NVIDIA’s got another homerun product on their hands with the nForce 680i chipset. While it’s an evolutionary progression from the nForce 590 SLI, NVIDIA has definitely delivered a revolutionary product with nForce 680i.
Not only did nForce 680i deliver better performance than Intel’s P965 and 975X chipsets in our gaming performance tests, memory testing with Everest indicates that that the tweaks NVIDIA has implemented in the nForce 680i’s memory controller is definitely an improvement over Intel’s chipset offerings as well.
What’s really got our attention though is the overclocking prowess NVIDIA has built into nForce 680i. Whereas NVIDIA’s previous Intel chipsets had a hard time breaking beyond 370MHz FSB, we hit bus speeds of 451MHz with our EVGA nForce 680i motherboard, and other online reports are just as robust – it clearly looks like NVIDIA has delivered on their claims of 1333MHz+ FSB speeds with the new chipset. And with 1200MHz SLI memory support also built-in to the chipset, the nForce 680i platform is clearly built to appease the performance crowd, nothing from Intel even comes close in comparison.
On top of that, you’ve also got features unique to NVIDIA such as teaming and FirstPacket. With FirstPacket, latency sensitive applications such as VoIP and online gaming will be put ahead in the queue, reducing, or completely eliminating any lag, and preventing dropped connections. Teaming and Failover double the available bandwidth of the network connection on the motherboard, while also providing redundancy, a spare connection that will keep the transfer going if one connection goes down (or if someone trips on a wire). MediaShield is the industry’s easiest way to setup and maintain multiple RAID configurations. NVIDIA also provides a PATA controller built in to the chipset, so motherboard manufacturers don’t have to provide an external storage controller to support DVD drives and IDE hard drives.
And of course, NVIDIA’s nForce SLI chipsets are the only game in town if you want to combine two graphics cards for SLI.
nForce 680i SLI motherboards won’t come cheap though. Right now EVGA’s nForce 680i SLI motherboard sells for about $250+ putting it in the same price range as many 975X Core 2 motherboards. If this is too much for you, NVIDIA and their board partners will be offering nForce 650i and 650i Ultra motherboards shortly. The nForce 650i SLI should replace the nForce 570 SLI chipset in the $150+ price range, with the Ultra selling for a little lower than that. We haven’t had a chance to test a motherboard based on either of these chipsets yet, but if the nForce 680i SLI is any indication, both of these chipsets should be excellent platforms for gamers and enthusiasts on a budget. We just hope motherboard manufacturers don’t water down their boards based on these chipsets too much. We’ll have to wait and see on that one though.
But for the high-end gamer or enthusiast who wants to build the fastest Core 2 system possible and has the budget to do so, it doesn’t get any better than nForce 680i SLI right now. NVIDIA’s got all the features (and then some) that you’d expect from a high-end chipset, and as we just saw with EVGA’s nForce 680i SLI motherboard, the chipset has the performance numbers and overclocking potential to best any other chipset that’s currently available on the market. NVIDIA really has outdone themselves with this one!
ATI Radeon HD 5570 Performance Preview
The Radeon 5570 fuses ATI's 400-shader Redwood graphics core with a low-profile board design, giving you the guts of the 5670 in a package that's similar to the 5450. How does the final product compare to ATI's other sub-$100 offerings, as well as the GeForce 9600 GT and Radeon 4670. You'll have to read today's article to find out!
ATI Radeon 5450 Performance Preview
With prices ranging from $49-$59, ATI's Radeon 5450 brings DX11 and Eyefinity to the entry-level price bracket for the first time. But how does it perform? Find out in today's article!
Mass Effect 2 PC Review
BioWare's latest chapter in the Mass Effect series has earned overwhelmingly positive praise on consoles, but is the game still enjoyable on the PC? Find out in today's review!
AMD's New Year CPUs: Athlon II X4 635, Athlon II X3 440, Athlon II X2 255, & Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition Tested
Ready to pull the trigger on a new budget CPU? If so, you'll be glad you waited, as today AMD's providing a free 100MHz speed bump on their latest dual, triple, and quad-core Athlon II CPUs. But that's not all. For the tweakers out there that love to OC, AMD's brought back the Phenom II X2. The 555 Black Edition is AMD's fastest dual-core yet, and it's based on AMD's new C3 Rev. See how the new CPUs OC and perform in today's article!
Gigabyte USB 3.0 Boards Compared: P55A-UD6 and X58A-UD7
Promising transfer rates up to 10X higher than USB 2.0, next-generation USB 3.0 devices should offer considerably more speed to get things done. The same applies for SATA 6Gb/sec. But does the substance live up to the hype? Yes and no. Join us as we take a look at both of these technologies in Gigabyte's latest motherboards for the P55 and X58 platforms!
NVIDIA GF100 'Fermi' Graphics Architecture Overview
With DX11, 512 shaders, and a 384-bit memory interface, NVIDIA's next-generation GF100 GPU certainly looks impressive at first glance. It doesn't stop there though. NVIDIA's significantly upped their tessellation performance with GF100's new PolyMorph engines, and thanks to a tweaked ROP subsystem, the new GPU should deliver improved 8xAA performance as well. Join us as we take a closer look inside GF100's new architecture in this article!
ATI Radeon HD 5670 Performance Preview
Priced at $99 and offering features like DirectX 11 and Eyefinity, ATI's Radeon 5670 is poised to take over the heart of the mainstream graphics market. But is it powerful enough to displace the Radeon 4850 and 4770? How well does it OC? Find out in today's article!
Building a Core i7-920 Gaming Rig
With his Core 2 Extreme X6800 PC beginning to show signs of age, Vandy just finished upgrading his primary gaming rig to Core i7 over the holidays. With dual GeForce GTX 275s, and his Core i7-920 OC'ed to 4GHz, it's a pretty powerful performer. Read about the rest of the components used inside!
Intel Core i5-661 'Clarkdale' Performance Preview
With a 3.33GHz stock clock speed, integrated DX10 graphics core, and 32-nm manufacturing process, Intel's Core i5-661 is designed to make Core 2 Duo obsolete. But does it accomplish its mission? See how it performs with and without its integrated graphics in today's article!
Top Games of 2010
Because multiple blockbuster games were pushed back from Q4'09 to 2010, the next few months should be pretty busy for gamers. Games like Splinter Cell Conviction, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Supreme Commander 2, Mass Effect 2, and BioShock 2 are all expected within the first 3 months of 2010. Hopefully next year we'll also see the debut of games like id Software's RAGE and StarCraft 2. Join us as Vandy highlights some of the most anticipated games of next year in this article!