rainwood Posted March 13, 2007 I misunderstood which one of the chipset, the north bridge or south bridge one, was MCP; I though that the north bridge chipset for which the EVGA 680i mainboard package provides the chipset fan was MCP and the south bridge one was SPP. I found that even some of the on-line reviews of the EVGA 680i mainboard made the same mistake. After I asked the EVAG support, I knew that I was wrong. The north bridge chipset is SPP and MCP is the south bridge chipset. I use the chipset fan, which is included in the 680i mainboard package, for SPP. Now I am getting the chipset fan for MCP from EVGA. So I think that I will go with the EVGA’s chipset fans for MCP & SPP. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rainwood Posted March 17, 2007 P26 BIOS has been released for the EVGA 680i mainboard. “Removed LinkBoost support (Please see below) quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- LinkBoost was removed from nForce 680i SLI because it did not show significant demonstrable benefit in games. We had hoped newer games would take advantage of this additional bandwidth but this has not been the case. Please note that future BIOS upgrades will only remove the automatic overclocking component of LinkBoost. Users can still manually overclock the PCI-Express and HyperTransport buses in the BIOS [“All Forums > EVGA Product Offerings > Motherboards > P26 BIOS Released”: ON-LINE on 03/16/2007: URL: http://www.evga.com/community/messageboard...erms=linkboost].” I read the thread that NVIDIA LinkBoost almost does nothing (“All Forums > EVGA Product Offerings > Motherboards > eVGA 680i Linkboost effects”), and I read increasing the PCI-E bus frequencies for the graphic card performance gain (“DIY-Street Forums > Hardware Avenue > Video Cards > Other - Increased PCIe Frequency = Higher GPU Overclock”). I thought that increasing the PCI-E bus frequency is what the LinkBoost does, so I wondered why the users got the different results… But, honestly I do not know what exactly the feature was, so I tried to look up the definition of it in NVIDIA site. Only one hit for the “LinkBoost” keyword: “NVIDIA® Delivers the Foundation for the Ultimate Gaming Platform—The NVIDIA nForce® 590 SLI MCP”. The article does not tell me what the LinkBoost does in details. I recall that I saw more detailed explanation of the “LinkBoost” feature in the NVIDIA site before… Does NVIDIA back off already*? Anyway, here’s what I found after a quick Google search for “NVIDIA LinkBoost 680i” keyword: "...the nForce 680i SLI also supports LinkBoost. This feature was left out of the nForce 590 SLI for Intel processors, but it's made a return in the 680i. LinkBoost cranks the speed of the chipset's interconnect and PCI Express graphics links by 25%, but Nvidia is quick to point out that it isn't overclocking—the chipset and motherboard has been fully qualified and validated at those higher speeds. Boosting PCIe and interconnect bandwidth by 25% is nothing to sneeze at; however, we've yet to find a circumstance where LinkBoost measurably improves performance...["Nvidia's nForce 680i SLI chipset Quick refresh": Gasior, Geoff: ON-LINE on 03/16/2007: URL: http://techreport.com/reviews/2006q4/nforc...i/index.x?pg=1]” I have the LinkBoost enabled since I got the RMA’ed 680i mainboard (P23 BIOS). As other users & reviews reported, I think that I have not observed the significant difference in my SLI performance between with and without LinkBoost enabled. After I flashed BIOS to P26 (the option to enable/disable the LinkBoost in BIOS is no longer available in BIOS), I ran the 3DMark06 tests with its default settings with the PCI-E (100 MHz default) & SPP < - > MCP Ref. Clock (200 MHz default) increased by 25 % (125, 250 MHz). The score was about same as the ones without these frequencies increased**. I do not miss NVIDIA LinkBoost. BTW, new BETA version of Everest Ultimate Edition 2007 is available now (Version 3.80.948 Beta): “EVEREST Ultimate Edition Beta Build 948, USB Devices info, several improvements under Windows Vista". OSD screenshot: Now it reports more GPU related temperatures!, though it does not report the DIMM and MCP/SPP temperatures of the 680i mainboard yet… *…wait, I found the link to “Technical Brief LinkBoost Technology Faster Clocks Out-of-the-Box" document in one of the message in the “All Forums > EVGA Product Offerings > Motherboards > eVGA 680i Linkboost effects” thread! (you might like to download the doc. & keep it in case that you feel like reading something funny in future.) **This could be because I did not increase these frequencies higher enough… Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rainwood Posted March 24, 2007 In the previous beta version of Everest, it reported the “GPU temperature”: In the latest beta version, BTW, new BETA version of Everest Ultimate Edition 2007 is available now (Version 3.80.948 Beta): “EVEREST Ultimate Edition Beta Build 948, USB Devices info, several improvements under Windows Vista".OSD screenshot: Now it reports more GPU related temperatures!, though it does not report the DIMM and MCP/SPP temperatures of the 680i mainboard yet… The “GPU Temperature” reported in the previous beta version of Everest seems to be identical to the temperature reading from the “GPU Diode” in the latest beta version of the app. In the latest beta version of the app. the “GPU” temperature is roughly 5 – 8 C lower than the “GPU Diode” temperatures – is the “GPU” temperature is read from the GPU heatspreader? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rainwood Posted April 6, 2007 EVEREST Ultimate Edition (Version: 4.00.976) has been released. It shows the GPU Shader Clock. It does not report DIMM temp. yet... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rainwood Posted May 15, 2007 Installed Vista Ultimate (32-bit) on my box and did quick tests. Drivers: WinXP: ForceWare Release 158 Version: 158.22 Release Date: May 2, 2007 Vista 32-bit: ForceWare Release 158 Version: 158.24 Release Date: May 2, 2007 Beta Driver 3DMark06: WinXP: (this is my best score on WinXP - the driver version is not the same one listed above.) 3DMark Score: 13389 3DMarks SM 2.0 Score: 6003 Marks Return to Proxycon: 49.065 FPS Firefly Forest: 50.980 FPS SM 3.0 Score: 7296 Marks Canyon Flight (SM 3.0): 83.441 FPS Deep Freeze (SM 3.0): 62.487 FPS CPU Score: 2574 Marks CPU1 - Red Valley 0.807 FPS CPU2 - Red Valley 1.286 FPS Vista 32-bit: 3DMark Score: 11918 3DMarks (11 % lower) SM 2.0 Score: 5354 Marks (11 % lower) Return to Proxycon: 44.222 FPS Firefly Forest: 45.01 FPS SM 3.0 Score: 6335 Marks (13 % lower) Canyon Flight (SM 3.0): 71.164 FPS Deep Freeze (SM 3.0): 55.545 FPS CPU Score: 2332 Marks (9 % lower) CPU1 - Red Valley: 0.732 FPS CPU2 - Red Valley: 1.188 FPS Lost Coast: Settings: WinXP: 175.63 fps Vista 32-bit: 147.35 fps (16 % lower) F.E.A.R. Settings: Effets: Graphics: WinXP: Min: 51 Ave: 100 Max: 199 Vista: Min: 48 Ave: 84 (16 % lower) Max: 170 ...O.K., I knew this. I moved to Vista to play the upcoming, so-called, "Vista Exclusive" games. I, however, a strong presentiment that these games won't run better. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Angry_Games Posted May 15, 2007 read my big post in the 2900XT thread below this one (long post by me, a lot of it deals with Vista/DX10/8800/2900) Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
