LOADS of features, decent overclocking, a few issues

Introduction

When a friend of mine built his high performance system, I decided I wanted to follow suit. He used an EVGA 680i motherboard for his rig and praised the 680i chipset from nVidia for its enthusiast overclocking options, features, customizability, and SLI support. For those of you new to this sort of thing I'll list a few helpful terms:

GPU = Graphical processing unit, usually a dedicated video card. Sometimes integrated into motherboard.
SLI = nVidia's version of a multiple GPU setup. Two (or more) SLI capable video cards can be linked in order to share the graphic processing load between two cards.
PWM = Pulse width modulator (it's called something like a mofset on the EVGA board, I believe) Regulates voltage supply to the processor
vdroop = In overclocking this can really prohibit the processor from reaching its maximum potential because the motherboard falls short of supplying the voltage set in the BIOS. When the processor needs those extra volts to run at higher speeds, vdroop happens and there's not enough power, often resulting in a lockup or BSOD.
BSOD = Blue screen of death :(
SLI Scaling = Taking advantage of both GPU's in an SLI configuration. A game that efficiently utilizes both graphics cards and provides a noticeable gain in performance in SLI vs. a single card setup is said to "scale" well.
eSATA = External SATA ports for connecting newer SATA external hard drives. eSATA provides substantially better performance than USB and even firewire in most cases.
Prime95 = A stress test program used in Windows to load (up to all four cores at a time) a CPU and memory in a system that's very helpful to check for stability and heat problems.

Hopefully that's helpful to the first time overclocker or DIY PC builder. These are all terms I had to learn as I went, and I invite any suggestions via comments.

Reasons for purchasing

I purchased the board from Newegg, who's service has yet to let me down. I paid $220 and sent in a mail in rebate for $100. I thought for $120 after rebate a better enthusiast board with this many features just couldn't be found! It seemed like a stellar deal, so I bit.

The features that attracted me the most were SLI support, as mentioned above, quad core support, two eSATA ports, two on board firewire headers, and 3 or 4 onboard USB headers (lots of connectivity), front panel audio headers, black PCB (looks much more professional and "cooler" than the standard green, yellow or brown boards), uGuru BIOS section for overclocking, external (YES, EXTERNAL!!) CMOS reset switch, included PCI-E wifi card, 5 fan headers with very good fan control settings, and ability to flash to newer BIOS within Windows. It also has FIVE storage slots for customized BIOS settings, a fantastic feature EVERY enthusiast board should have.

Installation

The board installation went fairly painlessly in my Antec Nine Hundred Case. I was actually quite impressed with the instructions, diagrams, and foldouts provided. They were accurate and informative, and I was very comfortable installing everything. The instructions were actually useful. Warnings were helpful and correct (such as what type of audio connector to use so you don't fry your new board...). I had two 2GB chips of memory, and because of a Vista 4GB installation bug, I did the first boot and system install with only one stick in. The first boot went flawlessly and Vista Ultimate 64-bit edition installed without a hitch. After a Vista hotfix I installed the second 2GB stick with no issues. System configuration:

32x-MAX motherboard
4GB A-Data 800MHz DDR2 with 5-5-5-18 stock timings @ 1.8v
WD 160GB SATA hard drive (for system & apps)
WD 250GB SATA hard drive (for media and other content storage)
650 watt Antec NeoPower Blue power supply
One IDE optical DVD ROM drive
One Samsung SATA DVD/RW burner w/Lightscribe
Antec 900 case
Various fans
Windows Vista 64-bit operating system
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU cooler
Intel Q6700 quad core 65nm processor

After some searching (Abit's USA website leaves a lot to be desired - their European website has the more recent info, BIOS, and driver updates) I found the latest BIOS updates and 64-bit drivers and uGuru program. I also downloaded and installed the Windows Flash Utility. This is very convenient because it allows you to update your BIOS to the newest version without restarting your computer or using a floppy. They warn people on forums to use the utility at their own risk, and they recommend doing it with a floppy instead, but I never had issues. I used the Windows utility to flash the BIOS five times without a single lockup during the process. Each time the computer reset properly and my saved BIOS profiles actually worked just fine. I know many others reported trouble getting their saved profiles to work after updating to a new BIOS, but again, I never had issues.

Applications installed fine, including many games and Adobe CS3 Design Premium. Almost everything worked in 64-bit without issues and the system was very stable at stock settings.

Overclocking

I cannot emphasize how amazing the uGuru program within the BIOS is. I have recently switched from my Abit board to an EVGA 680i board. While the EVGA overclocks my processor better (it's a second revision 680i board) I miss the uGuru immensely. Fan control in uGuru within Windows and within the BIOS is far superior to nVidia's control panel. uGuru was more stable, and more consistent for me. nVidia's control panel, which now incorporates ESA, was flashier and made cool sounds, but often would "forget" settings upon reboot, lockup randomly, and didn't offer the specific kind of fan control that uGuru did. Or at least I couldn't find that it did. The Abit board correctly detected, powered, and controlled all 3 pin fans and the CPU fan using uGuru. I could set a low temperature fan speed, and a specific low temperature, and likewise high temperature settings. It was always very accurate and responsive. Fans did EXACTLY what I programmed them to do. They were correctly detected by the guru, and the ones with RPM sensors correctly reported their speeds. I was very, very impressed with the control and stability of this feature. It made custom cooling my important components a breeze. In contrast, the EVGA powers all my fans just fine, but for some reason one of them doesn't even show up in the control panel. It's always a little noisy and I see no way to turn it down, even in the BIOS. And fans that I purchased that have a maximum of like 3k rpm's are reported in the nVidia monitor on my EVGA board as spinning at up to 6k?? Even at idle?? And the fan RPMs of every fan including my CPU fan are always reported between 5k and 6k and jump around like crazy! It's very aggravating. I never had such issues with the Abit board. Props to Abit for a solid uGuru control panel.

In uGuru the overclocking options and precise settings abound. You can run memory linked or unlinked, which allows you to squeeze the maximum performance out of your CPU and your memory independently - a fine feature that many enthusiast boards are adopting these days. It has very precise voltage controls for both the ram and the processor. You can change north bridge and south bridge voltages, and many other voltages to tweak your overclocking settings.

As I overclocked via the BIOS I ran into a huge problem. I got the system stable up to 3.2GHz, not bad for a quad, but in the uGuru my PWM temps were hitting the high 120's when I was running Prime95 with all four cores using the small fft's test (a stress test designed to maximize heat and power consumption)!!! They even passed the 130's (CELSIUS!!) and one time during testing the thresholds were hit, the motherboard's safeties engaged, and it shut off the system to prevent damage. These high temps were prohibiting me from going any higher on my overclocks, and I wasn't even that high on voltages yet, compared to other 680i boards.

Turns out many owners of this board and other 680i boards had similar heat issues. The 32x-max has an easy fix for this. I removed carefully the heat pipe assembly, and doubled over the wimpy thermal pads, and put some silver thermal paste in between to maximize good contact between the heat sinks and the north/south bridge and PWM chips. I popped the heatpipe system back on and lo and behold, the temps lowered drastically! At idle things were 40c cooler, and at load things were between 40c-50c cooler with even higher voltage settings! The PWM's scarcely peaked 100c after the mod, and idled as low as 40c, whereas they were idling around 80c before!! The modification only took 10 minutes, but it's something I shouldn't have to have done on an "enthusiast" board that retailed for over $300 after it came out. Anyways, I was able to achieve 3.33GHz stable with very good temps on my Q6700, still cooling everything with air.

What prevented me from overclocking further was the dreaded vdroop. It simply didn't provide the power needed by a quad core to go any higher. I eventually found out that the processor wasn't the limit either, because I now have it running stable at 3.65GHz in my EVGA board!!!! Some users of this Abit board soldered voltage mods onto the board to increase voltage, but I didn't want to void the 3 year warranty!!! I was stuck. I read that this wasn't nearly so much a problem on this board with dual cores. Many hit above 3.6GHz on their dual core systems.

My very inexpensive ram found an impressive overclock on this board. I boosted voltage to 1.95v and was able to run my memory at 5-4-4-14 timings (faster than stock 5-5-5-18 timings) and at 1000MHz!!! No errors in memtest, and excellent stability in Vista, even after installing two more sticks for a total of 8GB!!

PCI-E video cards also overclocked well, though this has much more to do with the GPU itself than the motherboard. I never got the chance to test this board in SLI, yet ... but when I do I will update.


Compatibility

This board had no compatibility issues that I could discern with internal or external peripherals. It was very stable and had no issues with a dedicated sound card, either. I never had any SATA or USB issues, although some people on forums reported such.

Build Quality/Design

This is one sexy board. It has controllable LED lights on the back of it that reflect and light up the insides of the side wall of your computer case. It looks incredible and you can choose among 6 light patterns. The board has a solid, high quality feel, and the black PCB looks very professional. Plenty of SATA cables, two SLI bridges, and other accessories are included. The included wifi card works well, and takes up a tiny amount of space since it's PCI-E x1.

Value

I'm still waiting for my mail-in-rebate, but when I receive it, I will definitely consider this a great deal.

Conclusion

I was hoping it would overclock my quad core better. I was also disappointed that I had to mod it myself. Why didn't they design it right in the first place for better cooling? Even though the mod was easy, if it was easy, why didn't they figure it out in testing and do it themselves??? Abit's support via forums has been quite good. There is a good community behind this board, and new users will find a wealth of support and experiences shared online. The boards looks, features, and expandability are impressive. uGuru is amazing for overclocking and fan control. I was very impressed by this. I was disappointed in the vdroop issues, however. Overall, I would recommend this board, but with a few reservations. I recommend it more for dual core users, and I definitely recommend only experienced users purchase it. It can still be had for good prices online these days, and isn't a bad board at all if you're willing to put some time and "love" into it. I achieved decent overlcocks with it, especially impressive overclocks on the memory. Windows Vista compatibility was never an issue, and BIOS updates always seemed to either improve things, or at least never made things worse.

Overall, this board has a lot of good things going for it, but a few fairly serious issues that should've been considered pre-production.