NVIDIA 680i: The Best Core 2 Chipset?
 

It has been six months since NVIDIA announced their new 500 series chipsets. This past May the launch coincided with the release of AM2. Today NVIDIA launches a new chipset family, called the 600i family, with no mention at all of AMD and a launch date to coincide with the new Intel Core 2 Quad (Kentsfield).

Perhaps these two events, set just six months apart, best define the dramatic shifts that have occurred in the enthusiast market during this time. AMD was undisputed performance leader for the past couple of years, and enthusiasts didn't much care about Intel chipsets. With the launch of Core 2, however, the enthusiast world changed. Today Core 2 Duo and Quad are the undisputed performance leaders and AMD is once again the "value" chip. This will likely change again in the future, but for now Intel Core 2 is clearly the processor enthusiasts are demanding.

more reviews:
- http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q4...i/index.x?pg=1
- http://www.hothardware.com/viewartic...leid=902&cid=3
- http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/chi...-680i-sli.html
- http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/...i-chipset.html

Cheapo CPU, high end board? let's hope the cheaper 680 derived Intel mobo has same OC capabilities:)

Ohh, I am hoping alright! Interested in seeing what some of the bigger names can do with it as well!

Absolutely no need for SLI with G80 around, people would have to first buy a 3007WFP to make use of it... ;)

in 3 reviews it crapped out at 450 FSB, that is very bad for such a high priced, hot chipset

it seems not only the mobo can "crap out"; as a different CPU seems to make a difference too, and the FSB may well be limited by CPU, not mobo.

And in two reviews it hit over 2,000FSB, with a third at 1960FSB. At those speeds the rest of the hardware in the system becomes a factor besides the C2D chip... You weren't kidding about the high price though!

who makes the cheapest? ;)

That's right : check out the Anand review :

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets...oc.aspx?i=2869

2Mb cache cpu's seem to do better, but for the 4Mb chips no explenation has been found yet : some do good, other do much better...

I didn't even look, the Asus Striker was going for $399 before it sold out at ZZF... :^D $270 for that eVGA though... yuck. I guess there won't be any going for under $240 at all...

Another review: http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/...i-chipset.html

Point OF View 8800GTX 768MB PCI Express Nforce 8800GTX 2 1300
680i sli mobo : +-300,00
Corsair Twinx DDR2 2048MB PC6400 XMS (2X1024MB) 330
Intel Core 2 DUO E6700 2.67 Socket 775 500



= 2500 euro.


= a lot of money

not different from X years ago for high end pc

Except maybe the mobo, 300 euro for a high end mobo is a lot. 150 - 200 euro used to get the top of the bill.

I say, the Gigabyte S3 is the value overclocker choice.

or the Biostar