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

[95blackz26]

ok got another question i have a 7900gs in the other rig would it be benneficial to pick up another 7900gs and run it in sli mode, instead of just using the x1900xtx .

[virtualrain]

Quick question. I have one coming in on Thursday.

Could someone measure the spacing on the NB holddown loops?

From the pictures they look identical to the spacing for the 975x chipset. I am wondering if I will be able to use my Chipset WB from my BX2.

The NB uses loops which form a square that is 50x60mm. More tips, tricks, etc. in my blog here... http://virtualrain.blogspot.com/2007...and-known.html (which is also linked in my sig)

[xTr33m sammich!]

Well, I have the P965-S and its an allright motherboard, I think I'm correct in saying this 680i LT from DFI would have the same issues with Slow Raid performance compared to the ICH8R as all nVidia based chipsets. I have an E6400 that will run orthos stable at 475x8 (3800) on the P965-S and also 544x7 (3808) on my friends EVGA 680i A1, The Dark will not allow MY rams to run beyond 900 so my stiuation is either new ram or new board, I happen to like DFI since the old 939 days, and well, I ordered this board from the Egg five minutes ago... Hope it shapes up to be as good as my friends evga for dual core..

[virtualrain]

I had a brief discussion today with Tony and Raju about quad-core overclocking on this board... here's the outcome...

I'm going to try a new approach. If you read back a page, my previous approach was to set high voltages and a reasonably aggressive FSB and try to tune GTL that way. Well as you can imagine, that's like throwing darts in the dark. I ended up with rather Bizarre GTL settings that seem reasonably stable but I'm going to try it a different way this time.

I'm going to start with some aggressive voltages again, but this time, I'm going to start at 1.4V VTT and suggested GTL values with FSB=300MHz and work up in 10MHz increments. Every time I increase it and it fails stability testing (more on that below), I'm going to tweak GTL2 upwards a bit... since the key is to get Core 2/3 "in sync" with Core 0/1. When I find stable settings, I'll add another 10MHz. This might take awhile.

If my wacky GTL settings are the outcome again, it really means my core dies are not speaking well with each other via the FSB and I likely have a less-than-ideal CPU. I tended to agree that a good part of the problem in overclocking Kentsfields are the dual-die's are both trying to use the same bus and so synchronizing levels is critical. It may take some finesse to get them both talking to an overclocked FSB... that's the way it is.

As for stability, I've been encouraged to use OCCT as it apparently is more reliable and quicker than PRIME. This will be a tough one to let go of!

That's about all for now. Back to the drawing board... I'll report back when I have something useful.

[nugzo]

is anyone else having trouble getting 400fsb with an E6700 ive tried up to 1.4v on the northbridge but it gets more unstable after adding more than that. whats everyone getting with single dual core cpu's for fsb on these boards i think im doing something horribly wrong

475*8 on my E6600 with no issues. Make sure u have the C2D bios and not the Quad.

[xTr33m sammich!]

What kind of NB voltages are you guys using to get to 500fsb and beyond? What kind of heat is that generating? Is the board stable at 500fsb or beyond for Core2Duo, not quad?

[The Nemesis]

I thought about 490FSB was tops for this board due to its LT chipset. There are boards that have done 500FSB , but I think I remember Tony stating that 465FSB was the sweet spot & over 500 yeilds a massive drop in bandwith. I intend to lower the multiplier of my 6600 "B" to 8 X 465 since its already proven stable @ 412 X 9.

[xTr33m sammich!]

allright, I can work with that, only reason for this one is sli, you think running P965-S clock for clock with this 680iLT aside from sli as a benefit.. which one performs better? (running both raid-0(system) and raid-5(storage))

Srry about the newb Qs

[Wiggy McShades]

475*8 on my E6600 with no issues. Make sure u have the C2D bios and not the Quad.

what voltages are you using? and whats the northbridge temp?

[palese]

I had a brief discussion today with Tony and Raju about quad-core overclocking on this board... here's the outcome...

I'm going to try a new approach. If you read back a page, my previous approach was to set high voltages and a reasonably aggressive FSB and try to tune GTL that way. Well as you can imagine, that's like throwing darts in the dark. I ended up with rather Bizarre GTL settings that seem reasonably stable but I'm going to try it a different way this time.

I'm going to start with some aggressive voltages again, but this time, I'm going to start at 1.4V VTT and suggested GTL values with FSB=300MHz and work up in 10MHz increments. Every time I increase it and it fails stability testing (more on that below), I'm going to tweak GTL2 upwards a bit... since the key is to get Core 2/3 "in sync" with Core 0/1. When I find stable settings, I'll add another 10MHz. This might take awhile.

If my wacky GTL settings are the outcome again, it really means my core dies are not speaking well with each other via the FSB and I likely have a less-than-ideal CPU. I tended to agree that a good part of the problem in overclocking Kentsfields are the dual-die's are both trying to use the same bus and so synchronizing levels is critical. It may take some finesse to get them both talking to an overclocked FSB... that's the way it is.

As for stability, I've been encouraged to use OCCT as it apparently is more reliable and quicker than PRIME. This will be a tough one to let go of!

That's about all for now. Back to the drawing board... I'll report back when I have something useful.

virtualrain there is nothing wrong with your CPU trust me, just put it on a EVGA Rev1 and you will see.

I just wasted 4 more hours on this board to get a boot with minor OC and no luck. DFI can shove their GTL tweek

I can do 3.2 with this CPU 24/7 on the Evga with out ever touching the NB and running the CPU at 1.35v max. The DFI board is rock solid at everything stock I will give it that but thats not fun.

[virtualrain]

virtualrain there is nothing wrong with your CPU trust me, just put it on a EVGA Rev1 and you will see.

I just wasted 4 more hours on this board to get a boot with minor OC and no luck. DFI can shove their GTL tweek

I can do 3.2 with this CPU 24/7 on the Evga with out ever touching the NB and running the CPU at 1.35v max. The DFI board is rock solid at everything stock I will give it that but thats not fun.

I hear you! This board takes time, and even then, I'm not yet convinced it will yield optimum results.

I'm going to give this a go. Problem is, who trusts OCCT as a stability test? I'm not sure I trust it more than running a few instances of Windows Calculator. (EDIT: after using it for a bit, I'm convinced OCCT is running PRIME code under the covers anyway - it has a similar cycle of loading the CPU as PRIME does with different FFT sizes).

What do EVGA users use for testing Quad-Stability?

[Jobeo]

I hear you! This board takes time, and even then, I'm not yet convinced it will yield optimum results.

well ya that is the question in the end. will the fine tuning tweaks actually get us better results than with the other boards.

although it is frustrating and very bad PR that its hard to achieve even a moderate overclock without getting into complicated settings. if you can do it on the EVGA boards its obviously possible.

but i guess this is all expected. evga had a 6 month lead developing their BIOS. people have touted oskar wu as a genius though, at the moment its hard to justify. mis-labeling the GTL bios options and the PWM temp readout seem like silly mistakes.

[palese]

I want the last 11 hours of my life back This board is going in storage for the next 6 months like my Evga did until its fixed and the Evga is coming back with open arms
When will I ever learn

[virtualrain]

I want the last 11 hours of my life back This board is going in storage for the next 6 months like my Evga did until its fixed and the Evga is coming back with open arms
When will I ever learn

So palese, what CPU were you clocking on the DFI and what settings did you try?

Also, what were you able to achive on the EVGA?

I'd like to know your experience on both boards in more detail (as painful as it may be for you to re-live! ).

[Jobeo]

I want the last 11 hours of my life back

lol... i can relate. i went against my better judgement and tried a bit of oc'ing tonight. i got to a 350 FSB pretty easily with 1.4 VTT and the GTL's from the chart. multiplier at 8 so it really wasn't much of an overclock but was nice to see the FSB raised.

i bumped it to 360 and things didn't go too well so i'm done for the night.

on a related note am i the only one to have heard the shreiking beep and C1 post when the system is mad at me ? thankfully tonight i was able to clear it by holding down power / reset for 4 seconds. i'm back running stock woohoo 1 ! !

[vincey2kr1]

Still have my DFI in the box, after reading this post i'm afraid to open it... Anyone still interested in buying it pm

[nop]

I can do "almost" everything with my q6600@3.2 except prime. It failed very hard, shut itself off....

[Apollonas]

There are boards that have done 500FSB , but I think I remember Tony stating that 465FSB was the sweet spot & over 500 yeilds a massive drop in bandwith.

If I remember right this was the sweet spot for the ICFX 32000. Is it the same again?

[Jobeo]

I can do "almost" everything with my q6600@3.2 except prime. It failed very hard, shut itself off....

what FSB ?

[nop]

what FSB ?

9x356 (1424)

[The Nemesis]

If I remember right this was the sweet spot for the ICFX 32000. Is it the same again?

the NB chipset is the key to doing 500fsb, most will run 480 or so with a few doing 500 and higher. My board will do 480 no problem...500 no way but with the strap change at 500 that goes a lot looser why would i want too?.

raja hinted at 450fsb...sync mode, trust me thats where you want to run the board

you guys are all fixated with 500+fsb, you really should be looking at where the boards make the best speed and buy the cpu to suit.

I'm mistaken, It would seem 450FSB sync is what's hinted as being the performance spot. 465FSB was the RD600.

[nugzo]

what voltages are you using? and whats the northbridge temp?

Not sure of the NB temps, i had a 40mm fan on the HS, was cool to the touch. vcore 1.5v bios 1.46 after droop.

I can do "almost" everything with my q6600@3.2 except prime. It failed very hard, shut itself off....

Yeah same EXACT issue here. I yanked the DFI and re-installed the EVGA. 3600mhz (450*8) on quad no problems, definately no shut offs. Coming frome someone who has had every 680i released, the EVGA is by far the best for quad. The DFI and EVGA were neck and neck with the C2D though.

[djt]

It looks like the only advantage to this board over the Evga (which I already own) is a better layout and better cooling.

When I say better layout I mean when you are using two cards in SLI. With the Evga 680i I have to remove the top side heat sink from one of my 8800GTX KO’s to get my X-Fi card to fit in between. With the DFI board it looks like I will not have this problem.

Since I’m only going to use an X6800 with this motherboard I should probably keep it when it arrives.

[Wiggy McShades]

has anyone figured out how to tell weather their cpu needs a strong or weak driving strength? ive gotten no different results using both? would one be unstable while the other stable at the same speeds?

[Lood007]

Not sure of the NB temps, i had a 40mm fan on the HS, was cool to the touch. vcore 1.5v bios 1.46 after droop.



Yeah same EXACT issue here. I yanked the DFI and re-installed the EVGA. 3600mhz (450*8) on quad no problems, definately no shut offs. Coming frome someone who has had every 680i released, the EVGA is by far the best for quad. The DFI and EVGA were neck and neck with the C2D though.

I'm sure Mr. Wu is still tweaking this as we speak. As long as he sticks to it, I believe we'll see some good Quad OC in the future.