Legit Reviews

Ok so far i have had good luck right out of the box with this board. UNLIKE the abit ab9-pro.

I have noticed that the temperature runs hotter on this board then the other one but i am using core temp to monitor verses the Guru that was with the abit.

Does the temperature the temperature read different with coretemp or should i be worried with an idle temp of 55c?

i did replace the heatsinc compound after it overheated while loading windows and shut down. It reached 75c and turned off:(.

download and use nTune on the 680i SLI -- I think they updated it to work for temps... maybe they haven't as NVIDIA has been busy trying to fix the BIOS on the 680i SLI to make it SATA stable.

55C at idle is warm, but not 100% sure that program is reading the CPU correctly.

use coretemp, the board does not read the internal diode temp, the board reads a temp just above the CPU which is much much hotter. My computer via mobo is mid 60s were as coretemp reads mid 40s.If you don't trust 3rd party, Intel has there TAT software which does the same as coretemp.

that is the temp using core temp. I thought it was alittle bit high too. After playing hl2 for 3 hours lastnight with 4xanti and 4xantistropic filter and everything else set at the highest settings @ 1440x900 the temp only was at 57c and the video card was about the same. I am using stock cooling (at this point) so i am really watching the temps. Plan on upgrading the cooling and maybe adding a fan or 2 still.

Have checked the logs created from core temp and found that the highest temp the processor has reached is 67c. I think that is too high. It only happened one time on one core but still i am going to down clock it till i get the new cooler.

EDIT: Just checked the bios and the cpu temp there is only reading at 38-41c just like the other board read. I kind of wonder if the coretemp is working correctly.


yes yes yes......

WILL ADD PICS SOON

Ok downloaded the ntune and it works. the correct temp is 49c at idle.

Used ntune to find optimal settings for the video card and it clocked it to 641gpu/841memory which was over a hundred on both. Temp still the same range.

new benchmark scores
with processor at 3.0ghz per core and the memory at ddr2-750 at 2.1v

3DMark 2005 = 11764
3DMark 2003 = 25262
3DMark 2001se= 40024

watch my signature I will add the new scores in comparison to the old ones.

here are temps monitored while running the ntune stability testing for only 10 minutes. This also shows where the system idles at and the highest it reached during testing. Sorry for the horrible formatting but that is what it turned it into. I tried to add spaces but it just dropped them.

I wll run longer this week but this is on stock cooling:

core 3.2ghz @1.5v
ddr2 800 @2.2v
video @stock voltage but overclocked to 641/1244

Current Time CPU:(ºC) System:(ºC) GPU1:(ºC)

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Look about right for the factory HSF at 1.5V... With your voltage cranked up that high you are lucky to see 40's with that heat sink.

I have the cpu voltage at 1.5 but it is not getting that. I have disabled over voltage protection (i think). Also i havent gotten it to run stable yet at 3.2 for benchmarking, so I have to do some tuning. Maybe after i run some errands and go shoot some pool, I will tune it. I noticed that the ntune has a Tune system feature which will tweak everything for me and check for the optimum settings. I liked what it did for the video card so i might try that. I will set it to fine tune and see how well it does.

system is currently at 3.05 ghz 1.375v / ddr2@751 w/2.2v / bone stock video card @ 550/700. This board has so many adjustment areas it will take some time to roll a fat one outa it.

Off i go.

I am letting the nTune tweak the mother board and i am surprised at how agressive it is. It has taken the pci-e frequence from 2500mhz to 3750mhz on stock voltages. Thats 50%overclock. It hasnt even started on the video card it self or even the cpu. I will p[ost final clocks frequency's and then benchmark. Hopefully it will be a very large difference from what i have already.

Here is what nTune has done after i let it run for 3 hours.

pci-e frequency overclocked from 2500mhz to 4175mhz
processor voltage at 1.32
memory at 2.15

while it was doing its testing i was monitoring the frequency's the cpu/fsb/memory were being tested at: this is fkin goin to blow your socks off...... cpu 9348.501mhz / fsb 4674.251mhz / memory 2337.125mhz and it was testing for about a minute at that speed. And i do have a screen shot of that speed!!!! I did see 14693 mhz or something right in that area but 10 seconds at that speed got me a bsod lol now this is all automated by the NTUNE program all i did was monitor it.

Now i will run some benchmark numbers

[/b]

alright here are some numbers.
name ( stock value / running values)

cpu core (2130 / 3200.073mhz) cpu: ( 1.31 / 1.3563v)
fsb (1050 / 1600.394mhz) FSB: 1.2v
memory (800 / 800.204mhz ) memory: ( 2.1 / 2.1250v)
spp pci-e ( 2500 / 4050.000mhz ) ht(spp-mcp): 1.2v
mcp pci-e ( 2500 / 4175.000mhz ) pci-e: ( 1.2 / 1.3500v)
gpu core ( 550 / 636.000mhz ) nforce: 1.5v
gpu memory (700 / 1244.000mhz ) aux: 1.5v

most of these were set by the nTune i just hard set them so it loaded with them. the only thing i have to load everytime is the video card settings. check out the benchmark numbers

Due to how easily the board runs at 3ghz and stable, and with the numbers it puts out with the overclocked video card, I have decided to run this thing at 3.0ghz with the video card overclocked when i play something intense. Maybe later i will attempt to push the envelope.

I would recommend this system to someone wanting a fast pc that had a few bucks to spend. The performance is out standing IMO.

glad it worked out for you! I'm returning my 680i board as it won't even post half the time now.

who makes it? I have the EVGA one.

Just thought I should share some tidbits of advice for you all.

1. try and keep your CPU temps below 50 degrees C, if you do some conversions you can see that you begin running over 100 degrees feirenheit, this is getting into the danger range. Core 2's have maximum temps of around 60 degrees C, temps higher than that can cause damage.

2. NEVER use Ntune, it cannot calibrate your motherboard nearly as effectively as you can be hand. Also it takes away half the fun! Overclocking is about knowing your equipment, knowing its limits, and generally spending hours and days perfecting that FSB speed, RAM timings, and various bus speeds; and ringing out every last mhz from your equipment.

trueg50 wrote:Just thought I should share some tidbits of advice for you all.

Core 2's have maximum temps of around 60 degrees C, temps higher than that can cause damage.

To clarify, you are talking about idle temps right? Since stock settings on most c2d's I have seen run over 60C constantly during load. If the maximum allowed by Intel is 60C during load they would have to recall most c2d's out there.

trueg50 wrote: 2. NEVER use Ntune, it cannot calibrate your motherboard nearly as effectively as you can be hand. Also it takes away half the fun! Overclocking is about knowing your equipment, knowing its limits, and generally spending hours and days perfecting that FSB speed, RAM timings, and various bus speeds; and ringing out every last mhz from your equipment.

The hell with that, im sure its fun but my time is too valuable to be sitting infront of the pc trying to squeeze every last "milli"hz from it. If you want to die alone thats fine, but i am looking to have a little fun, bang a few chicks , drink a few hundred gallons of liquor and have some kids before im done . wasting 4 weeks of saturday nights reloading my system because i cranked it up too much isnt worth my time.

noac wrote:

trueg50 wrote:Just thought I should share some tidbits of advice for you all.

Core 2's have maximum temps of around 60 degrees C, temps higher than that can cause damage.

To clarify, you are talking about idle temps right? Since stock settings on most c2d's I have seen run over 60C constantly during load. If the maximum allowed by Intel is 60C during load they would have to recall most c2d's out there.

umm yea they shoud not be running that hot under stock settings, I have seen inproperly placed Intel HSF's get to 70 degrees, but after removing them and putting them back, it drops far below that. something like 83 C is max before thermal throttling kicks it. just remember, at 100C water boils, and computer component you cannot touch without burning your self, is too hot.

trueg50 wrote: umm yea they shoud not be running that hot under stock settings, I have seen inproperly placed Intel HSF's get to 70 degrees, but after removing them and putting them back, it drops far below that.

I actually see the problem lying with IHS rather than HSF. The C2D are really poorly made and sometimes lapping is the only solution besides RMA. In real life I still haven't seen a C2D idling under 40 C and loading under 60 C that was not lapped.

noac wrote:

trueg50 wrote: umm yea they shoud not be running that hot under stock settings, I have seen inproperly placed Intel HSF's get to 70 degrees, but after removing them and putting them back, it drops far below that.

I actually see the problem lying with IHS rather than HSF. The C2D are really poorly made and sometimes lapping is the only solution besides RMA. In real life I still haven't seen a C2D idling under 40 C and loading under 60 C that was not lapped.

I'm very sorry to hear this. It must be that you haven't seen many C2D OC stats...Maybe check out some other forums and I can assure you that you will see nothing but great results from the C2D chips. Here is a link to my cpu-z validated results, with just a zalman 9500 HSF...
http://i132.photobucket.com/albums/q17/ ... eenie9.jpg
http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=171109
This is with orthos running straight for over 3 hours (have done it for over 8 hours also) at 100% load. All without any lapping done.