NVIDIA 680i: The Best Core 2 Chipset?
by Gary Key & Wesley Fink on November 8, 2006 4:45 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
General System Performance
The PCMark05 benchmark developed and provided by Futuremark was designed for determining overall system performance for the typical home computing user. This tool provides both system and component level benchmarking results utilizing subsets of real world applications or programs. The test is useful for providing comparative results across a broad array of graphics subsystems, CPU, hard disk, and memory configurations along with multithreading results. In this sense we consider the PCMark benchmark to be both synthetic and real world in nature while providing consistency in our benchmark results.
The 680i leads the PCMark 2005 results, but scores are close at the top. While the 975X/P965 and 680i are close in performance, the 680i provides a slight edge in General Performance - about 1% which can be considered negligible.
General Graphics Performance
The 3DMark series of benchmarks developed and provided by Futuremark are among the most widely used tools for benchmark reporting and comparisons. Although the benchmarks are very useful for providing apple to apple comparisons across a broad array of GPU and CPU configurations they are not a substitute for actual application and gaming benchmarks. In this sense we consider the 3DMark benchmarks to be purely synthetic in nature but still valuable for providing consistent measurements of performance.
Our nForce 680i SLI results are essentially the same as the performance of the 590 and Intel 975x/965 families. Since the most recent 3DMark06 is very tied to the GPU, this does not come as much of a surprise.
Rendering Performance
The Cinebench 9.5 benchmark heavily stresses the CPU subsystem while performing graphics modeling and rendering. We utilize the standard benchmark demos along with the default settings. Cinebench 9.5 features two different benchmarks with one test utilizing a single core and the second test showcasing the power of multiple cores in rendering the benchmark image.
The nForce 600i desktop platform shows competitive performance in these benchmarks. The range of results are not performance differences you will see looking at the daily performance of 975X and 680i systems.
The PCMark05 benchmark developed and provided by Futuremark was designed for determining overall system performance for the typical home computing user. This tool provides both system and component level benchmarking results utilizing subsets of real world applications or programs. The test is useful for providing comparative results across a broad array of graphics subsystems, CPU, hard disk, and memory configurations along with multithreading results. In this sense we consider the PCMark benchmark to be both synthetic and real world in nature while providing consistency in our benchmark results.
The 680i leads the PCMark 2005 results, but scores are close at the top. While the 975X/P965 and 680i are close in performance, the 680i provides a slight edge in General Performance - about 1% which can be considered negligible.
General Graphics Performance
The 3DMark series of benchmarks developed and provided by Futuremark are among the most widely used tools for benchmark reporting and comparisons. Although the benchmarks are very useful for providing apple to apple comparisons across a broad array of GPU and CPU configurations they are not a substitute for actual application and gaming benchmarks. In this sense we consider the 3DMark benchmarks to be purely synthetic in nature but still valuable for providing consistent measurements of performance.
Our nForce 680i SLI results are essentially the same as the performance of the 590 and Intel 975x/965 families. Since the most recent 3DMark06 is very tied to the GPU, this does not come as much of a surprise.
Rendering Performance
The Cinebench 9.5 benchmark heavily stresses the CPU subsystem while performing graphics modeling and rendering. We utilize the standard benchmark demos along with the default settings. Cinebench 9.5 features two different benchmarks with one test utilizing a single core and the second test showcasing the power of multiple cores in rendering the benchmark image.
The nForce 600i desktop platform shows competitive performance in these benchmarks. The range of results are not performance differences you will see looking at the daily performance of 975X and 680i systems.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
60 Comments
View All Comments
MikeyC - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
I'm looking forward to this. Any idea on when you guys will have the bin numbers for the different rates of OC-ability? I'm planning on OCing my e6600 on this board this weekend; I'll post up my numbers if that'll help.Gary Key - Sunday, November 12, 2006 - link
We have not figured it out yet. Two CPUs from the same week and they both act differently during overclocking. We are still working with NVIDIA on this matter.Joepublic2 - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
965 and 975 boards to my knowledge don't support a FSB/mem ratio smaller than 1:1. Does this chipset have the right multiplier to use DDR2-400 while retaining a 1066Mhz FSB?Gary Key - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
The memory settings are sync or async capable on this chipset if you unlink the FSB and Memory in the BIOS. So the answer is yes to your question but believe me this chipset needs good DDR2-800 to get the most out of it. A 1T command rate can make a significant difference in several applications and games. We already found a 4FPS difference in Q4 at 1280x1024 with DDR2-800 at 1T instead of 2T as an example. We will have more on this in our actual board review.Joepublic2 - Monday, November 13, 2006 - link
I was asking mainly because a conroe board that could run a 4:3 FSB/mem multiplier could be an even better overclocker than the 965. One would only need RAM that could hit DDR 752 for a 500Mhz FSB for example.A great review as always!
VooDooAddict - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
Any idea if there are mATX boards using any of thse new chipsets on the way?Gary Key - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
There is the possibility of the 650i Ultra being on a mATX board in late January. However, the suppliers might wait for the new NV Intel IGP chipset coming in Q1. We should have more information in December.
BadThad - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
Should be CPU, the X6800 is not a GPU, lol.
Wesley Fink - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link
Correctedyacoub - Thursday, November 9, 2006 - link
Do all of the 680i SLi boards require active cooling on the northbridge? That's actually a deal-killer for me, as motherboard fans are about the worst ones out there anymore since they're small, fast-spinning (and due to those two characteristics they are noisy), usually short-lived, and I've yet to see one that is dynamically controlled by the temp of the northbridge.I'm guessng 650i boards don't require active cooling, but are any of the 680i boards using a non-reference design sporting completely silent cooling?