EVGA offers $89 upgrade to 780i for 680i Owners.

Not long ago, I posted a thread about EVGA offering a one time upgrade offer to those customers who had purchased the 680i SLI motherboard from them. For $89, you can upgrade to EVGA's newest chipset, the 780i SLI.

Many sites have simply shrugged off the 780i as an incremental move. Some think it should be called the 680i SLI v2.0 instead of going to a whole new chipset identifier.

However, I think there's been some great underestimation done.

EVGA 780i breaks 30k in 3DMark06.

3DMark06 Score card. Shows a 5.8GHz overclock.

There's awesome overclocking experiences happening all over forums every where with the new 780i. Take EVGA's own forums for example.
Check out some of the threads in this section.

When I first posted my original link about the 780i program, I jumped onto the bandwagon. I had recently received my 680i updated board for use with my Q6600. My original 680i would only take my Q6600 G0 CPU to 2.8 or so. The new, updated 680i I got from EVGA, with free cross shipping no less!, allowed me to go up to 3.2GHz stably. 3.4GHz for short periods of time. But over all, there was something just *missing* with Quad support. If I used my Dominator 1066MHz ram, I would get random lockups. Using my OCZ DDR2-800, I stopped having lockups but began having random slow downs. I finally traced the problem to overheating NB and SB chips. I improved the cooling, but I still didn't really enjoy overclocks as high as I thought I should be getting.

Well, I finally got my email from EVGA last night. After one month of sitting in the queue, waiting for my number to come up, my 680i SLI is packed up and ready to be shipped. I'm excited! I can't wait to see what this new mobo will do with my Q6600 CPU.

I think it's simply awesome how well EVGA is taking care of their customers. At first, for many weeks, it was thought that EVGA would only allow stepping up to the 780i from 680i SLI board owners with certain part numbers. In other words, if you spent $250-300 for a 680i, you would be able to get the 780i for just $89+Shipping. It was a pretty well made conclusion that owners of lesser board would probably be left out.

Now though, one of the EVGA Forum company reps has made the statement that even 680i LT owners will now be included in this upgrade offer, albeit at more than $89.

So if you've been mislead into overlooking this opportunity, you may want to do some research of your own. The 780i is doing some great things in the enthusiast market.

I can't wait to get my hands on mine and overclock the snot out of it. Should be a very interesting experience! Hell, at this point, getting my Q6600 to 3.6GHz would be worth the expense and wait time!