The 680i conundrum!

[Skrips]

I have been at this for a while; seaching for a solid 680i board to go with the pile of super-expensive hardwarre I have sitting on the floor in my house, waiting for a MoBo. There has been alot of talk about the issues with the reference designs, and an appology from Nvidia, as well as the weird behavior from Asus regarding their P5N32-E bourads (and now the Plus model as well). Frankly, I am sick of reading about it, and I am sick of waiting for a manufacturer to give us a good product. I just want to get my rig running, now.

Then I read this and everything changed. My points is this: can Gigabyte's GA-N680SLI-DQ6 do it? Can they make a solid 680i solution without all the doubt many of us have been experiencing when trying to choose a board? Frankly, I have never used a Gigabyte MoBo in ANY of my systems, and I am a little hesitent to bet one way or another. Maybe some of you have used their boards in the past, and can speak from experience.

So, let us get a discussion going, and maybe we can try to work it out and see wether or not this board will finally be what we have all been asking for from a 680i board. Here's for hoping...

 

[imported_mouser]

I spent several weeks bouncing around the 680i threads not being entirely satisified with the new owner feedback on any of the existing boards. Like you also had all the parts sitting awaiting the mombo.

Just had an Abit IN9 680i delivered today, based largely on very positive reviews from early owners in Europe. Hopefully this turns out to have been the right decision, will get the first empirical evidence the next few days of testing.

I would hope all the new boards coming out now like the Gigabyte should have a lower number of initial issues compared to the early boards since their development teams have had longer to tweak and stabilize their code prior to release.

 

[StrangerThanFiction]

The IN9 certainly looks interesting, but of course there is not much info yet. It sounds to be easier to set up and get running than earlier 680i products. There are few complaints already but also positive buzz. It seems to be getting evaluated as more stable and easier to set up than most of the others. Even people that, generally speaking, had a favorable opinion of the Asus boards often made comments to the effect that they were "not for n00bs".

What is it about the Gigabyte board that distinguishes it from the others? (Besides the fact that it is not yet available so no-one has complained. )

 

[Skrips]

Originally posted by: StrangerThanFiction
What is it about the Gigabyte board that distinguishes it from the others? (Besides the fact that it is not yet available so no-one has complained. )

Well, I just get the feeling that maybe, just maybe, the new Gigabyte board will end up being the most stable of the bunch ofr the time being. Its not really that indeistinguishable from the rest, though like Asus they are not basing the board on the Nvidia reference design.

Hopefully we get some info soon, as I am getting very impatient; I want my new rig to be running!

@mouser
You should keep us informed as to how that Abit board works out for you. I would be interested to hear wether or not you have the same reported problems as the rest of the users do, from what I have heard.

 

[StrangerThanFiction]

Ah Ok, general good feeling about Gigabyte quality? Fair enough. Although isn't the board made by a joint venture between Gigabyte and Asus called Gigabyte United? Asus and Abit have good reputations too but the 680i seems to be a truculent beast.

I may get an IN9 as well --I kinda have to do something soon (as my old rig is going to pieces), even if there are better boards on the horizon. Abit's user forum is certainly a lot more active than the Asus one, so there seems like a much better likelihood of getting answers to any questions that come up.

 

[Sylvanas]

Gigabyte have a solid reputation of delivering good boards for the enthusiasts with high quality components, I too am waiting for this board to come to the shelves near me, I have owned Giga boards in the past and one thing I can say is excellent support in bios revisions - so heres hoping

 

[Skrips]

Originally posted by: Sylvanas
Gigabyte have a solid reputation of delivering good boards for the enthusiasts with high quality components, I too am waiting for this board to come to the shelves near me, I have owned Giga boards in the past and one thing I can say is excellent support in bios revisions - so heres hoping

Sounds good. Only thing I can say is this: whereas I have bought Asus boards in the past, I am NOT a fanboy, and I will seriously consider the Abit IN9 or the new Gigabyte board when it comes out. Might pick up the IN9 now, and see if it works, and if I have issues, return it and get the Gigabyte later. Just refreshing to actually SEE these boards available, unlike the mysterious Asus boards which seem to appear and disappear at random, and no one knows why.

I just don't think Asus is telling us everything, and I will NOT pay that kind of money to them without being told the whole story. Bad move Asus, bad move...

 

[Fallen Kell]

My only question with the Gigabyte will be about the CPU cooler mount points and how the heatsink/heatpipe on the back will affect CPU heatsinks like the Tuniq Tower 120 which I have sitting in a box waiting to be used along with 2 gigs of Crucial BLK2KIT 12864AA1005 (PC2-8000 CL5) memory, a new tube of MX-1, a Lian Li PC-201B, a 20x DVD+/-RW DL Lightscribe, an 850W OCZ GameStream Powersupply, 4x 500GB Seagate 7200 SATAII hard drives, 1x 150GB WD Raptor 10k RPM hard drive, and an ordered Promise SuperTrak EX8350 8 port SATAII RAID card.

 

[Skrips]

Well, as soon as I choose a mobo I will be running stock just to make sure everything works ok, and I think I will stay stock until I get my second BFG 8800GTX. I just want to make sure I dont kill anything before I decide to crank it up.

As it stands, this is what ive got so far:
Core2Etreme x6800
Kingston HyperX KHX6400D2LLK2/2GN (4x1GB stick, 2 kits)
Vigor MACS MonsoonII CPU cooler
BFG 8800GTX x 1 (for now, ordering the second one soon as I get everything working)
850W Cooler MAster power supply
Cooler Mster Stacker 830 (Nvidia Edition)

Aside from the RAM, which NO ONE seems to use for some reason, I think I have a great setup waiting for a MoBo. Just gotta choose one...