The Nvidia nForce chipset series has evolved considerably over the past few years from a second rate product to what can easily be considered as the best chipset series of all time. The original nForce and nForce2 chipsets were a little troubled and failed to have a serious impact on the chipset market. However, the nForce3 really picked up the pieces for Nvidia and before long they had completely conquered the AMD market, before sealing the deal with the nForce4 chipset series. Now we have their latest series based on the nForce 500 architecture, which are designed for the AMD platform. Although these chipsets are extremely well designed, many enthusiasts have steered away from the AMD camp due to lack of performance.

Unfortunately AMD are traveling through rough seas at the moment, forcing Nvidia to ramp up their Intel offerings. This being the case Nvidia quickly unleashed the nForce 600 series, which is quite possibly their greatest chipset series yet. The latest and greatest Nvidia chipset is the nForce 680i, designed to bring SLI technology to the Core 2 Duo platform. However while this new chipset was launched back in November of 2006, it is only starting to surface now in 2007. This is because early reference boards suffered some serious setbacks and required a number of BIOS revision updates before they were even usable, due to storage and audio controller problems.

Nevertheless, the nForce 680i has worked its way through the wobbly stage and has now found solid ground on more stable motherboards. The nForce 680i is the flagship product featuring dual PCI Express x16 slots for compete SLI support. The “i” stands for Intel, meaning the 680i is strictly an Intel based chipset. However, Nvidia does plan to support the AMD platform with the recent announcement of the 680a chipset, the “a” obviously stands for AMD. Currently, the 680a is the only chipset mentioned that will support AMD processors. While on the other hand the 680i SLI, 650i SLI and 650i Ultra are all Intel based chipsets.

The nForce 680i SLI offers the works and will certainly be the number one choice amongst enthusiasts or at least those that can afford it. The 680i is the only chipset that has official support for the upcoming 1333MHz FSB Core 2 Duo processors, whether or not the other chipsets will be able to support these processors through a BIOS update is yet to be determined. Naturally Nvidia claims that the ultra expensive 680i will be the best overclocker as well, though again this is yet to be determined. The 680i does have the most PCI Express lanes, offering a total of 42 lanes, while the 650i SLI features just 20 lanes and only offers SLI x8 support.

Other 680i SLI features include a third PCIe graphics card adapter which could be used to support physics cards for example. The 680i exclusively supports Nvidia LinkBoost Technology and has official support for DDR2-1200 memory. The 680i also offers a total of 6 SATA ports while the 650i series features just 4 ports. The 680i also features dual gigabit ethernet controllers, where as the 650i chipsets offer just a single ethernet controller. So unlike Intel’s flagship chipsets, there really is a difference between the 680i and 650i chipsets.

ASUS has recently unleashed two products based on the nForce 680i SLI and while the chipset itself is very impressive, they have still found many ways to make their boards even better. The most feared and respected of the two is called the Striker Extreme and I can tell you, ASUS were not messing around when they created this bad boy! While not all the features found on the Striker Extreme will excite everyone, there are a number of new and useful additions that we feel many enthusiasts will really appreciate.