EVGA 680i LT SLI: NVIDIA's 680i Cost Reduced
by Gary Key on March 28, 2007 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Features and Specifications
The NVIDIA reference BIOS offers a moderate level of options available for tweaking the board with emphasis placed on the available memory settings. We found in memory testing that switching to manual settings and changing the tCAS, tRCD, tRP, and tRAS was required to ensure optimum performance as our performance results will show shortly.
Compared to the standard 680i BIOS the ability to control the HT and MCP voltages is not available, and FSB and SPP voltages are limited to 1.4V. The inability to change FSB VTT or GTL Ref voltage settings limited our overclocking results to some degree, but more importantly the lack of higher FSB/SPP voltages basically capped our board sample at 500FSB.
One other issue we have with the "Lite" BIOS is that memory voltages are limited to .10V increments meaning that in several cases we could not fine tune our ProMOS or Elpida modules for optimum performance. While we understand NVIDIA's desire not to have this board compete directly with the 680i boards, some of the cuts made are generally frustrating for extracting the best performance out of this board.
EVGA utilizes the standard NVIDIA nTune system utility but in yet another weird BIOS decision the ability to control voltages and fan speeds is non-existent. This ensures that any significant changes required for overclocking the board will have to be done via the BIOS. This is an operation that most people normally do anyway when overclocking, but one of the strengths of NVIDIA's reference boards has been their tight integration with nTune. The inability to control even the CPU fan is inexcusable considering this is a designed by NVIDIA board. Hopefully, the next BIOS release will address these two issues, and we certainly would like see additional voltage controls and automatic fan speed control for the other chassis fan headers. Of course, NVIDIA could really surprise us and offer fan control over the active chipset coolers.
| EVGA 680i LT SLI | |
| Market Segment: | High-End Performance - $199 |
| CPU Interface: | Socket T (Socket 775) |
| CPU Support: | LGA775-based Pentium 4, Celeron D, Pentium D, Pentium EE, Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Extreme |
| Chipset: | NVIDIA 680i LT SPP (C55 P-N-A2) + 680i LT MCP (570 SLI MCP) |
| Bus Speeds: | Auto, 400 to 2500 QDR (100~625) in 1MHz increments |
| Memory Ratios: | Auto, Sync., 1:1, 5:4, 3:2 |
| Memory Speed: | 400MHz~1400MHz in various increments |
| PCIe 1&2 Speeds: | 100MHz~200MHz in 1MHz Increments |
| HT Multipliers: | 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x |
| Core Voltage: | Auto, 0.80000V to 1.60000 in 0.00625V increments |
| FSB Options: | Auto, Linked, Unlinked |
| CPU Clock Multiplier: | Auto, 6x-11x in 1X increments - Core 2 Duo, downwards unlocked, Core 2 Extreme 6x-60X |
| DRAM Voltage: | Auto, 1.80V to 2.50 in .10V increments |
| DRAM Timing Control: | Optimal, Expert - 10 DRAM Timing Options |
| NB Voltage: | Auto, 1.2V, 1.3V, 1.4V |
| FSB Voltage: | Auto, 1.2V, 1.3V, 1.4V |
| Memory Slots: | Four 240-pin DDR2 DIMM Slots Dual-Channel Configuration, DDR2-400, 533, 667, 800 Regular Unbuffered Memory to 8GB Total |
| Expansion Slots: | 2 - PCIe X16 (2-x16 electrical for SLI or Multi-GPU) 2 - PCIe x1 2 - PCI Slot 2.2 |
| Onboard SATA/RAID: | 6 SATA 3Gbps Ports - 570 SLI MCP (RAID 0,1, 0+1, 5, JBOD) |
| Onboard IDE: | 1 ATA133/100/66 Port (2 drives) - 570 SLI MCP |
| Onboard USB 2.0/IEEE-1394: | 8 USB 2.0 Ports - 4 I/O Panel - 4 via Headers 2 Firewire 400 Ports by TI TSB43AB22A - 1 I/O Panel, 1 via Header |
| Onboard LAN: | NVIDIA Gigabit Ethernet - PCIe - Marvell 88E1116 PHY - 1 port via 570 SLI MCP |
| Onboard Audio: | Realtek ALC885 - 8-channel HD audio codec |
| Power Connectors: | ATX 24-pin, 8-pin EATX 12V, 4-pin 12V Molex |
| I/O Panel: | 1 x PS/2 Keyboard 1 x PS/2 Mouse 1 x S/PDIF Optical - Out 1 x IEEE 1394a 1 x Audio Panel 1 x RJ45 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 |
| BIOS Revision: | Award 721N0P01 |
| Board Revision: | v1.0 |
The NVIDIA reference BIOS offers a moderate level of options available for tweaking the board with emphasis placed on the available memory settings. We found in memory testing that switching to manual settings and changing the tCAS, tRCD, tRP, and tRAS was required to ensure optimum performance as our performance results will show shortly.
Compared to the standard 680i BIOS the ability to control the HT and MCP voltages is not available, and FSB and SPP voltages are limited to 1.4V. The inability to change FSB VTT or GTL Ref voltage settings limited our overclocking results to some degree, but more importantly the lack of higher FSB/SPP voltages basically capped our board sample at 500FSB.
One other issue we have with the "Lite" BIOS is that memory voltages are limited to .10V increments meaning that in several cases we could not fine tune our ProMOS or Elpida modules for optimum performance. While we understand NVIDIA's desire not to have this board compete directly with the 680i boards, some of the cuts made are generally frustrating for extracting the best performance out of this board.
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| Click to enlarge |
EVGA utilizes the standard NVIDIA nTune system utility but in yet another weird BIOS decision the ability to control voltages and fan speeds is non-existent. This ensures that any significant changes required for overclocking the board will have to be done via the BIOS. This is an operation that most people normally do anyway when overclocking, but one of the strengths of NVIDIA's reference boards has been their tight integration with nTune. The inability to control even the CPU fan is inexcusable considering this is a designed by NVIDIA board. Hopefully, the next BIOS release will address these two issues, and we certainly would like see additional voltage controls and automatic fan speed control for the other chassis fan headers. Of course, NVIDIA could really surprise us and offer fan control over the active chipset coolers.
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MrWizard6600 - Thursday, March 29, 2007 - link
dont know the full details, but the newest P26 Bios from EVGA Removed LinkBoost support“LinkBoost was removed from nForce 680i SLI because it did not show significant demonstrable benefit in games. We had hoped newer games would take advantage of this additional bandwidth but this has not been the case. Please note that future BIOS upgrades will only remove the automatic overclocking component of LinkBoost. Users can still manually overclock the PCI-Express and HyperTransport buses in the BIOS."
SniperWulf - Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - link
Any chance I can get that registry key that you deleted after the nv4_disp crash?yacoub - Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - link
It's time to start recommending Supreme Commander to be the RTS game test choice. Now that there's a new RTS game that can crush systems (SupCom) the way FEAR did for FPS games for the last couple years, a game that makes use of multiple cores at that, we should start to see it used in the suite of games in future motherboard, cpu, and gpu tests. Perhaps Anandtech have already started planning for this?yyrkoon - Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - link
Well, it is not an RTS game, but one I play frequently should also be used to test gaming rigs in my humble opinon. Titan Quest (Immortal Throne if deemed nessisary).My gaming Rig is not top of the line, but it is no slouch, and this game constantly drags in areas that are low light areas, or are outside, and night time. Anyhow, and game that brings my opteron 1210 / ABIT NF-M2 nView / 2 GB DDR2 6400 memory, eVGA 7600GT KO to a crawl, SHOULD be used as a benchmark, at least once in a while. F.E.A.R does not lag like this game does on my system . . .
Stele - Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - link
I agree to an extent, as the current test suite's figures are starting to show their age a wee bit... 100+ FPS, as Quake ended up with newer CPUs/GPUs. Having said that, Anandtech was probably trying to ensure consistency in its tests, so that at the very least, past test results for other products can always be quite easily compared over time. Perhaps in the near future we might see it yet! :)JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - link
I believe Gary is looking at benching with Supreme Commander. That's one of the games that will be added in future reviews, as far as I know.yacoub - Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - link
Awesome, glad to hear that! One can see the benefit to maintaining benchmark titles for as long as possible to allow the greatest comparison back to past reviews. On the up side, SupCom looks to easily task systems well into the future (much like FEAR has thus far since its release) and would be an excellent choice for the RTS benchmark game. :)yyrkoon - Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - link
Firstly, I have to get this out. It is a completely LAME excuse for nVidia, eVGA, Foxconn, or whomever, to 'claim' the reason this board does not have passive cooling (OTES or equivelent), is to help cut costs. 20 bux less, and they rip out passive cooling ? Lame. Take ABITs NF-M2 nView $85usd , including passive cooling, and moderate other features. Granted, it is based on the NF4 chipset, but who cares, it has passive cooling, and loads of other features for the price.I have to agree somewhat with the first poster, this board is dead, before it even reaches market. Crippled features, missing other features, all for to save $20-$50 usd. Sorry nVidia, and whomever else, but you have not only completely wasted your time, but ours as well, for having to read a review on such a shitty product.
yacoub - Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - link
very much agree. the passive cooling is (and should be) an integral feature of current generation motherboards. there's no reason ANY motherboard released today should require active northbridge (or southbridge) chipset cooling (unless you're overclocking, obviously).yyrkoon - Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - link
One thing I did keep wondering the whole time I was reading the article, and you were mentioning how the BIOS was basically a crippled version of the full blown i680 SLI version was: 'I wonder how soon someone would mod a BIOS version based on the i680 SLI chipset BIOS, to add removed 'features' such as certain voltage settings, etc.'Also, Jarred, or whomever else would like to answer, how hot does the PWM section of this motherboard run ? Seems lately, dual core on up motherboards tend to run hot in the PWM.