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Want to buy G.SKILL for my EVGA 680i

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  • Want to buy G.SKILL for my EVGA 680i

    About a year ago.. my friend and I thought my ASUS P5N32-SLI Deluxe had crapped out. Turns out it really didn't but before I got a chance to grab it back my buddy had irretrievably canned it. After identifying the REAL problem (blown caps on my Nvidia 9600s in SLI) I bought a cheapy $35 mobo (Elitegroup ECS NF650iSLIT-A) and he donated his hand-me-down Q6600 and two EVGA 8800GTs (the quad didn't fit in my old mobo anyway).

    It's been about a year but lately I've been getting BSODs randomly about once a week. The kind that says ''Windows has shut down because of a fatal error".. blah blah blah. At this point.. I'm figuring 3 things.. the mobo is kaput (a couple of things on it never worked despite it being supposedly new).. poor RAM (2X2GB sticks of Crucial 667 [highly unlikely.. Crucial sent it to me recently as well when my old Ballistix died] and 2X1GB of some no-name store-bought stuff) or my PSU.

    I really can't afford a major rebuild and besides.. his Q6600 was treated like a baby, never OC'ed and despite the fact that the EVGA 8800GTs run incredibly hot (A known fact, even though I have flashed them with the ''Akimbo"" firmware).. I like 'em, and the PC handles most everything I can throw at it. I'm using my 27" Olevia flat-screen as a TV/monitor and it only does up to 1080i through HDMI (the way the PCs hooked up) anyway.

    I've had a tri-boot system (XP, W7 & Ubuntu) set up on it.. but I bought a couple of SSDs on sale last week and think I'm going to do a clean install of XP & W7 on them each.

    BTW.. I've bought a EVGA nForce 680i SLI motherboard (the one with the black PCB & heatpipes) because it can be used for precision overclocking (I may ''experiment'' but I can't OC the GPUs.) and I'm starting fresh with that as well.

    I'm tossing the RAM (will sell the Crucial or give away) and getting TWO 2X2GB sets of G.SKILL DDR2 for a total of 8GB (as opposed to my current 6).

    Which leads me to my question.. sorry for the blown up lead-in..

    I wanted to order the sets from Newegg and I inadvertently ordered the wrong thing:

    8GB of DDR2 667 with timings of 4-4-4-12 @ 1.8V - 1.9V, but I meant to order DDR2 800 with timings of 5-5-5-15 @ 1.8V - 1.9V. 8 gigs maxes out this new board, which is odd because the ECS can handle 32.. go figure. The old mobo tops out @ 1.9V but the EVGA can go way higher. Perhaps even DDR2 1000? The EVGA 680i says it supports only up to 800Mhz memory unless one buys ''special'' sticks for SLI, but doesn't specify what those are. It DOES list this DDR2 1000 under the ''800+'' category as being compatible with the 680 chipset (very bottom of page); could that be what they mean?

    I'd like to try and OC the GPU and memory.. but can't the vid cards.. don't wanna' fry them. They still run about 165 at idle.. 195 under a load.. even though EVGA says that's expected I have to leave my case side off because the cards exhaust out the sides right up against it and heat it up. Which is what fried just about everything [HDs and RAM] in my friend's PC.

    The 667 is on it's way and I couldn't change the order but I can return them for the 800.

    Any thoughts on which would be the best? Probably the 800 because I could possibly overclock them to the clock speed of the processor (I believe that's part of the memory SLI setting) but I'm not sure. I'm also seeing some people saying that neither 8GB, nor having all 4 slots populated on this mobo will even work.. is that true? Someone, somewhere else said to keep the 667 because the differences would be negligible/unnoticeable. he said his ASUS mobo wouldn't accept all four slots filled unless he used 667 instead of 800.. but I had an older ASUS one time and I know they don't like ANYthing put in their 4th slot anyway.

    This is kind of one of those ''half a dozen in one hand'' questions and probably opinions will vary both ways.. but I value your opinions.

    Thanks for tolerating the read.
    Last edited by emdeec; 07-01-2012, 03:23 PM.

  • #2
    I'd say go ahead and try the, the 680i had a headroom limit of 800 that some manufacturers bypassed with BIOS upgrades (i.e. Asus did on a few mobos and XFX did (had a couple of them), but there are (were) some limitations, w/ 800 sticks many 680i's had trouble at 800 but would be fine w/ 667 and besides, of the sticks available 800 @ CL5 isn't a large step up from 667 @ 4, in fact I OCed plenty of 667 sets like your and ran them at 800/5. The 6600 is a gem, even if the original B3 model, just recently sold one on a P45 that I ran at 3.6 24/7 for a couple years or more. Give the set a try


    Pls offer comments on support I provide, HERE, in order to help me do a better job here:

    Tman

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    • #3
      Thank you so much Tradesman for your honest and quick answer. I've been sitting on this 667 since it arrived Friday and I have asked this same question in many ''expert'' forums.. yours is the 1st real answer I've gotten.

      I will keep the G.SKILL 667 I currently have. Glad I won't have to RMA it as well.

      BTW.. my Q6600 is rev. G0 ! ;-)

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      • #4
        Even better, those will run 4 GHz on air on a good mobo, might be restricted a little with the 680i, but still should be able to run 3+ GHz


        Pls offer comments on support I provide, HERE, in order to help me do a better job here:

        Tman

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