nForce 680i LT SLI for Hardcore Gamers on March 12

[D_o_S]

As CeBIT is approaching, more and more new products are being finalized for launch. Along with MCP68 chipset, NVIDIA is going to launch the nForce 680i LT SLI chipset at the event, primarily targeted at hardcore gamers, whereras the current 680i SLI chipset is targeted at hardcore enthusiasts. nForce 680i LT SLI boards will be some US$50 cheaper than the 680i SLI boards, where the MSRP is around US$199 compared to US$249+.

The main changes are that nForce 680i LT SLI reference boards will come with active cooling instead of the heat-pipe design currently used on the 680i SLI reference board, a green PCB instead of a black PCB, will support DDR2-800 instead of DDR2-1200 SLI memory, 8 USB 2.0 ports instead of 10, one Gigabit Ethernet instead of two, two PCIe x16 slots instead of 3, and without all the neat stuff like LED POST codes, Power/Reset buttons and Speaker.

NVIDIA mentioned that overclocking on 680i LT SLI won't be as good as the 680i SLI, but there are strong reasons to believe that the chipset is basically the same unless the company has done some sort of sorting/binning on the chipsets. Will this be the budget OC king?



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[BXtreme]

i can't w8 for that! i'll get myself a 650i instead...

 

[tvdang7]

Will this be the budget OC king?

200 bucks isnt too budget to me.....

 

[newtekie1]

This is clearly just a reference 680i motherboard with some parts removed, that is good and bad.

I don't like the fact that the southbridge fan uses the fan header under the first PCI-E slot. Those headers were great for people that used 3rd party cooling on their video cards.

I also don't like that nVidia still hasn't listened to their customers and changed the front panel connectors to allow for Power LEDs that are 3 wide. Most of the higher end cases use 3 pin headers on the power LED, which makes them incompatible with this board.

I like the fact that this is essentially the same board as the higher end 680i boards, so it should overclock very similarly.

200 bucks isnt too budget to me.....

The MSRP for the reference 680i boards is $249, but you can get them for $205 off newegg, so I expect this one with a MSRP of $199 to sell for a fair bit less than that. I mean lets face it, no one is going to buy this for $200 when you can get a full 680i motherboard for $205.

 

[WarEagleAU]

I dont see how this is for the hardcore gamer. Maybe for a budget buyer wanting to tweak a little. Kind of disappointed really.

 

[tkpenalty]

... With the unsoldered parts I wouldn't touch this motherboard....

unless its possible to solder a PCI-E 16x slot on =D

 

[bruins004]

i can't w8 for that! i'll get myself a 650i instead...

The 650 boards that are out have some issues currently.
The reason is bc it seems the companies that came out with the 650 boards seemed to just of have launched them and dont really support them with updates.

 

[newtekie1]

I dont see how this is for the hardcore gamer. Maybe for a budget buyer wanting to tweak a little. Kind of disappointed really.

This was brought up when the chipset was first announced. The full 680i boards are aimed at enthusiests, not hard core gamers, hard core gamers are one step down and fall into the market these are aimed at(or at least that is what I think nVidia is thinking). Still pretty high end, but not the top.

 

[C.Ash]

So its a 650i SLi with 16x/16x SLi? Thats perfect!

 

[newtekie1]

So its a 650i SLi with 16x/16x SLi? Thats perfect!

They already have 650i boards with 16x/16x SLI. Look at the P6N SLI Platinum and the P4N32-E SLI.

 

[Scavar]

I like my 680i board, I haven't any problems with it, unlike others who have had problems. With Rev2 though and since BIOS update P24, problems seem to have gone away.

So hopefully hits board will come out without any problems at all, and will likely be easier to buy for some people.

 

[Ketxxx]

It looks ugly.

 

[tkpenalty]

It looks ugly.

Exactly... its too dark... looks like rabbit poo...

I lol'ed at the "Extreme Gamer" part.

 

[newtekie1]

I like my 680i board, I haven't any problems with it, unlike others who have had problems. With Rev2 though and since BIOS update P24, problems seem to have gone away.

So hopefully hits board will come out without any problems at all, and will likely be easier to buy for some people.

You might not have had any problems, but I am on my 3rd 680i reference board.

The first one just suddenly failed. I powered the PC down, and when I powered it back up it would stay on for about 3 seconds then turn itself off(no it wasn't a grounding issue). When I removed the RAM the machine would stay one, but of course there was no RAM, so it was useless.

The second one would constantly give the error "The system case has been opened sometime after the last reboot. Please check the system." The case intrusion jumper is set correctly, it just doesn't work for some reason.

My 3rd board just arrived today, and I will be swapping it out this weekend, so here is hoping this one is junk like the others.