Where Are The Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6 Motherboards?

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Fallen Kell

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
6,095
459
126
Originally posted by: TheBeagle
Hello Mr. Fallen Kell.

Yep, I know where to buy one. Look here: Sharka Computers. The Item # is: zm-cs2, and it sells for $6.95 (USD). How's that for service?

I believe that you can still keep the Crazy-Cool-2 backplate in place and mount the Tuniq unit. I was personally thinking of buying an extra couple of those mounting kits, since a number of Zalman units use them, and the plastic backplate is rather easy to cut the four rounded corners off and custom mount the unit. Hope that helps. TheBeagle


SWEET!!! Thanks. I have been looking for the last 4 hours trying to find where I could get this. I knew I had seen someone post it earlier, but for the life of me, I could not find the post. It doesn't help that Zalman doesn't list these on their site at ALL. And any/all searches on the net for "Zalman backplate", "Zalman replacement parts", or "775 backplate", etc., etc., only turned up complete heatsink/fans, not the mounting bracket/backplate.

I ordered 2 (just in case I screw one up). Now to measure how long my mounting studs are for my case. I think I have 1/4" standoffs (which is just over 6mm). I hope they will work, as I do not think the I/O backplate will fit if I use the larger standoffs (8.5mm?).... Well, I will see how easy/hard it is too modify the backplate.

What exactly did you do to your backplate TheBeagle? From looking at them online, did you file down the area that would cover the crazy cool 2 heatsink and just lay it over the heatsink? Or did you do something else? Have any pics or detailed discriptions? Thanks in advance, and thanks again on where to get the backplate.
 

ALV7

Member
Mar 31, 2007
28
0
0
Damn i should have gotten myself a 1200watt TT TP PSU hahaha, anyhow i guess ill just stick to 2x 8800 GTS 640MB cards for SLI . Thanks though for the advice Beagle. yet i read from other reviews from another site that you could possibly Quad SLI GTXs on a 850watt PSU but most probably it would be very unstable.

I guess getting an extra SLI bridge for Quad is out of the question, oh well..

And where i live it get pretty warm during the day and to make it more complicated i dont have an aircon to cool my room down just a fan hahahaha.
 

TheBeagle

Senior member
Apr 5, 2005
508
0
0
Good Morning Everyone.

It looks like the folks here on this Forum are not the only ones that think that the new GA-N680SLI-DQ6 board is a WINNER!! Thanks to a heads up from our resident guru, Mr. Gary, here's a link to the latest review on this board: TweakTown Review of GA-N680SLI-DQ6. A 9.5 out of a possible 10 is not a bad rating at all. I believe we have all made a good choice here. And who knows, with a little further refinement of the BIOS, we might get damn near a perfect 10! Enjoy. TheBeagle
 

TheBeagle

Senior member
Apr 5, 2005
508
0
0
Hello Again Mr. Fallen Kell.

Don't file down anything. This is a very simple mod. Look at the plastic backplate from the Zalman mounting kit, and you will notice that in each of the four corners, the molding of that plate has a clearly defined rounded area. Within those rounded corners is a pre-installed metal nut which corresponds to the screw that comes through the board from the topside. The corner mounting screws pass through a hole in each of the four corners of the Zalman top mounting bracket, then through the board, and then into the receiving nut embedded in the Zalman bottom mounting plate.

Obviously, if you attempt to place the full Zalman bottom mounting plate on top of the existing Gigabyte Crazy-Cool 2 heatsink plate, the whole thing would be much too thick to be able to clear the motherboard mounting studs in most computer cases. And, all that rigidity is unnecessary, since whatever extra rigidity that might be needed to support the board from twisting/warping, is already supplied by the Crazy-Cool heatsink plate, which is itself adhered to and screwed to the bottom of the board.

So, what you want to accomplish is to use the benefit of the four rounded corners, with the embedded nuts, to secure the CPU cooler (whatever one you're using) to the board. The rounded corners even have a slightly raised area around each hole where the screw passes through to reach the embedded nut, that locks the whole works nice and tight into the mounting hole in the motherboard.

Therefore, just take a sharp hobby knife (Xacto knife, etc) and carefully cut those four rounded corner areas, with the embedded nuts, off the Zalman bottom mounting plate, and then further shave one of the cut-off corners down a bit more to fit in the pre-drilled hole on the Crazy-Cool heatsink plate, and then just mount the heatsink as you normally would do. It's really quite simple, and once you take a minute to look at the actual parts from the Zalman mounting kit, you'll immediately know what I am attempting to describe in this note. I don't know if you can use the Zalman upper mounting bracket as well, since I've never actually seen the cooler you intend on using. However, you may find that the upper bracket works, or can be modified to work.

Th first time I saw one of these Zalman mounting kits I was a bit skeptical, but after I used it once, I was convinced that it was a superbly engineered and designed item. Good luck and enjoy the mounting kit - it works! TheBeagle
 

eklock2000

Senior member
Jan 11, 2007
292
0
0
Finally, after 5 years with a socket 478 Intel 845 board and a Radeon 9700 Pro, my new build is on it's way...

Giga 680i-DQ6 - ClubIT.com $303 - 9 left in-stock at time of order 8am PST.
EVGA 8800GTX
E6600
Crucial Ballistix PC8000
Corsair HW620

To all...Should I stick with what's delivered with the Board in terms of the BIOS, or flash to the final F3 right away or Beta F4? I am not interested in overclocking right away, just need to get up and running quickly.

Also, I'm assuming I'll go with the latest 8800 drivers...any other suggestions welcome.

Finally, do one set of slots for the RAM work better than others? Any and all tips would be appreciated as it has been a while since I've built something.

Thank you,

EK2K
 

bka4u2c

Senior member
Mar 17, 2006
551
0
0
Originally posted by: eklock2000
To all...Should I stick with what's delivered with the Board in terms of the BIOS, or flash to the final F3 right away or Beta F4? I am not interested in overclocking right away, just need to get up and running quickly.

Also, I'm assuming I'll go with the latest 8800 drivers...any other suggestions welcome.

Finally, do one set of slots for the RAM work better than others? Any and all tips would be appreciated as it has been a while since I've built something.

Thank you,

EK2K

I usually flash to the latest BIOS before doing anything else. It shouldn't matter which set of RAM slots you use. I typically use 1&3 or 1&2, which ever is setup for dual channel when using only two sticks of memory.

 

TheBeagle

Senior member
Apr 5, 2005
508
0
0
Good Afternoon Mr. EKlock.

Glad to see you took the leap of faith. I truly believe that you will be pleased with the result (but maybe not so pleased with the slight temporary decease to your pocketbook - just switch to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a couple of weeks to make up the difference in overspent funds, like I did - LOL). As far as the BIOS is concerned, at a minimum, flash the BIOS with the F3 version. However, you could try the F4b as well. Gary's note seems to indicate that the F4 Final BIOS is just days away (hopefully), so if that's available, I'd certainly go with that one. There's a very important reason for using the latest BIOS, namely, it will be the initial guiding force to assist the operating system during the initial install.

Although you can certainly go forward or backward with BIOS revisions, considering the very discrete issues concerning SATA and memory performance that were at least troublesome in the earlier iterations of the BIOS, those matters have been significantly reduced or eliminated in the subsequent revisions. So in order to get off on the best possible footing when initially installing the OS, you should consider using the latest BIOS.

As far as the memory slots are concerned, just follow the color code. I would personally utilize the first color coded pair, but that's not mandatory. Also, spend a few extra bucks to buy a good CPU cooler for your board. I'd suggest the Zalman 9700. That way, if and/or when you want to goose up the proc a little or a lot, you'll already have the proper cooling system in place and won't have to disassemble and reassemble things in the case. Enjoy. TheBeagle
 

cdfire

Member
Feb 23, 2007
159
0
0
F3 BIOS, offical F4 should be out soon, but the F3 seems pretty good to me. As for ram slots I have tryed both duel channel setups and did not notice any differance. 1&3 is what I am using I believe. Good Luck with your build eklock2000. I think you will be very happy with the setup your putting together. Went from a 478 setup myself to this and alls I can say is WOOT!!!!!!
 

Smitty1705

Member
Mar 14, 2007
130
0
0
I'm about to buy this board ANY day now.. with the normal E6600 same memory as The Beagle (BTW think there is any real difference from PC8000 to PC8500?), Antec True Power Trio 650, 8800 GTX (I think), and a Centurion case.

Does anyone know if I will have any issues with the 8800 fitting into thie Coolermaster Centurion 5 case?
http://www.coolermaster.com/index.php?L...T05&other_title=+CAC-T05+Centurion%205

Probably could have put this into the case/Video card section but I plan on posting more here when the Giga board shows up!

Thanks in advance!

Smitty
 

TheBeagle

Senior member
Apr 5, 2005
508
0
0
Good Evening Mr. Smitty.

With regard to the memory, many times that's the "weak link" in the performance chain. The highest rated memory Crucial had when I bought my 4 sticks was the PC2-8000 stuff (DDR2-1000) - Crucial Item #BL2KIT12864AA1005. They may have some faster sticks now, I haven't checked lately. As things begin to get refined with this board's BIOS revisions, coupled with the imminent arrival of native 333FBS procs, I see the strain on memory to become even greater. I plan on building another machine for my office in the not so distant future (after the new Quads arrive), and I will likely migrate my home memory and proc to the office machine, since I don't need anywhere near the same horsepower there. In place of the current memory, I'll likely buy up a notch or two (probably two) to gain some headroom in memory OC. So, if you have the $ now, get the best stuff you can afford (or are able to charge to your credit card) since unless you have a migration path like me, you're going to be stuck when the performance curve goes up.

I'm not familiar with the internal size specs on the case you mentioned, but as I recently told another forum colleague, those big boy 8800 video cards produce a helluva lot of thermal energy, and you need a very capable PSU, AND damn efficient interior cooling to keep temps under reasonable limits. I couldn't use the larger 8800 card in my case, since it just wouldn't physically fit in there (too long). BTW, you might want to check out the new Gigabyte 3D Aurora 570 cases. They just received a Perfect 10 from Maximum PC magazine. The Egg has them here: GIGABYTE 3D Aurora 570 GZ-FA1CA-ASB . I haven't personally seen one of these new cases yet, but you can be very sure that I will get my hands on one in the very near future. From everything I have read about these beauties, they are the perfect compliment for the GA-N680SLI-DQ6 board. You can even buy one with factory installed water cooling - now that's really cool itself!

BTW, I own one of those 650 Trio PSUs from Antec. It's an OK unit, but for a few bucks more, I'd step up to the ToughPower 850. That way you also have some extra capacity for all the little gems that you will eventually end up with inside your box. Also, don't forget that this board has eSATA ports, which supply their own power to external drives. If you end up tapping into that new fangled option (eSATA drives are screamers compared to external USB drives), you will also need that extra PSU capacity.

Those are just some thoughts on the issues you raised. Enjoy your new toy, and buckle your seat belt for a fast ride! TheBeagle
 

eklock2000

Senior member
Jan 11, 2007
292
0
0
Have any of the users here using this Board tried the Q-flash or @BIOS methods of flashing the BIOS? In theory, Q-flash sounds good...not even having to leave BIOS to flash? Pumping up for the new build...

Thanks,

EK2K
 

eklock2000

Senior member
Jan 11, 2007
292
0
0
Have any of the users here using this Board tried the Q-flash or @BIOS methods of flashing the BIOS? In theory, Q-flash sounds good...not even having to leave BIOS to flash? Pumping up for the new build...

After reading the instructions, it seems damn near idiot proof. I'll see if I can break it. Question is, will the F4 be final before I build...
 

Gary Key

Senior member
Sep 23, 2005
866
0
0
Originally posted by: TheBeagle
Good Morning Everyone.

It looks like the folks here on this Forum are not the only ones that think that the new GA-N680SLI-DQ6 board is a WINNER!! Thanks to a heads up from our resident guru, Mr. Gary, here's a link to the latest review on this board: TweakTown Review of GA-N680SLI-DQ6. A 9.5 out of a possible 10 is not a bad rating at all. I believe we have all made a good choice here. And who knows, with a little further refinement of the BIOS, we might get damn near a perfect 10! Enjoy. TheBeagle

I had an early engineering sample board so Gigabyte is sending me a retail board for the follow-up article. I am trying to track down a Vista issue for Mr. Beagle at this point but the F4C BIOS I just posted should improve memory performance and offer a little more overclocking headroom.
 

TheBeagle

Senior member
Apr 5, 2005
508
0
0
Hello Gary, I see you're on the forum right now. Hope you can determine what's causing the low OC performance while using Vista. Also, should I continue to use the full array of "auto" type settings. How about the spread spectrum stuff and the ESI type settings with the F4C BIOS? Thanks for all your help. TheBeagle
 

Smitty1705

Member
Mar 14, 2007
130
0
0
So we still don't know how this board is going to overclock a quad core with the new F4 bios?

BTW - Beagle - I already have that case and power supply. Do you think I should opt for a larger wattage PSU if I'm going to run a quad core? Below are the basics of what I plan to get with this board. Again.. using an Antec Trio 650.

E6600 - (Maybe a quad core)
8800GTX
DVD Burner
4 gig of memory
Floppy drive
maybe 1 USB device
2 Hard drives (SATA)
 

Curr

Member
Mar 23, 2007
65
0
0
Hi Beagle, good day to you. Over the many "How to OC your C2D" guides and posts on the web, a lot of them seem to say to disable any "spread spectrum" technology. In fact, nVidia's own "nForce 680 SLI overclocking guide" has you turn them off. (Page 10, of manual below)

Document is located here: http://www.nvidia.com/docs/CP/45121/nforce_680i_sli_overclocking.pdf

People may have seen this before, but I'll post it anyway, for those that may have not. Hope that helps Beagle!

If you want, I can run through my settings tonight and make a list of them so we all could compare? I've been "pretty sucessful" overclocking so far to 3465MHz, stable running Orthos for 7+ hours with temps not getting over 50C. I think my limiting factor is my NB temps, since I'm only at 0.1V over the "normal" on Vmch, and don't want to go much higher until I get a fan on the NB sink (UPS delivering it today, in fact). Hopefully I can test some more tonight, along with the new bios!
 

TheBeagle

Senior member
Apr 5, 2005
508
0
0
Good Afternoon Mr. Smitty.

The probable three biggest items that draw power are that Video card, the memory and the proc, in that order. The trouble with most current PSUs is that they overstate their power ratings (some quite a bit more than others). Also, all power ratings are usually stated at a certain temperature within the PSU - that's a critical factor in judging the merits of these items. If you want to learn about this temp factor, just look here: PC Power & Cooling Technology Center. The folks at PC Power & Cooling probably make the finest (and most expensive) PSUs in the business. If you need the very best, and can pay their price, then that's the one to get. However, many other manufacturers have recently been producing very good quality PSUs at a much lesser cost. ThermalTake's ToughPower line of PSUs are an example of that.

What you need to do is carefully review the wattage requirements for all your components, RUNNING AT FULL CAPACITY + OC, and then calculate their power draw on any particular power rail coming from the PSU, and then add a factor of about 20% cushion, and you'll likely have the right size PSU. I have always found that quality and capacity are critical factors when determining a proper PSU. Again, look at the technical info on the PC Power & Cooling link above, and you'll learn a great deal about this subject. Hope that's of some help to you. TheBeagle
 

TheBeagle

Senior member
Apr 5, 2005
508
0
0
Hello Mr. Curr.

Thanks for the forum note. I read that darn nVidia OC manual 4 times. I did disable the spread spectrum settings and it didn't seem to make much difference in Vista. However, after you install the F4C BIOS upgrade, and get your sweetheart PC humming along in fine fashion, I would certainly like to compare your settings, BIOS page by BIOS page, (I know, that's a bit of a pain in the butt, but it could seriously assist in finding the culprit setting), to see what we can determine.

Also, are you using WinXP-SP2 or Vista? I'm beginning to believe that Vista may have a large role in all of this difficulty, since most everyone else who has success with good OC has been using XP (I think that Gary also suspects the same thing). Additionally, the problem is NOT so much getting it through the POST, but it is the transition into Windows that seems to be the choke point.

We have to keep in mind that I'm running 2 Raptor 150s in RAID 1 as my boot drive, and I'm not sure how much of this problem might be attributable to the RAID array factor. Thanks for the interest in helping me solve this problem, and I'll be waiting to hear how you're doing with the F4C BIOS. TheBeagle
 

rdmat

Junior Member
Apr 3, 2007
1
0
0
can anyone help ?

I got the cool boot issue when running at 9 x 400 .

I am using gigabyte 680 , xeon 3060, corsair 6400c3 ,win XP.



mat
 

cdfire

Member
Feb 23, 2007
159
0
0
Originally posted by: eklock2000
Have any of the users here using this Board tried the Q-flash or @BIOS methods of flashing the BIOS? In theory, Q-flash sounds good...not even having to leave BIOS to flash? Pumping up for the new build...

Thanks,

EK2K

I did use this method with the F3 Beta Bios Gary posted without any issues, but I must say Flashing the BIOS in anyway scares teh heck out of me, but so far so good. I have heard on other boards people have had some issues with this method, but on my last two Gigabtye boards and this board alls I can tell you is I have not had an issue flashing this way.

I dont know if you have to or not but the first thing I do after is boot back into the BIOS and select load fail safe defaults, save and reboot back into the bios and then change my settings as need be.
 

Gary Key

Senior member
Sep 23, 2005
866
0
0
Originally posted by: TheBeagle
Hello Gary, I see you're on the forum right now. Hope you can determine what's causing the low OC performance while using Vista. Also, should I continue to use the full array of "auto" type settings. How about the spread spectrum stuff and the ESI type settings with the F4C BIOS? Thanks for all your help. TheBeagle

Always turn off the Spread Spectrum settings when overclocking, depending on the board, it will do it automatically but not on this one. I would go ahead and disable the power management settings also for time being.
 

Curr

Member
Mar 23, 2007
65
0
0
Hi Beagle,

I'm using Win XP Pro x32. So unfortunately I can't be of much help to you with your Vista-based issues.

I will definitely make note of the bios settings when I get some time for everyone. However, I am *not* running RAID, as this is mainly a gaming / web surfing machine, and all my "critical data" is backed up elsewhere. I hope that our DQ6 doesn't have the RAID gremlins that seemed to plague other 680i series boards. Another variable to troubleshoot is never fun and always compounds the trouble.
 
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