Back in February of this year we were given our first taste of the Nvidia nForce 680i SLI chipset in the form of the ASUS Striker Extreme motherboard. Priced at an incredible $400 US, this was the most expensive motherboard ever reviewed here at Legion Hardware and still is to date. There was however a much cheaper version called the P5N32-SLI which was priced at $270 US, still far from affordable. Today the average nForce 680i SLI motherboard still costs around $250 US, putting them just out of reach for most users.

Those that cannot afford the nForce 680i SLI have another option called the nForce 650i SLI and with motherboards featuring this chipset costing just $150 US, it’s a bargain. There are a few draw backs to the cheaper nForce 6 series alternative which give the user the impression that they are really missing out. Therefore Nvidia has now created a cut down version of the nForce 680i SLI chipset, which is called the nForce 680i “LT” SLI. Motherboards sporting this new chipset are priced around the $200 US mark, placing them between the nForce 680i SLI and nForce 650i SLI motherboards.

At this point in time very few motherboard manufacturers offer nForce 680i LT SLI motherboards. The serious motherboard makers being ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI have not announced plans to produce nForce 680i LT SLI motherboards. In fact Gigabyte and MSI have only just begun producing nForce 680i SLI and 650i SLI motherboards! Therefore consumers are limited to just a few brand names such as eVGA and Albatron, for example.

This would be fine if it were not for the fact that these manufacturers are simply selling Nvidia reference boards. The problem with reference design boards is that they general feature sloppy designs, appear dull and offer poor cooling solutions. Unfortunately all these problems are present on the new Albatron nForce 680i LT SLI motherboard, making it a somewhat unexciting product. The green PCB is covered in a sea of black and white connectors.

Though this is the least of our worries, the Albatron nForce 680i LT SLI features an active cooling design. Active cooling is not something we are all that use to seeing these days and this new Albatron motherboard is scary to look at. Those little fans on the north and south bridge chips just look “loud” and the second we booted this board up the fear set in. The south bridge chip is the worst as it makes a loud and annoying whining sound.

So what is missing on this nForce 680i LT SLI motherboard that would otherwise be found on motherboards sporting the full blown nForce 680i SLI chipset? Honestly, not a lot is missing really and certainly nothing that we would overly miss. The third PCI Express x16 slot is missing, which means down the track when PCIe physics cards are available, you cannot have one on this motherboard when utilizing SLI. Dual Gigabit LAN no longer exists, meaning there is just a single Gigabit LAN port, which is no big deal really. The last feature to go missing is the 1200MHz memory support, which again is not all that important, particularly given this is not an official memory standard.

This means the biggest sacrifice users will make when purchasing an nForce 680i LT SLI motherboard involves the cooling design, along with the physical board layout and appearance. Therefore if you can save $50 US, the nForce 680i LT SLI might be worth it for some users, but we are not convinced spending $200 US on a reference design motherboard is money well spent. Nevertheless, let’s move on to test out the Albatron nForce 680i LT SLI and see if its performance and overclocking abilities can impress us...