XFX 680i-LT Motherboard
The packaging is up to the usual XFX standard, it is very clean, understated and professional with a few useful pieces of information on the front of the box. Flipping over we find numerous specifications listed as well as a good product shot which gives a clear view of the board engineering design.
Inside the components are separated out into a few sub containers comprising a collection of manuals, and instructions along with the driver CD. No free software is provided, only the essentials. Cabling is suitably thorough with various SATA, IDE and Firewire connections. There is also a USB bracket which adds 4 ports to the board and the SLI connector for those who need it. Overall this is a decent bundle which would be hard to fault.
Shown above is the 680i LT SLI, for anyone who has used a standard 680i or other branded LT it is very clear immediately that this product is using Nvidia’s reference design. We have a fairly mundane green PCB and no flashy components which are frequently found on competitor’s products, comparing the XFX board to Gigabytes recent P35 board really leaves the 680i product lagging behind in several aesthetic departments. Of course this is irrelevant if the product is being installed in a case which doesn’t feature a window.
CPU support on the 680i LT SLI goes from 533MHz FSB up to 1333MHz FSB although some of the newer 1333FSB CPU’s will require a BIOS update (better have an old processor to hand in order to flash the BIOS because some new CPU’s cause the board to hang prior to the update) and memory support is impressive with 1066MHz and above easily achievable. On the rear panel we have a reasonable level of connectivity, PS/2, Firewire, 4xUSB 2.0, optical audio out, analogue out (Realtek 7.1 HD) and one GB LAN port. This should satisfy most users, especially when combined with the additional brackets which come with the board.
When we look to the arrangement of the PCI/PCIe slots we find a rather disappointing layout decision ... installing a dual slot card in the main PCIe slot we immediately lose use of the 1x slot below. Considering there is space further down for a PCIe slot it seems an odd decision not to move the 1x slot there. Furthermore we lose use of the 2nd PCI slot when using a powerful SLI configuration resulting in only a single PCI and PCIe slot being available when the board is fully configured with dual slot graphics cards. On the opposite edge of the board we have one of the better design aspects which is the inclusion of some side facing SATA ports; these allow installation of drive cables without interference from larger PCIe cards. There are more negatives than positives however and these of course affect all of the 680i boards. The first is the inability to reset the CMOS when a second graphics card is installed. The clear CMOS jumper and battery are installed beneath this card which is the most awkward of locations. Nvidia also made the decision to include a very packed design next to the memory slots which features the case connectors, PCIe 4pin power, 4x SATA connectors and IDE connector all in a confined space. Whilst this means the SATA ports are not impacted by the PCIe cards it also means that any changes to cabling are very awkward and adding in drives is more troublesome than it should be due to the sheer number of cables/connectors in the one area. We also noticed whilst inspecting this area that the power LED jumper is a 2 pin design, most boards have a 2 and 3 pin option to cater for most cases however XFX/Nvidia have gone for the 2pin only so without some rewiring a large number of consumers will find themselves without a functional power LED on their case.
There is one final design issue which affects the board and that is the height of the Northbridge cooler, this is just high enough to interfere with the installation of many enthusiast coolers such as Thermaltake’s Sonic Tower and Arctic Cooling’s Freezer 7 pro. High end boards should always take high end coolers into account and it appears that the engineers at Nvidia have overlooked this on the 680i LT. Before we take a look at XFX’s BIOS options there is one further issue which affects the 680i reference design boards and that is electrical noise. From the moment the system posts and a load is applied there is a very noticeable whining/squealing which comes from the board. Back when we looked at our very first full 680i board this was also an issue and it is disappointing to see that it has not been fixed on all newer products. A quick search online finds that this is a common occurrence and the only solution is to RMA the board should the noise become too annoying.
