no doubt that the DFI board will have its issues to start just like every other board... uncharted territory to be sure... but... Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way

[Jobeo]

I've been a spectator on C2D for too long... time to jump in with both feet!

ya going with EVGA isn't really what i wanna hear at this point. i've been waiting on this board since the DFI 590 was scrapped and that was a helluva long time ago.

it does seem like a risk but what can ya do. i have faith in DFI's ability... if i wanted to go EVGA i coulda done ages ago. gotta have faith in oskar, he better not let us down.

[bingo13]

AFAIK, Bingo13 is a reviewer at AnandTech... I would like to know what he knows about this board.

From what I've heard the quad-core overclocking and memory performance is not the best on this board but they are still working on bios tweaks - so there is still hope. If this hope has evaporated and/or there are new issues, then I'd like to know ASAP.

1. The quality of the board is excellent, all features work right out of the box, RAID, SLI, and audio are in total harmony.

2. The board screams with a 2MB Cache C2D, but do not expect overclocking over 500FSB with them, the board can do it at low multipliers, but the strap change at 501 just kills performance. Right now, my board is extremely stable at 475~485FSB, anything higher is not possible except for a CPU-Z screen shot.

3. The board had average memory performance when overclocking with the 4MB Cache C2D or Quad Cores, the EVGA has much better memory performance above 400FSB with these chips. There are also various FSB holes with these processors and particular memory settings. That said, DFI is working overtime on these issues.

4. I really like the board, it just needs some TLC within the BIOS. If you have a Quad Core or 4MB Cache C2D and an EVGA board, do not switch yet if benchmarking is important to you.

[The Nemesis]

1. The quality of the board is excellent, all features work right out of the box, RAID, SLI, and audio are in total harmony.

2. The board screams with a 2MB Cache C2D, but do not expect overclocking over 500FSB with them, the board can do it at low multipliers, but the strap change at 501 just kills performance. Right now, my board is extremely stable at 475~485FSB, anything higher is not possible except for a CPU-Z screen shot.

3. The board had average memory performance when overclocking with the 4MB Cache C2D or Quad Cores, the EVGA has much better memory performance above 400FSB with these chips. There are also various FSB holes with these processors and particular memory settings. That said, DFI is working overtime on these issues.

4. I really like the board, it just needs some TLC within the BIOS. If you have a Quad Core or 4MB Cache C2D and an EVGA board, do not switch yet if benchmarking is important to you.

Looks like I'll be sitting this board out after all. I've already got a fun board to bench my 2 mb cores that does 500FSB no tweaking & low nb volts. If it's not clocking 4 mb cores better than the evga then there's no advantage over the IN9 32Max either.

[Praz]

Tony has begun posting results over at DFI-Club. Basically the same as what bingo is telling us.

http://www.csd.dficlub.org/forum/sho...0424#post20424

[GAR]

seems this board will be a let down, i dont know for some reason im having that feeling, hope it comes out and is available and is good, looking forward to getting this, also it better do quads good.

[Raja@ASUS]

to me it seems nothing more than a bios fix is required for 4mb and quad cpu's, they are hard walling on fsb at present, which points more to the classic wall syndrome we had with earlier 980 boards.

regards
Raja

[The Nemesis]

to me it seems nothing more than a bios fix is required for 4mb and quad cpu's, they are hard walling on fsb at present, which points more to the classic wall syndrome we had with earlier 980 boards.

regards
Raja

I'm sure it will get ironed out before the board is massively available. Just no need for me to invest in another 680i board that won't offer any superior performance to one I already own. It will just end up boxed up in the closet next to the AW9D-Max, RD600, my first P5W DH & MSI 975X Platinum v2. I bought the P965-S to replace the RD600 as my testbed/benching motherboard which seems to have everything right upon release. Besides, it is about time to look @ next generation chipsets anyway

[nugzo]

I'll have my board tomorrow. I'll either confirm or deny the 4mb c2d performance, but i cant do anything with quads. I have a quad x3220, but i cant even get it stable at 3.2, so it wont be much help.
@ bingo or anybody already testing, I noticed just the initial release bios at DFI site, any betas out that may be better than shipping bios? If so could i get a copy? Thanks

[virtualrain]

I'll have my board tomorrow. I'll either confirm or deny the 4mb c2d performance, but i cant do anything with quads. I have a quad x3220, but i cant even get it stable at 3.2, so it wont be much help.
@ bingo or anybody already testing, I noticed just the initial release bios at DFI site, any betas out that may be better than shipping bios? If so could i get a copy? Thanks

I'm thinking of ordering an X3220 to run on this board... tell me more about yours. I thought they were supposed to have better bins on those vs Q6600?

I'll be getting my board on Sat. I would also like access to the beta bios.

[bingo13]

I'll have my board tomorrow. I'll either confirm or deny the 4mb c2d performance

That will be interesting... the six people with review boards all have the same issue, some worse than others. Really, since the 4/24 betas, all of the BIOSs are about equal right now.

[nugzo]

I'm thinking of ordering an X3220 to run on this board... tell me more about yours. I thought they were supposed to have better bins on those vs Q6600?

My first x3220 did 3.4 @ 1.5v. My second one only 3.0 stable. I should have kept the first one. They were both batch L640F. I wasnt happy at all, although 3.4 isnt bad. I was hoping for 3.6. Also i could never get ram stable over 800mhz no matter what timings. It would always fail orthos blend. This was with EVGA board. Maybe that has been fixed with latets bios. I think my next quad will be qx6800 whenever they make retail.

Back somewhat on topic, ExcaliberPC just called me about my DFI pre-order. They said that DFI couldn't tell them when they would get their shipment of these boards. He asked me if i wanted a refund. That was either really nice of them, or it was gonna be a long long time until the received boards. I hope it was b/c they were just doing good business.

[virtualrain]

That will be interesting... the six people with review boards all have the same issue, some worse than others. Really, since the 4/24 betas, all of the BIOSs are about equal right now.

Bingo13 (Gary?)... I presume that's you who writes the motherboard articles on AnandTech? Anyway, I saw your article today mentioning that you got your QX6700 on the DFI up to 9x420... any tricks involved in getting there? Where did you find the key FSB holes? Any advice on voltages?

[virtualrain]

My first x3220 did 3.4 @ 1.5v. My second one only 3.0 stable. I should have kept the first one. They were both batch L640F. I wasnt happy at all, although 3.4 isnt bad. I was hoping for 3.6. Also i could never get ram stable over 800mhz no matter what timings. It would always fail orthos blend. This was with EVGA board. Maybe that has been fixed with latets bios. I think my next quad will be qx6800 whenever they make retail.

Back somewhat on topic, ExcaliberPC just called me about my DFI pre-order. They said that DFI couldn't tell them when they would get their shipment of these boards. He asked me if i wanted a refund. That was either really nice of them, or it was gonna be a long long time until the received boards. I hope it was b/c they were just doing good business.

That's not great news about the X3220 or the L640F stepping more specifically. Crap!

If you are keen to get a board in the near future, consider: http://www.motherboardpro.com/ that's who I'm going through.

[Jobeo]

ya i can't believe it i'm going through that mbpro site as well... they are shipping straight from the DFI warehouse which seems kinda strange but W/E. newegg still doesn't have it listed and it was aggravating me.

they "say" it will ship tomorrow morning which is fine with me cause i don't have even half my parts here yet.

[Rattle]

$318 what a joke