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

[C-N]

C-N should that triangle be removed before attaching heatsink?

Officially I don't know & DFI dont make it very clear but the way I saw it there was no way the heatsink would sit level/flat if it were left on so I took it off & my temps are great.

Craig.

[AlphaHeX]

Ok, then I will reaply my heatsink for the 2nd time

[volve]

I actually left the little triangle ON. I think it depends which orientation you use for the stock heatpipe cooler, it definitely lined-up with the edge of the triangle in the orientation I used. (Tower farthest away from CPU.)

[AlphaHeX]

Can someone tell me what idle/load temps should I expect with Tuniq Tower (Arctic Silver 5) and E6600 CPU at default speed and voltage 1.28? and with 3.2 overclock and voltage 1.4?

[C-N]

I actually left the little triangle ON. I think it depends which orientation you use for the stock heatpipe cooler, it definitely lined-up with the edge of the triangle in the orientation I used. (Tower farthest away from CPU.)

Mine must have been stuck on wrong then as my triangle bit was near the PCI-E slot & if you fitted the heatsink tower to PCI-E slot the you ended up with a triple foam pad thickness PCI-E side & double on the CPU side.

I took my triangle off & tested the board & I then realised the 680 chip is not in the centre of the 4 hook mounting but rather its off centre toward the CPU socket & logically I figured the NB heatsink heatpipe would be better over the chip than off to the side so I rotated the heatsink.

My temps are way better tower to CPU socket rather than tower to PCI-E.

Regards

Craig.

[Raja@ASUS]

Yes, but we have to keep also in mind that this is a ddr2 board. If DFI wants to stay in the game, they should go out really fast with this board just to be in time with ddr3 also.

DDR2 is still where the action is at performance wise, the latencies on all current ddr3 chips are still too loose to compete with good ddr2, couple that with high priced ddr3, ie $600 or so for a kit and you begin to see the reasoning. Not to mention the ddr2 true 1066 parts are on the way. I don't believe we will be seeing any truly worthy ddr 3 until the end of this year..

regards
Raja

[Borgod]

I would have said even taking into consideration you have a quad & your in sunny Perth your NB temp is too high. I can only just hit mid 50's with loads of NB voltage & tight ddr900 1t under full load most of the time my rig runs 45-50oC.

silly question but did you remove the extra little foam triangle from the NB before you put the heatsink on & what thermal compound are you using ?

Craig.

Previously I left the triangle attached, but yesterday I removed the triangle and it made no difference. It wasn't easy removing the triangle without making a mess of the foam surrounding it so I'm thinking it's not supposed to be removed.
I'd like it if someone could remove all the foam together and test temps

However my 70mm fan over my PWM's has made a big difference as my QX6700 was prime stable 8 hours at 3550Mhz over night temps were just under 70degrees aswell which is excellent for me.

Tonight I shoot for 3600Mhz.

raju I know you watercool your NB together with your SLI 8800GTX's with a PA120.3. How do you think it would effect temps if I just used a PA160 ? Im considering SLI and already have the PA160 mounted and ready to go. I need to find another DDC+ however since two have been returned under warranty already

[Jobeo]

hrmm... the extra triangle on mine peeled off very easily. like it wasn't attached to anything. i'm not sure why it was there to begin with. once it was gone the pad on the NB HS was fully intact...

when you say 70c borgod are you referring to the NB or the cpu cores? what temps do your cores get to and what kinda cooling ?

[volve]

@C-N:

Well, I had to rotate mine as my Enzotech Ultra-X doesn't permit the tower to be CPU-side vs. PCIe-side.

I would say temperatures seem fairly reasonable, although I'll await a full stable BIOS update so they've got the labeling round the right way before I get terribly concerned.

[Borgod]

CPU temps on load while priming is just under 70degrees with 20degrees ambient. This is with a lapped QX6700, Fuzion block, DDC+ with Petras top and a PA120.2 radiator and 1/2" tubing. This is at a voltage of 1.45625 + 1.02%

NB temps vary from 70-80 degrees whether idling or on load it doesnt matter.
This is with NB heatsink mounted both ways, with a 70mm or an 80mm fan attached... no difference with the side of the cass off. AS5 TIM (thin layer) used also. voltage of NB at 1.52v

The temps don't vary a great deal which tells me the Heatsink IS making contact with the NB, but just doing a poor job of cooling it. I want to remove one layer of the foam, but Im not game enough

[Grinch]

my NB is at 38C right now watercooling with swiftech mcw30...

[Borgod]

What else is in your loop Grinch?

[virtualrain]

I tried lowering my voltages today, one at a time and seeing if the OC was still good. I played with CPU, NB, and RAM voltages only. I left the SB, VDT, and GTL voltages alone. Here are my findings:

- To run my CPU at 400x9, requires max Vcore (set 1.6V get 1.55V or 1.50 under load).
- With RAM timings relaxed and running 2T, it was stable with lower NB voltage (i.e. 1.47V) and RAM voltage (i.e. 2.1V).
- With RAM timings relaxed and running 1T, my OC needs NB to be at 1.6V actual (set to 1.74 or max) and RAM at 2.3V actual to be stable.
- Tightening timings at 1T requires no extra voltage.

Hence, the bottom line for me is that my CPU is about as maxed out as it can get and still be PRIME stable. I appear to be FSB limited as I can't boot at 440x8 but I can boot at 430x9. I can't get stable at 430 though, it would require radical cooling and more voltage than I care to dial in.

Running 4GB of RAM at 1T is clearly challenging for this board (maybe any board). It requires me to max the NB voltage (which has terrible droop) and run my RAM at max allowable voltage (according to Mushkin).

So, no matter what tweaking I do, I don't think I'm going to improve this overclock. Fortunately, my volt modded 8800GTX should be here any day so I'll have to get onto that next.

Comments/Opinions welcomed.

[virtualrain]

Question: has anyone noticed any performance improvement with the 521 bios or was it just a bug fix release (and a small set of bugs at that)?

[Borgod]

Cant say I've really noticed any improvement in overclocking.
Although I hit 3550Mhz Prime Stable lastnight 8hrs, whereas before it was only prime stable 1.5hours but I have played with voltage and GTL settings since then.

One odd thing I found.
12x300 = 3600Mhz doesnt boot into windows
11x327 = 3598Mhz has no problem at all and is currently priming as we speak.

You're a lucky man to have those Mushkin sticks. I wonder how 4x1GB sticks would go, considering how much this board dislikes 1T in those orange RAM slots.

[C-N]

- With RAM timings relaxed and running 2T, it was stable with lower NB voltage (i.e. 1.47V) and RAM voltage (i.e. 2.1V).
- With RAM timings relaxed and running 1T, my OC needs NB to be at 1.6V actual (set to 1.74 or max) and RAM at 2.3V actual to be stable.
- Tightening timings at 1T requires no extra voltage.

Thats very interesting to know out of interest how much performance do you gain at 1t compared to 2t.

I had a little play last night & run 465 x 8 sync 4.3.3.6 2T with just 1.57v NB & 2.30v on the RAM set in BIOS (2.22v in Windows) which is more than I need but just added a bit to be on the safe side whilst playing.

I still got 11500mb/s & 46ns latency in Everest which is only a couple of hundred mb/s off what I can do with these DIMMS @ 1t.

Craig.

[Grinch]

What else is in your loop Grinch?

I am running 2 seperate loops:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...30&postcount=1


1st loop is dtek fuzion...petras pump...pa120.3
2nd loop is petras pump...swiftech mcw30...ek full cover gpu...pa120.2

[xTr33m sammich!]

Got up, out of bed, somethings wrong

My box is hung on a post, Look at BIOS, settings are whacked, shut down, clear cmos, back to bios.. setting thins back up and checking, my mems are set at 3.04v!?! why!?! quick to power down clearcmos and nuthin, "code88"
now one stick gets code 88 and the other beeps and hangs at code 31..
I surely did not set vdimm to 3.04v I run always at 2.2v
The clear cmos should have given me 1.9v as always.
But it was at 3.04v for moments and it took my ram. 2x1GB ballistix ddr1000.
Now I've got an RMA with NewEgg, but I think I would preffer DFI taking care of it.

tested with different ram works again, no other damage as far as I can tell atm.

[Grinch]

Got up, out of bed, somethings wrong

My box is hung on a post, Look at BIOS, settings are whacked, shut down, clear cmos, back to bios.. setting thins back up and checking, my mems are set at 3.04v!?! why!?! quick to power down clearcmos and nuthin, "code88"
now one stick gets code 88 and the other beeps and hangs at code 31..
I surely did not set vdimm to 3.04v I run always at 2.2v
The clear cmos should have given me 1.9v as always.
But it was at 3.04v for moments and it took my ram. 2x1GB ballistix ddr1000.
Now I've got an RMA with NewEgg, but I think I would preffer DFI taking care of it.

tested with different ram works again, no other damage as far as I can tell atm.

Holy $hit....that's not good...so it was running fine and then...all the sudden it overvolts your ram to 3.04V...on it's own?

[xTr33m sammich!]

Thats about all I can figure out, 3.04v right after clearing CMOS via jumper. I've never set it past 2.4v personally, and that was some cheapo dell 2x256MB ddr533@1066.

[Grinch]

wow....hope they are working on some new bios's for this...

[Wiggy McShades]

has anyone gotten their board to report proper temps, i have the latest beta bios and i still have a huge issue with temp readings. my cpu temp is 50 idle and 53 loaded north bridge is 40 idle and 43 loaded... this is water cooled and ive remounted the nb and cpu block twice and both times they were making proper contact. also my on board nic's stopped working randomly but thats totally unrelated.



although this is with a balck ice stealth gt 360 and an mp-05 sp, not the water cooling in my sig. also the temps i said im getting are both at 3.8ghz and at stock speeds.

[Praz]

The 05/04 beta bios corrected this issue.

[Wiggy McShades]

The 05/04 beta bios corrected this issue.

thats the bios i have yet my temps still are no different between load and idle.

[C-N]

has anyone gotten their board to report proper temps

My board & Smartguardian reports temps just fine using the 521 BIOS.

Regards

Craig.