GeForce 8800 and NForce 680i availability and pricing

Author: Wil Harris
Published: 8th November 2006
Comments (17) Digg Stumble
Abit has closely followed the reference design for 680i, with the added bonus of passive cooling.

Abit has closely followed the reference design for 680i, with the added bonus of passive cooling.

Today, NVIDIA is introducing a new range of next-gen products - the 8800 series of graphics cards and the 680i series of motherboards.

The partner line-up contains the usual suspects, and we have rounded up some information on bundles and availability.

Partners out of the door with 8800 cards include BFG, EVGA, XFX, Foxconn, Leadtek and Inno3D. These are currently in stock configurations - 575MHz Core and 768MB of 1800MHz memory for the GTX, and 500MHz Core and 640MB of 1600MHz memory for the GTS.

Out of those, the guys doing something other than the reference design are BFG and Leadtek. Leadtek have a version of the card with a slightly thinner cooler. BFG have gone far further and have a version of the card that is watercooled and overclocked to 700/2000, which is pretty insane. The waterblock is DangerDen and should fit in with your existing WC loop.

On the motherboard front, EVGA have built the NVIDIA reference design this time around, and Abit have something very similar to this but with a passive cooling solution. The board is designed for Core 2 Duo and Quadro, and features three PCI-E graphics slots.

Corsair has come out with a line of SLI-ready memory specifically designed to work with the 680i, including the super-high-end TWIN2X2048-9136C5D Dominator modules, and Cooler Master has also got a new 850W Real Power Pro PSU that is certified for 8800 usage.

Here's some e-tailer links:


Look out for our comprehensive reviews of the EVGA 680i board and the 8800 GTS card in the coming days. In the mean time, give us your thoughts on 8800 pricing over in the forums.

Quote Mankz. 8th November 2006, 19:23
£400 for an 8800 GTX on Dabs
£315 for an 8800 GTS on Dbas aswell......
Quote Tulatin 8th November 2006, 19:27
Uh, is it just me, or is anyone else worried about how BIG those sink cores are for the MCP and PWM? I mean hell, ATI makes a chip that can run almost naked and look at those... just think - with three GTX cards on that board and a quad 6700, you'd end up with temps in excess of 80c regularly...
Quote theevilelephant 8th November 2006, 19:38
Im sure the prices will drop withink 2 weeks
Quote unrealhippie 8th November 2006, 19:42
*Overclockers* surely wont sell many charging that large margin extra!

Somebody at Hexus said there has been a recall on some of the cards, anyone else hear about this?
Quote Tim S 8th November 2006, 19:48
We broke the news the other day - I've had first-hand problems with a dud card. All of the other GeForce 8800 GTX cards I've got are fine though. ;)
Quote atanum141 8th November 2006, 19:53
I think the best news to come from all of this is the expected fall in prices of the 7900 high end cards and also hopefully the X1950XTX's
Quote SeBbY_007 8th November 2006, 21:34
All this money for DX10 graphics cards, on top of a new PSU, motherboard, CPU, Memory.

I'm happy with my current system if they want to bleed me dry. I know new technology comes at a premium but I can't help thinking this new wave is considerably more expensive than the last.
Quote Omnituens 8th November 2006, 21:53
i dunno what to do now.... i need an upgrade.... just how far?

£200 for a mobo.... :(
Quote Lazarus Dark 8th November 2006, 22:01
only thing I haven't heard that I need to know is:
I know 680i is supposed to support 1333 fsb but I need to know how much room it has above that for ocing. anyone hear how they are supposed to oc/seen a review yet? this is the only thing i need to know before I decide on the asus striker exteme.
Quote airchie 8th November 2006, 23:14
I'm liking the look of the abit IN9 Max tbh.

Waiting patiently for a review... :)
Quote Mankz. 9th November 2006, 07:05
over on XS, people have been getting 400 FSB fine on the EVGA board, with something upto 1.8 vCore
Quote Evenge 9th November 2006, 14:11
tempting... VERY tempting! :D
Quote Kevin_G 9th November 2006, 22:24
nVidia has boasted a >2.0 Ghz effective FSB speed in their labs which works out to be 500 Mhz real clock speed. That is rather impressive and several review sites else where have hit that mark with Core 2 Duo X6800 processors. It would be interesting to see some benchmarks at that high of a FSB with synchronous memory times, low latencies and a 1T command rate, all of which are supported by the nVidia chipset.
Quote BadHead 10th November 2006, 13:48
Hi,

These are very nice, but they're still "Old School" at the moment.

Best wait untill the cards are fully HDCP compatible and come fitted with a HDMI port - complete with sound channel. This'll probably happen with lower spec cards - some 7600 cards already come with HDMI ports - which should be released later (?) if nVidia history is anything to go by. Only then could these cards be regarded as a "revolution" instead of the "evolution" that they are now.

A for pricing. It seems alirght for the power they offer. Wait and see what AMD/ATI will come up with with their DX10 cards.

Anyone have any idea when DX9L for XP will be released - DX9L is DX10 fro XP?
Quote Tim S 10th November 2006, 14:06
500MHz FSB isn't hard on the EVGA board - we are working on a review at the moment.

BadHead, GeForce 8800 is the most revolutionary architecture I've seen in the world of graphics since the start... R300 was incredible in its day, but this is another level. With that said though, I'm eagerly awaiting ATI's part too - can't wait to see what's under the hood.
Quote Redbeaver 10th November 2006, 16:17
im liking the GTS very much.... $550Canadian here and it still tops x1950xt and 7950GX2...... and with my s939 X2 3800+ @2.9Ghz and Samsung 20' widescreen that tops *only* 1680x1050... i think i'll survive the Dx10 revolution and Vista just fine....... without Core2Duo........
Quote EQC 11th November 2006, 00:47
For anybody interested in the 680i chipset, a good diagram is here:

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2869&p=3

Of particular interest to me: while 2 of the 16x PCI-express slots can actually run at 16x simultaneously, the third can "only" run at 8x. The NVidia reference design only has 46 total possible PCI-express lanes when you include those assigned to 1x slots....so it'll probably be quite some time before there is any attempt at 3 graphics cards working together and all pulling data at 16x speeds (requiring 48 lanes for the graphics slots alone).
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