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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.
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.
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.
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...
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...
Ethernet and some wireless device are using it.
More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
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.
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...
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.
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.
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?
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.