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Hardware EVGA Offers Preview of X58 Mainboard
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - October 23, 2008 11:39 AM
Print E-mail del.icio.us 71 comment(s) - last by Ryanman.. on Oct 28 at 11:13 AM

EVGA x58 SLI FTW Motherboard  (Source: EVGA)
EVGA board offers all sorts of cool features for the enthusiast

Many gamers and enthusiasts are anticipating the launch of motherboards based on Intel's X58 chipset. The boards are offering several interesting technologies including support for the Intel Core i7 processors and SLI.

EVGA gave an early look at its X58 SLI FTW motherboard and details on its features. The board supports the Intel Core i7 processor and uses the X58 Express Chipset with the ICH10R southbridge. EVGA integrates its VDroop Control into the design and uses 100% solid-state capacitors.

EVGA says that the VDroop control helps minimize VDroop making the system more stable while the EVGA E-LEET Tuning Utility makes it easier for users to overclock their system. Other features of the motherboard include six DIMM triple-channel DDR3 slots, support for SLI, 3-way SLI, and CrossFireX. It's interesting to note that Intel has been warning against the use of high voltages on memory with the X58 at risk of killing the Core i7 CPUs.

Support for SLI on a retail motherboard not using an NVIDIA chipset is also new. NVIDIA announced in August that it would enable SLI on the X58 chipset with or without the use of its nForce 200 chip. The board offers ten SATA II ports and one eSATA port. Overclockers will appreciate the external rear panel CMOS clear button.

Intel's Core i7 processor is promising the enthusiast higher performance with a few new tricks. Intel will use new QuickPath technology to compete directly against AMD's HyperTransport on-chip memory controller. The processor is built using a 45nm process and will have eight logical cores thanks to Hyper-Threading on the four physical cores.

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Nice motherboard
By FITCamaro on 10/23/2008 11:48:41 AM , Rating: 1
Do I hear $250? Maybe $300?




RE: Nice motherboard
By alexsch8 on 10/23/2008 11:50:11 AM , Rating: 2
I would say upwards of $350...


RE: Nice motherboard
By Lord 666 on 10/23/2008 12:03:15 PM , Rating: 2
Hopefully for that range it will have the lifetime warranty and not the stripped down 1 year that came with their other 680 boards.

Just glad EVGA is now making Intel chipsets.


RE: Nice motherboard
By VaultDweller on 10/23/2008 12:49:44 PM , Rating: 2
Boards based on X series chipsets have been way too expensive for what they're worth.

This vexes me. I expect to be in the market to build a new system in March or April, but P55 isn't planned for launch until July 09. I'm going to want a Nehalem system, but where will the reasonable motherboards be?


RE: Nice motherboard
By rippleyaliens on 10/23/08, Rating: -1
RE: Nice motherboard
By CloudFire on 10/24/2008 8:01:56 AM , Rating: 2
what are you talking about? seriously, get back to whatever drugs you are on.

Intel DOES HAVE 3.0ghz quad cores already. go read up on the Q9650,QX6850,and QX9650.

both the QX9770, and QX9775 are at a native 3.2ghz.


RE: Nice motherboard
By Samus on 10/23/2008 10:17:03 PM , Rating: 2
I'm still running a 975X-based DFI that I recently upgraded to a Q6600 2.4GHz and it still holds its own compared to the newest systems. It overclocked reasonably well with my old E4200 which ran at 3GHz, however, I'm not overclocking the Q6600.

Has never crashed, never given a bluescreen, and has won me back to the dark side.


RE: Nice motherboard
By walk2k on 10/23/2008 2:06:06 PM , Rating: 2
Upwards of $300 probably, and the 2.93Ghz i7 will be high-$500s.

Then you need expensive DDR3 ram, at least 3 sticks, that's going to run you at least $250+.

Now you are in this for over $1100, for a system that likely won't be any faster than current Core 2 Quad systems that can be had for less than half that.

I'll pass until prices become reasonable.


RE: Nice motherboard
By Noya on 10/23/2008 2:19:56 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
$1100, for a system that likely won't be any faster than current Core 2 Quad systems that can be had for less than half that.


Oh, it'll be faster by 10-20%, but is it worth over double the price for 99% of gamers out there? Of course not.


RE: Nice motherboard
By KC7SWH on 10/23/2008 4:05:13 PM , Rating: 2
Why 3 sticks of DDR3?
I thought it had 3 channels with 2 sticks per channel.


RE: Nice motherboard
By dubldwn on 10/23/2008 6:01:52 PM , Rating: 2
The triple channel kits will come with three sticks, usually 3GB or 6GB.


FTW?
By jadeskye on 10/23/2008 12:50:28 PM , Rating: 2
Evga can't be serious. FTW? for the win?

ugh x_x somebody in marketing needs to be shot.




RE: FTW?
By bhieb on 10/23/2008 12:54:45 PM , Rating: 2
Just replying to agree cuz I accidentally hit not worth reading instead of worth.


RE: FTW?
By jadeskye on 10/23/2008 12:56:51 PM , Rating: 2
<3


RE: FTW?
By dajeepster on 10/23/2008 2:06:00 PM , Rating: 3
For The Weak?!!...

j/k :D


RE: FTW?
By FITCamaro on 10/23/2008 2:18:33 PM , Rating: 5
For The Wealthy


RE: FTW?
By Beno on 10/23/2008 11:42:47 PM , Rating: 2
ahahah loved the last one


By Sahkuhnder on 10/23/2008 1:01:08 PM , Rating: 2
Overclockers will appreciate the external rear panel CMOS clear button

Yes! I hope this becomes a common feature on MBs.




By Sahkuhnder on 10/23/2008 1:15:57 PM , Rating: 2
You bring up a good point. It's a shame that things need to be made idiot-resistant.

I'm just tried of years of tiny, hard to see, inaccessible jumpers.

Perhaps have the button on the inside of the case?


By theapparition on 10/23/2008 2:53:39 PM , Rating: 3
Completely agree with the original posters suggestion that this would be a nightmare, and also sympathize with you that everything has to be made idiot proof.

But if you get so fed up with those jumpers, $10 and you're local radio shack are all you need to make a custom switch that does the same function. Mount that switch someplace on your computer and you're set.


By Etern205 on 10/23/2008 5:24:17 PM , Rating: 2
The Asus Maximus and Rampage Formula/Extreme has a switch on the board which disables the clear CMOS button to prevent users from accidentally reseting their bios.


By Gzus666 on 10/23/2008 2:23:31 PM , Rating: 2
They would most likely label it and it will most likely only be in enthusiast boards. Usually people who spend the time building the PC will at least have enough sense to figure out what the CMOS reset button is for.


Can use SLI?
By elegault on 10/23/2008 12:50:51 PM , Rating: 2
Funny how SLI can suddenly be enabled without an nforce chip.




RE: Can use SLI?
By diego10arg on 10/23/2008 1:10:54 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
Just buying the X58 chipset and building a board doesn’t allow a manufacturer to enable SLI on the X58. The board has to be certified for manufacturer by NVIDIA before an activation key for SLI will be granted.


Quoted from http://www.dailytech.com/NVIDIA+will+Enable+SLI+on...


voltage
By Beno on 10/23/2008 12:51:14 PM , Rating: 2
is the memory voltage bound to the cpu on this board?




RE: voltage
By dajeepster on 10/23/2008 2:09:46 PM , Rating: 2
no... but the data that goes to the cpu from the memory will be at a higher voltage level and that higher potential could damage the cpu... imho


RE: voltage
By Gzus666 on 10/23/2008 2:25:21 PM , Rating: 2
The memory controller will be integrated in the processor on the i7 just like AMD does.


By 3DoubleD on 10/23/2008 4:10:00 PM , Rating: 2
How do they expect people to mount an aftermarket cooler on that board, look at those insanely tall heatsinks around the CPU socket. Think of all the blood that will be spilled trying to push the stupid pins in?? (I hate those pins so much, worst design ever)

Of course the socket is bigger that before, so perhaps the picture is misleading.




By brandonicus on 10/23/2008 5:32:44 PM , Rating: 2
My thoughts exactly! My fingers hurt just thinking about it :(
Btw does anyone know if these boards will accept socket 775 heatsinks? From the looks of the picture I am assuming yes.


By Alpha4 on 10/23/2008 5:55:26 PM , Rating: 2
I agree that some motherboard designs don't show a lot of foresight for aftermarket CPU coolers, but I think the picture is a little mis-leading in this case. There seems to be a generous gap between the CPU socket & the Northbridge cooler if you look carefully.

Also, as the capacitor heatsync stands, this should at least allow one of those tall, narrow-profile coolers to be installed, such as the Thermalright Ultra 120.
(http://gallery.myff.org/gallery/220499/Thermalrigh...

In any case, if the EVGA Striker II Formula is anything to go by then Northbridge chips are becoming more burdensome to cool than CPUs, because the damn thing idles at 66 degrees celcius in my system. I think those coolers aren't going anywhere, unless moving the memory controller to the CPU alleviates some of that heat... Can anyone confirm?


Large.
By JSP45 on 10/23/2008 3:00:45 PM , Rating: 2
Huge. Looks nice tho.




RE: Large.
By gramboh on 10/23/2008 6:32:33 PM , Rating: 2
That's what she said


XFire
By gumbi18 on 10/23/2008 7:48:51 PM , Rating: 2
I wonder if x58 board's also support XFire as well as SLI.
It would be interesting to see. And IMHO great for those stuck on the fence wondering which graphics card path to take if they want to run multiple cards.




RE: XFire
By AlexTRoopeR on 10/23/2008 8:38:57 PM , Rating: 2
Yes they do!


X58
By AlexTRoopeR on 10/23/2008 8:40:29 PM , Rating: 2
Shouldn't X58 be a single chip solution? And if so what’s with the ICH10R here?




RE: X58
By Ananke on 10/23/2008 9:40:14 PM , Rating: 2
I play Crysis on 24" 1920x1080 everything high, no AA /no sense, it doesn't make noticable difference/ on Radeon 4870 1Gb. The picture and physics are PHOTOREALISTIC. You can't see anything close to this on a console. The most expensive part in building similar computer is the video card. Essentially, you can even use basic and very stable components, and the total would be in the 500 dollars range. Same as Playstation. The games of course cost twice LESS for PC, and are often on sale :)


USB 3.0
By Alias1431 on 10/23/2008 11:51:54 AM , Rating: 2
Where is it? I want it!




Very nice...
By troublesome08 on 10/23/2008 12:06:51 PM , Rating: 2
Looks good, I am interested to see how it fairs in price and performance compared to the new Asus Rampage boards...




No more NForce Chipsets...
By pauldovi on 10/23/2008 12:49:51 PM , Rating: 2
Means more expensive Intel chipsets.

I was never a fan of NForce chipsets but at least they provided competition.




Get tech facts straight!
By androticus on 10/23/2008 10:01:13 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Intel will use new QuickPath technology to compete directly against AMD's HyperTransport on-chip memory controller.


This is completely inaccurate. QuickPath is analogous to HyperTransport, but those are BOTH distinct from the on-chip memory controllers. QP and HT in this kind of system are only used to connect the CPU to the Southbridge for I/O. On multi-socket systems, additional QP or HT interconnects act as high-speed inter-chip connects and enable far memory access (i.e. from another chip's pool of RAM.)




By Cypherdude1 on 10/24/2008 5:08:50 AM , Rating: 2
Lots of new Intel Nehalem Socket 1366 motherboards will be out soon. Here's a link to some sneak peeks:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=2...

Notice how Abit and Asus have 4 x PCIex16 slots in addition to other slots? There's also a new GigaByte not shown on that page which has 4 x PCIex16, 2 x PCIex4, and a PCI slot along with 6 RAM slots. It looks like the Intel X58 is going to finally have a full complement of expansion slots and lots of RAM.

Hopefully Windows 7 will only arrive in a 64-bit version and 32-bit will finally be dropped. This will force manufacturers to write 64-bit drivers. Since many X58 boards will have 6 RAM slots and 32-bit Windows can only recognize 3.5 GB's, a 64-bit O/S is virtually required.

Finally, let's hope that the mobo makers for the more expensive boards haven't gotten cheap again by using a cheap crappy eSATA controller like the one Asus puts on their top-of-the-line P5E64 WS Evolution motherboard: the "Marvell 88SE6145" SATA/PATA controller. If you use a Silicon Image Sil3124 or Sil3132 controller, you can connect an eSATA 5 Port Multiplier to it:
Addonics Page:
http://tinyurl.com/546ryq

AMUG Review:
http://tinyurl.com/4yvmgr

SATA-IO Paper:
http://www.sata-io.org/portmultiplier.asp




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