680i Rejecting Quad-Core Penryns?

[One4yu2c]

Originally Posted by The Inquirer

It has long been rumoured on Internet forums, but now a moderator at EVGA forums has appeared to confirm that Nvidia's Nforce 680i chipset fails to support all 45nm processors from Intel.

Nvidia 680i chipset fails future-proof test - The INQUIRER

Originally Posted by EVGA Support Forum

EVGA 680i users,

The EVGA 680i SLI motherboard will support 45nm Wolfsdale (dual core) CPU's with an upcoming BIOS update. 45nm Yorkfield (quad core) CPU's will be supported on upcoming nForce 700-series SLI motherboards.

nForce 680i SLI motherboard and 45nm Intel CPU support.

Originally Posted by EVGA Support Forum

We can tell you it is a hardware limitation on the 680i board. With the release of a new CPU sometimes it is not just a simple die shrink, even if the CPU draws less power there could be other specs and requirements. The P35 chipset is Intel's first chipset to support thier Yorkfield CPU's. The P35 was released June of 2007, the 680i motherboard launched Novemeber of 2006. The 700 series motherboard will have the necessary changes to fully support the Yorkfield CPU's. I know this is not the best news we can bring you but we are doing everything we can at this time. I will answer all questions as best as I can.

RE: nForce 680i SLI motherboard and 45nm Intel CPU support.

[Elysium]

Yep, there was a rumor that because Nvidia didn't give Intel the SLI license, Intel is making the quad-core Penryns incompatible with Nvidia's 680i chipset. Seems kinda immature to me if at all true...

[One4yu2c]

Originally Posted by yellowhello

Yep, there was a rumor that because Nvidia didn't give Intel the SLI license, Intel is making the quad-core Penryns incompatible with Nvidia's 680i chipset. Seems kinda immature to me if at all true...

Don't put any stock into that rumor. New processors not working with existing chipsets are nothing new, predating SLI. And on top of that, there's a huge enthusiast market that's bought into nVidia's chipsets, and Intel has enough business sense not to purposely screw over a market segment that they've only recently won back from AMD.

[Elysium]

Thank you very much for clearing that up, Paul. It didn't really make sense to me either when I first heard it, so it's good to heard someone with some authority killing that rumor...

[wtcnbrwndo4u]

Well, that screws over many people, but honestly, who wouldn't have seen it coming? Take a look at Intel's route since the introduction of LGA775. Had to change motherboards to upgrade to Core 2 Duo, had to upgrade again for 1066MHz FSB, etc.

[halutzparilla]

680i are having bad luck i wreck one of my mobo a ECS 680i and wasnt able to OC in it at all the only good thing is it runs cooler than any board i owned...

[Athildja-x64]

The 680i was and is a Flawed chipset.
while it is true that most of the time you need to buy a new mainboard to fully support the newer CPUs from Intel (or AMD for that matter) nVidia's 680i has had problems with Quad core since the Kentsfield days, they never fully fixed those issues and now we are seeing that the newer Quads simply cannot run on the 680i platform.

[Dr. V]

The 680i chipset is a classic and perfect example of:

"Successful in theory, failure in execution."

There are certain levels of that being true, but the same also holds true for the iPhone, Vista (when it was first released), and the list goes on.

[Loosecannon]

Quoting a friend ........

*** - I need to get a bigger house with more doors , i'm running out of doors to use the nvidia chipsets boards as door stops.

I personally have stayed clear of them , but it doesn't look good does it

[Quakindude]

Originally Posted by Athildja-x64

The 680i was and is a Flawed chipset.
while it is true that most of the time you need to buy a new mainboard to fully support the newer CPUs from Intel (or AMD for that matter) nVidia's 680i has had problems with Quad core since the Kentsfield days, they never fully fixed those issues and now we are seeing that the newer Quads simply cannot run on the 680i platform.

I think that's a bit all encompassing for the actual facts.

To call the 680i chipset a failure is an outright display of being ignorant of that chipsets capabilities.

The EVGA AR version of the 680i had some problems with Quad core when Quads first came out. Then EVGA came out with the A1 version of the 680i which cured the problems. The perspective here is that the Quads worked perfectly fine on the AR board, you just didn't have overclocking head room. Even then, EVGA made the updated boards completely free and accessible to the customers who had purchased the AR boards. Even shipping both ways was covered and you didn't have to cross ship either. You got the new mobo and had 14 days to ship the AR back to them.

The fact that the new Penryn/Yorkfield Quad's aren't compatible isn't extremely surprising on a mobo that's as mature as the 680i. The P965/975's have suffered some of the same growing pains, the 975 being one of the biggest disappointments in some time.

As soon as the Nehalem silicon becomes available, the 680i's, 965's, 975's, P35's and X38's are all old news anyway as that architecture is supposed to have an integrated memory controller, requiring a new mobo. The new Nehalem CPU's without the memory controller may work on the older chipsets, but that will be completely determined by whether or not Intel keeps the same socket form.