EVGA 750i SLI FTW @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
55,712
EVGA 750i SLI FTW - This budget SLI motherboard provides high end performance and deep features for a much smaller cost. As EVGA puts it, the 750i SLI FTW is engineered For The Win. Now let’s get to is and see what For The Win is all about.

The EVGA 750i SLI FTW motherboard has got the “For The Win” part exactly right. If saving some dough on your next motherboard is important and you want SLI abilities, the EVGA 750i SLI FTW is the motherboard you want to buy. Kudos to EVGA for bringing a great enthusiast product to the shrinking value motherboard market.
Click to expand...
 
I've had this board for about 3 weeks now and I love it. I haven't OCed it, but I did notice a little less stuttering in Crysis when I upgraded over my 680i.

Well worth the $180 you pay for it.

FOR THE WIN!!!!!!!!
 
I love the pictures of you trying to kill the board. I think next time you may just have to light it on fire to see if that kills it.
 
what if it starts to have corruption issues like the 680i? 750i sli FTL? ;) :D :p

decent board. i'd want more sata ports though :)
 
thanks for the review of looks to be a promising board. I was hoping to see this come from you guys, thanks for not letting me down :D

As a side note, the specs for your memory and video configuration on the subsystem testing page show that you are using ddr 3 and a tripple SLI setup, a little too much cut and paste from the 790i article? ;)
 
no offense dude, but your comparisons, e.g. the other setups of the review, are terrible.

why are you comparing this board on an E8500 to a 780i/790i on a freakin quad?

thats kinda lame. :/
 
Price at NewEgg.com is 199.99 plus shipping now. No more sub 200 board. NewEgg must of read the article
 
Heh, that's disappointing, for $150 it was a heck of a deal imo... It'd give pause to anyone considering a $100-140 P35 board even if they weren't going SLI off the bat, at $200 it's a tougher sell for those not immediately interested in SLI.

Then again, something like a P5N-E 650i is still like $120, so $150 for a 750i equivalent is probably a bit too close to effectively clear out old stock.
 
Seems the Q6600 is a very popular cpu for this board. Would a review update in the future reveal stability and your OC for this cpu on this board?
 
I would actually have bought this board this morning after reading that article (I want to go sli, and the current P965 just isn't going to do it), but one thing stayed my buying finger:
4 SATA ports. I know this is a sub-$200 board, so some things will be missing as compared to more expensive mobos, but I have 4 HD's (1 raptor, 2 160's in RAID0 and a 500gb storage drive) plus a SATA optical drive.
All this board needs is one more SATA port and it would have been in the mail today.

Too bad, it seems like a real nice system.
 
AmongTheChosenX said:
no offense dude, but your comparisons, e.g. the other setups of the review, are terrible.

why are you comparing this board on an E8500 to a 780i/790i on a freakin quad?

thats kinda lame. :/
Click to expand...

I am sorry you are not capable of seeing the value in a mobo review unless it is an exact comparison. I suggest you go elsewhere for your motherboard reviews since we obviously do not see the same needs in the content.
 
Dan's typos due to sloppy cutting and pasting have been fixed. All posts associated with pointing those out have been deleted in order to keep the thread on topic. If we missed a question please post again.
 
Kyle, Dan, was that northbridge fan unbearably loud? Do you think a case like the P180's or a Lian-Li could dampen the sound to a respectable level? Also, do you think you could get a different fan to fit on the northbridge?
 
Guys, I have to say that after ten years of reading [H], this is the most impressive review I've read. Not just the product reviewed, but the reviewing you two have done. You are obviously taken with this board like few others, and it makes me wish eVGA boards were available where I live. My hat is off and I'm bowing deeply. Good job!
 
AmongTheChosenX said:
but you didn't even compare it to another dual core system, they were all quad core... i'm failing to see the actual "comparison" here.
Click to expand...

What exactly did you not see explained to you that you do not understand from this review? Did you read anything under the graphs?

And this is a motherboard review, not a motherboard/cpu benchmark comparison. If you are purchasing motherboards now days on whether one of the other has 2 frames per second faster gaming scores or does better encoding in a minute for a movie when configured exactly the same as another motherboard, you are not buying for reason that I professionally find important.
 
AmongTheChosenX said:
but you didn't even compare it to another dual core system, they were all quad core... i'm failing to see the actual "comparison" here.
Click to expand...
The people who buy mad expensive quad cores usually buy the mad expensive motherboards. This is not a mad expensive motherboard, THEREFORE!!!! they did not use a mad expensive CPU.

Easy now?

Awesome review. The FTW acronym seems a bit lame to me, despite being completely accurate for the board. Fully featured and performs great for 200 (I'm not going to say sub 200... It's 1 cent for fucks sake ;) ) so it gets an "Awesome!" from me too :)

Good review. Thanks doods. :)
 
My question is how does it handle 4GB+ of RAM? All the Nvidia chipset MB's I have used get flaky with that much RAM in them. (and with Vista 4GB is going to become common soon)
 
Lazn_Work said:
My question is how does it handle 4GB+ of RAM? All the Nvidia chipset MB's I have used get flaky with that much RAM in them. (and with Vista 4GB is going to become common soon)
Click to expand...

I had no issues with 4GB of ram in a 4-up configuration but I would not count on pushing them far beyond 800MHz is OCing. Staying with a 2-up configuration is simply the best way to go about 4gb on ANYONE's motherboard if you are thinking on doing ANY OCing beyond Jedec specs.
 
Lazn_Work said:
My question is how does it handle 4GB+ of RAM? All the Nvidia chipset MB's I have used get flaky with that much RAM in them. (and with Vista 4GB is going to become common soon)
Click to expand...

No problems here. Using 2x2 in Dual-Channel mode. If the RAM is underclocked due to FSB setting (1450, for example), it automatically sets it to 1t timing. Sweet.

Also, PCIe clock is set at 126 with older BIOS. 9600GTs might have issues with that setting. Newer BIOS sets it at 100. Using 126 anyway...no problems.
 
Haven't finished reading the review yet, but the front page article is misleading to me... when you said it was an "intel based board", I took that to mean that it used an intel chipset, which it doesn't. Maybe something like "a board for intel processors" would be more clear.
 
SidewinderX said:
Haven't finished reading the review yet, but the front page article is misleading to me... when you said it was an "intel based board", I took that to mean that it used an intel chipset, which it doesn't. Maybe something like "a board for intel processors" would be more clear.
Click to expand...


Well, SLI is NVIDIA-only...and this is the first paragraph...
Normally known for their NVIDIA GPU based graphics cards, EVGA has been selling EVGA branded motherboards for some time now. Their boards’ up to this point have all been NVIDIA reference designs created by NVIDIA’s design teams and built by other contractors. The 750i SLI FTW is a milestone for EVGA as it is the first board released to the public that was designed by EVGA themselves. The board looks largely like one of NVIDIA’s reference designs so I am not sure if this is a modification of a reference design or a ground up design that just happens to look similar to one of NVIDIA’s reference designs. In any case the board looks similar aside from the fact that EVGA chose to use all solid capacitors in the construction of the 750i SLI FTW. This is a welcome change as I’ve always wondered why the reference designs continue to use traditional capacitors even when most motherboard makers are using more and more solid caps.
Click to expand...

Then this starts the second paragraph...

The EVGA 750i SLI FTW uses NVIDIA’s 750i SLI chipset. It is a DDR2 compatible chipset and the board is compatible with NVIDIA’s SLI technology.
Click to expand...

Then this big chart...
120951385124DZGYZaP0_1_2.gif


I am sorry if we have confused you.
 
0mega said:
The people who buy mad expensive quad cores usually buy the mad expensive motherboards. This is not a mad expensive motherboard, THEREFORE!!!! they did not use a mad expensive CPU.
Click to expand...

So the price difference of around 20.00 dictates "mad expensive" from a 780i?
 
OT: Bah! with these "budget" boards...where's the dang Rampage Extreme?

Nice to see a budget board actually be stable though.
 
My DS3L is done because of the FSB lock problem that so many ppl have had. I tried everything that everyone has mentioned and infact the board will not post above default values. This is where this review helps me with the whole "trying to kill it" approach Kyle and Dan took to it at the end there with this 750i FTW. After 2 P35 boards now tanking out or flaking out, this board looks like its headed toward my system. If Kyle can't kill it, I should be just fine. lol :p Thanks guys, finally something that should do good for me for a while. ;)
 
This is the SLI board I've been eyeing to put an end to my sad saga of failing striker boards. The one thing I'm concerned about is longevity though.
 
Great review! Talk about stress testing...good thing cause I was going to wait for this review but I just bought this mobo a few days ago when it was at $190 cause its been fluctuating between $190-200.

Glad to see I made the right purchase! Buy it when it goes back to $190...this is one of the most solid looking mobos with quality parts I have seen in a long time...
 
Great review and thanks. You answered a ton of questions I had about this board. To where, unless something better comes along before I start my build, I'll likely buy it. :)

However, one comment caught my attention:
The memory clocks were good at 1136.4MHz (568.2MHz DDR2) and 465MHz FSB stable is still likely more than most people will need. That would clock the Q9300 at 4185MHz or so if the multiplier was left at its’ default.
Click to expand...
(Emphasis added)

IIRC, the default multiplier on a Q9300 is 7.5X (2500/333), which would yield 3487.5 MHz, not 4185 MHz (a 9X multiplier like the Q6600). It's still respectable, but not 4+ GHz.
 
I just got this board.... edit: it is going inside a pca05b with 8gb ram I will see what type of oc I will get
 
Question about the dual 16x PCI-E slots. The 750 chipset only has something like 26 PCI-E lanes, which doesn't give enough for dual 16x (requires at least 32 lanes). I've been hearing that this board and the Asus 750i boards use an additional chip for the extra lanes. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Regarding the low FSB of the E7200 chip, I'm wondering if the board's BIOS doesn't change the FSB strap. I've seen many cases where a FSB800 chip is unable to hit high FSB until a BSEL mod is done to it. I'd love to see if the same E7200 CPU and the 750i FTW board can hit higher clocks if a BSEL mod is done to the CPU to get it to default to FSB1333.
 
Zap said:
Question about the dual 16x PCI-E slots. The 750 chipset only has something like 26 PCI-E lanes, which doesn't give enough for dual 16x (requires at least 32 lanes). I've been hearing that this board and the Asus 750i boards use an additional chip for the extra lanes. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Regarding the low FSB of the E7200 chip, I'm wondering if the board's BIOS doesn't change the FSB strap. I've seen many cases where a FSB800 chip is unable to hit high FSB until a BSEL mod is done to it. I'd love to see if the same E7200 CPU and the 750i FTW board can hit higher clocks if a BSEL mod is done to the CPU to get it to default to FSB1333.
Click to expand...

The 750i FTW has the infamous N200 chip, so that's how it gets enough PCI-e lanes for two 16x slots.
 
Blazemore said:
So the price difference of around 20.00 dictates "mad expensive" from a 780i?
Click to expand...
Cheapest one I saw on newegg was 260. Correct me if i'm wrong, I'd much rather know i was wrong than be ignorant, but provide proof if you are trying to do so. Thanks :)
 
Retail, rebate...it doesn't matter your still paying around $220 in the end. Who tries not to pay retail anyway? As for rebates they last long enough for people who really won't one.

If Newegg didn't increase the FTW price by $50, then I think differently.
 
At the time of this writing the 750i SLI FTW can be had at Newegg and Tiger Direct for less than $200.00.
Click to expand...

199.99 + shipping (9$) + potential tax (depending on where you live) is NOT under 200$.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top