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Gigabyte N680SLI-DQ6 - A Mother Of A Motherboard
MojoKid writes "Motherboards manufacturers seem to get more exotic in their designs, with each new chipset release. HotHardware has an evaluation posted looking at the Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6; a product that seemingly out does every other current desktop motherboard in a number of key areas. The board features four Gigabit LAN controllers, 10 SATA ports, a 12-phase power array, 100% solid-state capacitors, and a unique wrap-around, passive, cooling apparatus that cools both the top and underside of the chipset and CPU socket area. And because the board is based on NVIDIA's nForce 680i SLI chipset, it also has three full-length PCI Express x16 slots for multi-GPU support. It's a good overclocker and performed well throughout the benchmarks."
...does it go to Eleven?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
I recognize most of that stuff, but what is a 12-phase power array?
Is this really neccesary?
(Before someone else replies, I have the most likely response, "Necessary? Is it necessary that I drink my own urine? No, but I do it anyways because it's sterile and I like the taste." -Patches O'Houlihan)
Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
With all the heat piping in this thing it sounds really great for quietness -- except that the heat still has to be removed from the enclosure so that it doesn't toast lots of other electronic whatzits Of course, if they put a little coffee plate on the top of the enclosure you could prolly use one of things to brew up a pot but otherwise the quiet factor goes away because of the newly required higher capacity enclosure fan.
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
I intend to launch a tech review site immediately after you give me a copy of that motherboard for review. Just ship it to my house, and I promise you a good review. Mind you I can't really test the board's SLI features unless I have two top-end video cards as well. And I can't really test the overclocking unless you give me a processor, but in the end, you'll get a glowing review. It will be worth it.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I was surprised to read in the blurb that it had three PCI-Express x16 slots, but the hardware summary on the story says it only has two. Still, better than just one.
Will it blend?
:)
That is the question
From TFA:
Why stick so many ports (4x LAN, 10x SATA) on the motherboard? Is there a performance benefit to putting those ports there, instead of providing lots of PCI slots so you can create your own optimal mix of ports?
The correct term is 'solid-core', not 'solid-state', FYI.
Three PCI Express 16X Slots? I'm not quite sure I get that one. Why? To run SLI on one pair, and have another single graphics card? Most cards today come with two outputs anyway, and if you're crazy enough to need SLI on two monitors, why wouldn't you need it on your third/fourth? Four slots would've made more sense to me.
I guess they must be aiming at the booming five- and six-monitor market...?
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
The opposite of "solid-state" capacitors is in this case the aluminium electrolytic capacitors. Presumably they just use tantalum or some other kind instead on this board. Now, these are also polarized and technically also "electrolytic" (besides, they can still fail) but their failure mode does not include emitting nasty goop onto the board.
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308
All the hardware faults I've had in the past few years are due to bad caps. I hope other manufacturers take the hint and ditch using electrolytics for their mobos. The only place I want to see electrolytics are in the power supply.
Anyone? I'm not sure why its news ...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
From TFA: "As we continue our tour around the GA-N680SLI-DQ6, you may notice that this board is equipped with nothing but solid-state capacitors; no electrolytic caps are to be found. This should help with the board's longevity as there no chance of a leaky cap.
That's a mother of a product name too.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
With 4 Gigabit ports and 10 sata slots this could make a nice cost-effective iSCSI SAN...
Did you hear? It can run Linux too.
rather than any genuine advantage).
No need to turn this in to a Microsoft flame war! ^.^
Good bye, sweet Karma....
those damn ads kept crasing my ie:
c leid=987
http://www.hothardware.com/printarticle.aspx?arti
Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
we understand not everyone deems quality important, good luck with that.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...is to have dual computers.
Wait....
Doh! You're right, even though they're the same length, one is 8x. Which begs the question even more, why?
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
It's 2 16s and an 8
however, to answer your bigger wuestion: There are cards other then video cards that use 16 PCI-eXpress.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Always had good luck with Gigabyte...bought one these and had to return it because it wouldn't POST. Too bad, looked like a nice unit. Bought an EVGA instead, which worked okay, BIOS updates a must though
I have a question, maybe a somewhat simple one, but I'll ask it nevertheless. What's the point of multiple PCI Express slots? I'm not aware of any devices other than video cards using PCI Express (though I could very easily be wrong). It's not possible to use two video cards at the same time, correct? Is this just looking towards the future when more devices will need to throughput offered by PCI Express?
Sorry, could someone explain me where does this meme comes from? I think I lost that /. episode...
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
You must be thinking of those new iMacs
(Ok not so new anymore but you get the idea)
How, exactly is this informative?
Besides telling us what kind of mental help it is that you nead?
Someone correct me if I am wrong...
It is some journalist mambo-jumbo. The motherboard uses some non-electrolytic capacitors ( the brown boxes near CPU socket ) I believe that those are multilayer ceramic capacitors. The rest just look like regular SMD aluminium electrolytic capacitors ( shiny gauges with blue / green title on the top ). I have never heard of motherboard that uses non solid-state capacitors like adjustable one. Non solid-state components should be the component that have moving parts.
BTW I hate SMD aluminium electrolytic capacitors. The reason is that soldering alloy becomes brittle after some (years) time, so they just fall off.
I'm sorry, but as interesting as this board seems in the Slashvert for HotHardware, I can't take the site itself: Overclocked with nausiating ads, minimal actual story spread over way too many pages... They seem to be getting a lot of exposure on Slashdot, but it's just not worth it.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Plz. ignore that nutcase below that refers to Wikipedia on 3-phase power, that's about something totally different. I suspect many /.'ers will have some understanding of electronics, but maybe less detailed than I assume. So I'll give it a go in layman's terms:
What you're looking at is a DC step-down switching regulator circuit (look that up if you want). On most mobo's, it converts 12V to around 1,5V, at many, many Amperes (fist rule: power = voltage x amps).
In it's most basic form, it consists of a coil, a (fast) switch, and a diode. The coil(s) are the thick copperwire/ceramic thingies on the board. As a switch, electronic versions known as power MOSFETs (usually black, square plastic thingies) are used. Because diodes have a small, but significant voltage drop when current passes through, this would give unacceptable losses (heat) at the high currents we have here. Therefore, another power MOSFET is used to replace the diode.
Such a pair of MOSFETs is switched on and off quickly (10s or 100s thousands of times a second), with 1 in conducting (low resistance), and 1 in non-conducting (high resistance) state at any given moment. BUT: when switching over, there is some overlap, where both are somewhat conducting, causing a momentary 'short circuit' (=losses, waste heat). Enter 3-state: switch one off, wait very short to make sure the MOSFET goes fully into non-conducting state, and only THEN switch on the other MOSFET.
My guess is this 'Quad-Triple Phase power' is a similar construction, but then 4 times, working in parallel (for more current), or alternating (to lengthen cooling periods between on-states). Basically: a high-current, energy-efficient 12V-to-CPU-voltage converter.
I may be off, but Id think using solid caps were to ensure reliability over time.
Electrolytics dry up and change capacitance over time, they may work for a long time but a point will come where its value is so off it causes failure elsewhere.
That said, cap types is a whole science and there may be other reasons why they use these particular types.
With talk like that you must get all the chicks.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Not being a gamer, I am really uninterested in multiple graphic card support. Fast CPU, good. Fast disks, good. Fast graphics, who cares. Doesn't make emacs go any faster ;-).
The ABIT KT-7 motherboard says hello to You.
Cool! It's really getting hard to find the old vacuum tube caps I'm using now.
Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I read the article. Seems to me that electrolytic is kind of solid state, but I get the idea. Whatever happened to mica?
What?
Overheard at Gigabyte HQ...
So, there are only two missing now: are gas and/or plasma capacitors possible to construct?
True confidence comes not from realising you are as good as your peers, but that your peers are as bad as you are.
It's kind of fitting it's on a web site called 'Hot hardware'. With all those heatsinks, it must be horribly inefficient and heat generating!
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
"You must be new here"
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
As does the Asus M2N32 WS Professional
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Regular aluminum electrolytic capacitors are filled with liquid. When driven hard and hot, that liquid evaporates or boils. There are various other types of caps that have no liquid, including solid tantalum and ceramic. They generally have lower ESR (good), and last (for all intents and purposes) forever, but are definitely more expensive.
About the only advantage of an aluminum electrolytic is that it's cheap.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
and the new Turboencabulator.
But you know, electrical engineers will appreciate the difficulty of nubbing together a regurgitative purwell and a superaminative wennel-sprocket. Indeed, this proved to be a stumbling block to further development until, in 1943, it was found that the use of anhydrous nagling pins enabled a kyptonastic boiling shim to be tankered.
finally, out with the 62% tube based capacitors!
Live Electronic Music
you may notice that this board is equipped with nothing but solid capacitors; no electrolytic caps are to be found.
I guess the reviewer knows nothing about electronics as the board is littered with surface mount crimp style electrolytic caps.
I love it when reviewers make things up because they are running out of things to say.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Total BS. Looking at the photo, I see a whole ton of crimp-style surface mount electrolytic capacitors. This is the dumbest thing I've read in a long time on /.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
That's wrong, actually. The advantage of electrolytics is that they have very large capacitance for their size (tantalum electrolytics more so than aluminum electrolytics, but tantalums are more expensive and are limited to lower voltages).
/. in a while.
The article has way too much BS. The photo of the board makes it obvious that it's full of crimp-style surface mount electrolytic capacitors. "Solid state capacitors" yeah right... dumbest thing I've read on
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
If it doesn't have four processor sockets and room for 32GB of RAM, what good is it?
That is all.
Software RAID will never result in your data becoming unavailable because of failures in infrastructure (other than the disks themselves).
Buy two or four drives for your infrastructure server, and set them up as mirrored/striped in the OS. A dead simple proposal with little performance degradation (at least, when using SATA or SCSI).
Although I wouldn't do RAID5 or RAID6 in software. That's what external storage devices are for... full embedded devices with monitoring, support contracts, etc.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
To ensure a longer for systems in daily operation and boost system stability under extreme conditions, this platform adopts cutting-edge Conductive Polymer Aluminum Solid Capacitors from the world's leading vendors. With these high-quality components , users can take advantage of better electronic conductivity and excellent heat resistance for enhanced system durability. There are indeed 100% non-electrolytic capacitors on this board, despite what it 'looks' like to you. There's even a pretty sticker on the box saying 100% solid capacitors. It's not like it's a hugely rare feature these days, other boards have 100% solid caps too, like the ASUS P5N32 SLI PLUS.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?P
800/1066/1333FSB, ATA/133, 4DDR2 DIMM, 2 PCI Express x16, 1 PCI Express x8, 1 PCI Express x1, 3PCI, USB 2.0/1.1, IEEE 1394a, Audio, Quad Gigabit LAN, RAID/SATA, eSATA
Features exclusive Silent Pipe II fanless cooling technology and 100% solid capacitors
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
lol dude ...
I just wanted to point out that quality is not Intel only. The motherboard FTA is not the first one to use solid-core electrolytic capacitors.
The KT-7 motherboard that waved hello to geekoid dude is more than six years old now and it still works. The aluminium electrolytic capacitors are the only limiting factor for the motherboard life time, and the KT-7 motherboard I have mentioned had several electrolytic capacitors replaced over last six years. If it had solid-core tantalum capacitors like the motherboard FTA it would never require service.
That means that we could use reliable computers for years, and throw them away when they are obsolete, not when they fail because of some low life time aluminium electrolytic capacitor. We could if the manufacturers switch to solid-core tantalum capacitors.
>It is some journalist mambo-jumbo. The motherboard uses some non-electrolytic capacitors
>( the brown boxes near CPU socket ) I believe that those are multilayer ceramic capacitors.
>The rest just look like regular SMD aluminium electrolytic capacitors
They ARE aluminum, and they are electrolytic, but the electrolyte isn't a liquid, it's a solid.
The solid-electrolyte capacitors are more expensive, more reliable and also more durable,
so will take higher temperatures. They are said to completely eliminate leakage-of-goo
failures.
For reference, Nichicon solid-electrolyte 6.3V 470 uF LF series capacitors sell for $0.75 and
an equivalent with liquid-goo electrolyte ( PW series) is $0.18. Those are prices in hundred
quantity, from DigiKey. The price premium was much worse a few years ago, so we're going
to see this feature on lots of logic boards.
Seriously, they just heaped features on this thing for bragging rights. What are you going to do - turn this into a one box data center?
...the cooling technology that's going into it!
Screw how many pci slots it has! I live in a warm climate w/no AC so my rig can get kinda warm so I don't overclock. But the cooling technology of cooling 2 different parts of the board is brilliant! I've been hoping for this for a long time. Engineers thinking outside the box (no pun intended) is where it's at, yo!
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. -Mahatma Ghandi
You idiot, doesn't matter if it's solid or not, it's still electrolytic. These use solid electrolyte. The full name is still "Aluminum electrolytic solid (conductive polymer) capacitors", as you'll see written on the websites of typical manufacturers of such capacitors: http://www.rubycon.co.jp/en/pc-con/index.html (Rubycon is one of the biggest capacitor manufacturers). More solid conductive polymer capacitors that point out they are still electrolytic: http://www.garrettelec.com/weblog/2007/06/aluminum _electrolytic_capacito_1.html Another of the capacitor manufacturing giants: http://www.nichicon-us.com/english/products/pdf/e- cg.pdf "CONDUCTIVE POLYMER
ALUMINUM SOLID ELECTROLYTIC CAPACITORS"
So, I've proven you're as full of shit as the original article.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Mod parent down, solid conductive polymer capacitors are still electrolytic, as a quick search of the literature would reveal! The conductive polymer is a solid electrolyte; the principle of operation is still the same.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Why was I modded down? Did anyone actually check the post of the idiot that replied to me? The conductive polymer capacitors are still electrolytic, despite the electrolyte being a solid. Major capacitor manufacturers still call these electrolytic capacitors:
m _electrolytic_capacito_1.html and http://www.nichicon-us.com/english/products/pdf/e- cg.pdf says they are "CONDUCTIVE POLYMER ALUMINUM SOLID ELECTROLYTIC CAPACITORS"
Some examples from big manufacturing companies that call solid conductive polymer capacitors electrolytic: "Aluminum electrolytic solid (conductive polymer) capacitors" according to http://www.rubycon.co.jp/en/pc-con/index.html or how about http://www.garrettelec.com/weblog/2007/06/aluminu
As you can see, my post was modded down unfairly, and I deserve some reprieve.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
You must be new here.
This is BS. Electrolyte capacitors are "solid state", i.e. without moving parts. What you want in durable electronics no electrolyte capacitors or only high-durability ones with good cooling.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Gigabyte have attempted MULTIPLE times to extort money from me for a product under warranty.
They flat out refuse to honour the warranty without payment on a video card - it's STILL under warranty and broken in my drawer at work.
I'd rather stick with Asus or MSI or well,,, anyone but Gigabyte.
Oh and the amazing overclocking Gigabyte DS3? Yeah, not so much, go search on google for the 'post bug' problems where it refuses to re-boot even if the overclock was stable for a week, or it re-boots itself at the post stage multiple times for no apparent reason - very flakey - very cheap - not interested.
I get my profit-sharing bonus next week too. I guess I know where its going. When is it on the market?
It sounds like a good Never Winter Nights 2 server.
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
Is it just me or are Intel chipset motherboards CRAZY expensive? All the enthusiast level boards are >$200. Which is crazy.
I have three friends (None are particularly broke) waiting for a killer motherboard to build a rig...
Intel get your house in order, Nvidia is eating you from the inside with motherboards that are more expensive than your processors.
SLI is overrated, especially with the dearth of decent mid range graphics cards...
Components are getting better but they're making it such a pain to put together a decent mid range system this generation, there aren't any new features (Same old raid setups, NCQ, PCI-E, DDR2 etc are old hat)... so why the sudden increase in motherboard prices...
The thing is almost 6 months old and is still $285+. Plus it seems difficult to find at a physical store. I hate the possible hassle of a return to an on-line shop.
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
But more important than their exact composition is the question of how well they fare over the long term.
I've thrown away at least a dozen motherboards with nothing at all wrong with them, except for a few bad capacitors, all within the last 5 or so years.
I recently fixed a not-too-old series 2 tivo which had a few bulging capacitors in its power supply. This was mostly interesting because all of the obviously broken caps were of the same brand, while the other 4 or 5 brands of caps on that board appeared to be OK.
So: Does this solid conductive polymer capacitor improve reliability? If not, are there any advantages to the technology other than being newly marketable?
Kid-proof tablet..
Another Gigabyte motherboard (Gigabyte M57SLI-S4) does run LinuxBIOS, and is one of the only desktop motherboards to do so. It would be cool if the most performat desktop motherboard in existense also ran a 100% Free/Open Source BIOS such as LinuxBIOS.
Before getting excited about this motherboard, read the reviews: Customer Reviews for GIGABYTE GA-N680SLI-DQ6.
Samples:
"The creator of these [this] BIOS is still living in the 1990's."
"In an attempt to RMA this board with Newegg, they stated that this board has been discontinued by the manufacturer, thus I got a 100% refund. But apparently after more research, there are 2 versions of this board."
"It runs WAY TOO HOT..."
Also, note all the open box offers at the bottom here: Gigabyte Intel Processors.
They are getting so many returns that there is a long list. May be a bad indication, depending on how the web site works concerning open box offers.
Gentlemen, it's a nuclear device. As you'll see here, pressing this red button will detonate the BIOS, sending a massive wave of total apathy throughout the entire Internet and thus destroying the world.
Oh, wait, everyone is already terminally apathetic.
Consider yourself spoken to.
Marvell LAN chips don't have Linux drivers
I have had one of these for a few months... maybe they just came out in America? anyway i think its brilliant.... 10 sata ports are fantastic, i have 6 hard drives iv accumulated for storing media on, (all legal of course...) and with most motherboards this is a pain since 4 sata ports or even 6 is limiting especially with the extremely low prices of hard drives these days. and for the person asking why you cant just use controller cards and set it up how you like, after you have 2 graphics cards in sli theres one pcie-1 and 1 pci slot left, i need one for sound. that leaves one pcie for a controller card, a 4 port sata card in aus is from memory over AU$200. Thats half the price of the motherboard. 8 port is like $500. if you need anything else like tv tuner, too bad. i think there really isn't enough room for slots on motherboards these days, and why isn't everyone using pci-e?! motherboard manufacturers seem to think they are! the pci-e 8x slot is for the fabled physics cards that are (supposedly) coming out. or in the case of the other theory for a third graphics card dedicated to physics. Futureproofing is good. the 4 gigabit lan ports you could say are good for using teaming on two connections... but really its just for bragging rights, 2 really is enough for nearly everyone i think. but if your buying a top of the line motherboard its nice to get extras. being able to plug in and out my xbox, ps3 or whatever without disturbing other ethernet connections is nice tho, or if i just need to hook up a laptop to transfer files or something. the only thing iv noticed is that the heatsink array gets VERY VERY hot, like you cant touch it without getting burned hot, but it hasn't caused me any problems yet and i have it overclocked a fair bit. im worried the extreme heat from the northbridge and back of the cpu might heat up the southbridge... but no problems yet. Most people wont use half the features, but most people shouldn't spend AU$450 on a motherboard. Its there for people who need it like me.
So Skulldilocks threw acid on the schoolchildrens' faces, cause somebody from the bible told her to do it!
solid polymer capacitors are much more reliable than liquid electrolytics. I too have had problems with bad liquid electrolytic capacitors, which is why I stick to solid polymer capacitors these days.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
Sigh. You've missed the point entirely. People use electrolytic to mean 'electrolyte soaked paper layer capacitors' which are prone to failure, especially if its one of the capacitors manufactured with a bad liquid electrolyte formula. Solid alumninum polymer capacitors are far more reliable - which when you're buying motherboards, is quite important; definitely so if you've had bad liquid-electrolytic capacitors fail in the past, as I have.
I thought you were arguing that it had liquid (i.e. non-solid polymer) electrolytic capacitors on this board, and used the same shorthand in return. I now see you were arguing the technical difference between a true non-electrolytic capacitor and the whole class of solid and non-solid electrolytic capacitors. For this mistake, I apologise - it was your use of 'typical surface mount capacitors' that threw me - solid polymer capacitors are anything but typical, liquid electrolytics are. I must admit, I'm not aware of any motherboard that uses true non-electrolytic capacitors completely, the capacitance per unit volume is just too useful in small spaces.
For calling you a twit, I stand by. What people want to know is whether the board is prone to failure due to physical liquid electrolyte breakdown and leakage. That problem is largely resolved by solid polymer capacitors. That it is still - technically - an electrolytic capacitor is a point not relevant to anyone not an electrical engineer - as most enthusiasts are not.
You might have avoided the original post's troll mod if you had phrased your post differently; bemoaned the articles misuse of the term non-electrolytic to refer to solid-state electrolytic capacitors rather than going on a rant about surface mount and calling him a dimwit. Call me as full of shit as you wish, but the common usage of electrolytic to stand in for failure-prone liquid electrolytic isn't going to disappear just by insulting me.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
Bitchin fast 3D
Marvell cards are the one with the Sky2 driver right? Which is flaky (not to say crappy...) but i heard there is another module available. (binary?)
;-)
In any case, i wouldn't buy such a mobo if i was to use those 4 cards if i knew it would have flaky driver supports, a crashing router is annoying
If they can get realtek or other well supported cards inside, i'm all in!
What else were other comments about included cabling and eSATA backplanes. Their test systems only used one 10KRPM SATA hard drive.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Dear asshat moderators,
I'll take my hits as appropriate - BUT - how the FUCK is this offtopic? I'm talking about the very subject of the article!!!!
sloth jr
Where do you see these "surface mount crimp style electrolytic caps" ?
...
Or do you mean these perhaps? Which are not caps
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..