Today, Nvidia is lowering the cost of entry into the 680i fraternity with the launch of the nForce 680i LT SLI chipset. Like its older brother, the LT arrives on an Nvidia-designed retail motherboard. This time, though, boards are expected to sell for $200 or less. What has Nvidia cut from the 680i SLI to slide this latest LT design under the $200 mark? HotHardware, NVNews, HardOCP, Legit Reviews, Bit-tech and TechReport have posted a review on the NVIDIA nForce 680i LT SLI chipset:

Nvidia has succeeded in creating a more affordable motherboard design with the nForce 680i LT SLI, but they've had to perform relatively major surgery to get the board under $200. We can live without some of the amenities that have been cut, such as EPP memory support beyond 800MHz and a couple of USB ports. Given our review sample's ability to run a 480MHz front-side bus, we're not too worried that Nvidia only rates the LT's overclocking potential as "good," either.

Unfortunately, a couple of Nvidia's LT amputations are harder to swallow. The lack of a second Gigabit Ethernet port is puzzling at best-and practically inexcusable for a $200 motherboard. Few users may actually need that second networking port, but with virtually every $200 board sporting dual GigE options, the LT starts to look a little stingy.

That's not the worst of it, though. The LT's active chipset coolers are easily the board's most disappointing features. Intricate arrays of heatpipes and passive coolers are all the rage these days, and although we don't insist on an ornate cooling apparatus, a $200 motherboard should at the very least offer quiet chipset cooling. With a pair of chipset fans that lack temperature-based fan speed control, the LT's chipset cooling solution is neither elegant nor quiet.