ASUS Striker 680 SLI Mobo Review

Not using a Conroe chip in a review is just flat out stupid. I'm not saying it has to be a X6800, but virtually no one is going to use the old 3.8EE chip with one of those boards.
 
that motherboard is a sexy beast, i would stare at my computer window all day looking at that shit lol heatpipes everyyywhere
 
Curious, that review said that even with all of the PCIe slots filled with double slot cards like the Nvidia 8800 that both PCI slots could still be used. I thought double slot cards covered up one of those PCI slots on most boards. So is this true? Can both PCI slots still be used on this board if you go SLI?
 
Sneak said:
Curious, that review said that even with all of the PCIe slots filled with double slot cards like the Nvidia 8800 that both PCI slots could still be used. I thought double slot cards covered up one of those PCI slots on most boards. So is this true? Can both PCI slots still be used on this board if you go SLI?
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You are correct, and I was just thinking the same thing. They were wrong about the PCI slot configuration, and they didn't do anything to find out how well the motherboard overclocked. All they did was hit a 4GHz + overclock on a Pentium 4 model 670. That isn't that tough to do and judging by the text of the review, they did it with automatic overclocking. After reading that review, I have no idea what FSB speeds the board might be capable of.

When I start overclock testing a board for a review, I will sometimes drop the CPU's multiplier down to around 5 or 6 to make sure that I am hitting the motherboards FSB ceiling and not the CPU's. I can do this with nearly any CPU, it could be a Celeron for all it matters. The point is to find out what the board is capable of. You can't do that if you run into your CPUs limits first.
 
the strange part is the very last line of the review:

"I was able to overclock the Quad Core QX6700 to over 3 GHz on the board."
 
I am stress testing the Striker right now. It is pulling over 500 watts with SLI 8800GTX and 6800 all at stock clocks when running 3D. Had not faltered yet either, but we have only been in SLI testing for a few hours. Single 8800 ran for days with little cooling under full load.
 
Will this motherboard be a problem if installed inside of this case?

Was reading that for the eVGA 680i you have to dremel for quite a few installations of after market CPU HSF's. Most notably the Zalman 9500. :(

I'll go for this motherboard but if the CPU being at the bottom with the mass o' heatpipes will cause a problem with cooling, might be in the market for something else.
 
dR.Jester said:
Will this motherboard be a problem if installed inside of this case?
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Upside down motherboards with heatpipes = bad

what will happen is the southbridge will get all of the northbridge's heat. Unfortunately the heatsink & fan are on the northbridge. So your northbridge will be super cool, and the southbridge will probably catch on fire!!!

Same thing with almost any heatpipe configured motherboard. Unless you remove the SB heatpipe thing, and put a normal heatsink and probably fan on it too.
 
I would venture a guess that this board will need some bios updates to iron out the overclocking issues.. hopefully that will be it.. with a high profile board like this you know Asus will be getting those issues fixed pretty fast.. well, I would think so at any rate.
 
Yeah, working with the latest BIOS they have 0403....
 
srry dbl post.. but any more luck with the striker? (god, all this striker talk has me thinking about Airplane! ... "strike her, Striker!!" lol)
 
Im still waiting for a review of this board with a full view night shot to show it lit up like a x-mas tree. Hint...hint... :p

Not that i will buy a Mobo that dosent support upside down mounting. I hope its heatpipe is wicked so the southbridge wont set fire.
 
EmptyFlame said:
The Asus Striker is $409? Absolutely ridiculous. For that price, it should come with a Tijuana Handshake.
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a what? According to google your the first to referr of this "Tijuana Handshake" you speak so highly about.
 
upside down heatpipes do NOT decrease performance. Period. Fullstop. The way a heatpipe works, is there is the fluid, and there is a wick in the middle. All the way up, all the way down. Now if you reverse the heatpipe, it sitll evaporates, it will still go down the wick. The only issue, is that the chipset will absorb all the heat from the mosfets. Not exactly fun.

The only exception to this, is the heatpipes with a partial wick. The wick stops part way through the pipe. It will only work one way.
 
warmace said:
a what? According to google your the first to referr of this "Tijuana Handshake" you speak so highly about.
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*cough* handjob.. not sure on that, just a guess.
 
Bbq said:
upside down heatpipes do NOT decrease performance. Period. Fullstop. The way a heatpipe works, is there is the fluid, and there is a wick in the middle. All the way up, all the way down. Now if you reverse the heatpipe, it sitll evaporates, it will still go down the wick. The only issue, is that the chipset will absorb all the heat from the mosfets. Not exactly fun.

The only exception to this, is the heatpipes with a partial wick. The wick stops part way through the pipe. It will only work one way.
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most mobos with heatpipes for chipset cooling don't have wicks in them at all but rely on gravity to return the condensate hence the problem.
 
Bbq said:
upside down heatpipes do NOT decrease performance. Period. Fullstop. The way a heatpipe works, is there is the fluid, and there is a wick in the middle. All the way up, all the way down. Now if you reverse the heatpipe, it sitll evaporates, it will still go down the wick. The only issue, is that the chipset will absorb all the heat from the mosfets. Not exactly fun.

The only exception to this, is the heatpipes with a partial wick. The wick stops part way through the pipe. It will only work one way.
Click to expand...

I asked eVGA tech about mounting their 680i board upside down and they said absolutely fine. Not sure about Asus.
 
I am sure it will be ok.. the sink on the SB worries me a little though because it is litterally just a small peice of copper with a heatpipe attached to it.. but I think Asus gives you little fans for both MOSFET sinks so hopefully not too much heat will end up on the SB from the other end of the pipe.
 
There are a couple people posting on XS about this mobo and what it can do. Right now thats as close to a review as possible. Of course some consider experienced users better reviewers anyway so depends on what kind of review you are looking for.
 
Bbq said:
upside down heatpipes do NOT decrease performance. Period. Fullstop. The way a heatpipe works, is there is the fluid, and there is a wick in the middle. All the way up, all the way down. Now if you reverse the heatpipe, it sitll evaporates, it will still go down the wick. The only issue, is that the chipset will absorb all the heat from the mosfets. Not exactly fun.

The only exception to this, is the heatpipes with a partial wick. The wick stops part way through the pipe. It will only work one way.
Click to expand...
You are absolutely correct. The reason there's so much misconception is because the ASUS A8N and A8N32 boards, which were the first really good heatpiped boards, used...you guessed it: wick'd heatpipes. A lot of V1000 users got burned with it and assumed ALL heatpipes have these problems.
 
InorganicMatter said:
You are absolutely correct. The reason there's so much misconception is because the ASUS A8N and A8N32 boards, which were the first really good heatpiped boards, used...you guessed it: wick'd heatpipes. A lot of V1000 users got burned with it and assumed ALL heatpipes have these problems.
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He is correct regarding the heatpipes in general, but I'm not so sure when it comes to those used on mainboards (I guess those without wicks are way cheaper). I have the Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe and it comes with a warning that the board must not be mounted upside-down (or in which case, some alternate cooling should be provided). So, I expect the same behaviour from other Asus mainboards as well and quite possibly, from all the mainboards which use heatpipes. Can anyone confirm there are mainboards which actually use heatpipes WITH wicks?
 
ijozic said:
He is correct regarding the heatpipes in general, but I'm not so sure when it comes to those used on mainboards (I guess those without wicks are way cheaper). I have the Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe and it comes with a warning that the board must not be mounted upside-down (or in which case, some alternate cooling should be provided). So, I expect the same behaviour from other Asus mainboards as well and quite possibly, from all the mainboards which use heatpipes. Can anyone confirm there are mainboards which actually use heatpipes WITH wicks?
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According to this eVGA thread, it is ok to use the board up side down.
 
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