EVGA X58 3X SLI Sneak Peek

Great video again Kyle :)

BTW, you have my computer chair!! And I am sure the chair many [H] readers have from that deal awhile back :) hahaha

Love it!!
 
I have an EVGA X58 and love it. I'm pretty disappointed that the [H] didn't get around to reviewing this you know, back when all the other board were out? Why has it taken so long to review this board even though it launched the day of the i7? Although in admittedly short supply.

Also of note, this is the only board on the market that I can think of for X58 that has a proper layout for tri-sli using dual slot cards. I don't know what the other manufacturers were thinking with their silly layouts. Really restricts people who want options for tri-sli. Though, EVGA came to the rescue!

Anyways, the extra red sata port near the rear i/o can be used for an additional esata port. I almost used it for the front pannel esata connection on my case, but decided to use one on the front of the board instead to avoid issues with wiring routing in the case. Still though, having an additional rear esata would be nice.

I have my board in a tri-sli gtx 280 setup and it runs awesome. Just wish Nvidia would put x58 support in beta drivers so I'm not locked to only the 180.48 drivers. Kyle was right though, the fan, usb, and led headers at the bottom of the board get a little tight when a double slot card is installed but nothing major. I think the biggest issue I had with headers was the front panel audio header sitting between the middle pcie and bottom pcie slots, near the rear slot mounts. It made for a really tight fit but I managed to get it in there.

So far I've been running it at 3.6ghz stable on the stock cooler for what 1-2 weeks now? Ran 8 orthos with affinities set for each instance. First time around I ran 8 in small ffts, second time I did 3 in blend, the remaining 5 in small fft. With the 3 blend it brough the ram usage just under 6 gigs, which is what I have. Passed with flying colors. Water cooling setup is coming sometime next week so I will be pushing it further soon.

The only issue I've run into so far is sometimes after changing settings in the bios, saving and exiting, the board restarts but then just sits there and beeps at me. I know the settings weren't anything extreme and it shoudn't be freaking out but it does. However if I hold the power button for 5 secs to shut it down, then start it right back up it posts and loads with no issue, with the settings I wanted. This happens maybe 1 out of ten times but freaks me out everytime. Not a huge issue though.

The recessed clear cmos on the back i/o pannel is awesome though, nice addition.

EVGA has been releasing new bios revisions with fixes and added features every few days atm. Averaging probably 1-3 a week. A few users are having small problems with s3 resume when overclocked, but EVGA is working on it.

I've clocked it up to 4.0ghz for testing purposes and haven't had a single issue yet.

All in all, so far i'm impressed and happy about my purchase despite the lack of reviews prior to doing so. EVGA has been a great company and I support them. I ran EPoX boards before so with them being part of EVGA now, my loyalty remains.

Hope the [H] agrees.
 
wasteomind said:
I have an EVGA X58 and love it. I'm pretty disappointed that the [H] didn't get around to reviewing this you know, back when all the other board were out? Why has it taken so long to review this board even though it launched the day of the i7? Although in admittedly short supply.
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My guess is that eVGA didn't get them a board any sooner, or didn't supply one at all and [H] bought retail. That would explain the hat :)
 
good to know that someone else who has a socket/ram slot skewed x58 board has also been able to load up 6gb of system memory successfully. i'll go evga once they've got a 16/16/16 sli/cf board on the market.
 
Keep up the good work on these vids Kyle.

Also glad that you got Far Cry 2 uninstalled. :p
 
wasteomind said:
I have an EVGA X58 and love it. I'm pretty disappointed that the [H] didn't get around to reviewing this you know, back when all the other board were out? Why has it taken so long to review this board even though it launched the day of the i7? Although in admittedly short supply.
Click to expand...

They have other shit they have to do. It takes a long time for them to do their testing. If I had to guess, I would say this video was done more than a week ago, but he just now put it up. It take a lot of time to do this stuff, and twice as long to formulate the results into any sort of comprehensible write-up.

Its tantamount to doing research papers every day of your life. Give'em a break.
 
hmmm... with 3 video cards, there is no way to use an add-on sound card or any other add-on PCI cards for that matter.
 
cyclone3d said:
hmmm... with 3 video cards, there is no way to use an add-on sound card or any other add-on PCI cards for that matter.
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99% of the times its like that with every tri-sli setup (dual slot) on any mobo
 
bicycle_wreck said:
That seems fair. I've been disappointed with AnandTech for years.
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qft. Before [H]ard|OCP, I was a reader of anandtech. Ill check them out every once in a while, but, lets just say, they are not my homepage any more; [H]ard|OCP is.
Keep up the vids Kyle! Awesome stuff.
 
Maybe I just had my sound volume up too high, but the opening "Swoosh" sound with the [H] logo made my 1-year old cry, startled me too.
 
Question - What about the 9th SATA next to the first PCI-E x 16 slot? I assume that is for ESATA slot cover? Looked like it already had 1 ESATA.

Do the ESATA on this one automatically override the front red SATA ports like some boards or can you really have 10 SATA devices? That alone would give it quite a few bonus points.
 
bicycle_wreck said:
That seems fair. I've been disappointed with AnandTech for years.
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You know back in the day, Toms Hardware was the BOMB! Then about 2001 I found [H] and for years I read both [H] and Anand every day, but really the last couple years, Anand has faltered and [H] has expanded. Look at the PSU reviews here, OMG! I thought no one would ever REALLY review a power supply, but they do an Awesome job!
 
jfreund said:
Remember that the X58 boards have PCIe 2.0, which should provide double the bandwidth of 1.0. So PCIe 2.0 x8 = PCIe 1.0 x16.
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That's not how PCIe 2.0 works. PCIe 2.0 doubels the bus bandwidth from x16 (1.0) to x32 (2.0), meaning you could have one PCIe x32, OR two x16's, OR x16+x8+x8. PCIe x16 is the still same speed in 1.0 and 2.0. PCIe 3.0 will double the 2.0 bus bandwidth, allowing you to have four PCIe x16's.


Brantoc said:
Question - What about the 9th SATA next to the first PCI-E x 16 slot? I assume that is for ESATA slot cover? Looked like it already had 1 ESATA.

Do the ESATA on this one automatically override the front red SATA ports like some boards or can you really have 10 SATA devices? That alone would give it quite a few bonus points.
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That's the one they were discussing. It's another eSata port on the 2nd sata controller. The front 8 sata ports are controlled by the X58 chipset. You can combine them just fine, but they will be on seperate sata controllers.
 
Nice video - pretty much see this board from any angle possible (more than screenshots anyway).
Definitely curious about the non-centered CPU socket concern though - guess we'll see when the official review is up.

BTW...am I the only one that says KeyMOS instead of SeeMOS?
 
god i want that Raynor Ergohuman chair Q_Q

so damn expensive.. $500+ ~_~
 
Potential use for the red SATA header - DVD drive. In a full tower case, it might be easier to run the cable there than to get it down to the bottom of the board.
 
-PK- said:
That's not how PCIe 2.0 works. PCIe 2.0 doubels the bus bandwidth from x16 (1.0) to x32 (2.0), meaning you could have one PCIe x32, OR two x16's, OR x16+x8+x8. PCIe x16 is the still same speed in 1.0 and 2.0. PCIe 3.0 will double the 2.0 bus bandwidth, allowing you to have four PCIe x16's.
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http://www.pcisig.com/news_room/faqs/pcie2.0_faq/

"Q3: What are the benefits of PCIe 2.0? What business opportunities does it bring to the market?
A3: While doubling the bit rate satisfies high-bandwidth applications, faster signaling has the advantage of allowing various interconnect links to save cost by adopting a narrow configuration. For example, a PCI Express 1.1 x8 link (8 lanes) yields a total aggregate bandwidth of 4GBytes/s, which is the same bandwidth obtained from a PCI Express 2.0 x4 link (4 lanes) that adopts the 5GT/s signaling technology. This can result in significant savings in platform implementation cost while achieving the same performance level. Backward compatibility is retained as existing 2.5 GT/S adapters can plug into 5.0 GT/S slots and will run at the slower rate. Conversely, new PCIe 2.0 adapters running at 5.0 GT/S can plug into existing PCIe slots and run at the slower rate of 2.5 GT/S."

emphasis added

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/PCIe_graphics.mspx
(concerning PCIe ver 1)

"Graphics adapters will be using the X16 link, which will provide a bandwidth of 4 Gbps in each direction. "

4 Gbps in 2 directions equals total bandwidth of 8 Gbps.

http://www.pcisig.com/specifications/pciexpress/base2/

"The performance boost to 5 GT/s is by far the most important feature of the PCI Express 2.0 specifications. It effectively increases the aggregate bandwidth of a 16-lane link to approximately 16 GB/s."

emphasis added

The original PCIe spec provides for a x32 lane connection, though that would be a huge expansion slot. The total number of lanes available in the system is determined by the physical design of the chipset. nVidia's original nForce 4 for AMD had something like 20 or 24 total lanes, so SLI required the graphics cards got 2 x8. There was a later version (still PCIe 1) that provided enough lanes for 2 x16 in SLI plus the various x1/x4 slots.

The PCIe 3.0 spec is supposed to increase the data rate to 8GT/s (from 5 GT/s in ver 2.0 and 2.5 GT/s in ver 1.0/1.1). So 3.0 will increase, but not quite double, the bandwidth of 2.0.
 
this eVGA offering for x58 looks really nice... good looking layout except for that stray SATA connector by pci-e slot 0. I can't wait to see their digital pwm version. :)
 
Second the odd SATA port.

I've had one EVGA board (680i) and it was problematic. But hey, at least bulk of the SATA ports are at a logical location on this one. Let's hope the front panel (power, rest, etc) pins are normal so they don't have to include a bogus message in the manual telling you that their odd pin layout is compatible with most PC cases ,and by most they mean none. Also, screaming NB fan FTL. Gimme a giant chunk of copper any day if it keeps the rig from sounding like a leaf blower.

Note to EVGA: random SATA port screams "rushed design layout." And, hopefully, this one won't flex like a noodle when you bolt on a good cooler.
 
n3g471v3 d3c1b3l said:
qft. Before [H]ard|OCP, I was a reader of anandtech. Ill check them out every once in a while, but, lets just say, they are not my homepage any more; [H]ard|OCP is.
Keep up the vids Kyle! Awesome stuff.
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AMEN. Most sites have gotten sloppy to beat the competition to press. Or, my beef, review stuff that they don't fully understand, like CODEC perfromance on various GPUs. They get an HQV or VE test disk and all of a sudden they think they're Joe Kane but don't grok that cartoony over saturated colors and ham-fisted noise reduction that destroys detail is not good.
 
ianken said:
Also, screaming NB fan FTL. Gimme a giant chunk of copper any day if it keeps the rig from sounding like a leaf blower.
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Yeah - I replaced the chipset cooling on the eVGA 680i with a couple Thermaltake tower type heatsinks. I haven't gotten the eVGA X58 set up yet, but I powered it up and updated the BIOS, and the NB fan is MUCH better. If my PC is whisper quiet, it's too loud. I don't think I'll have to change the cooling on the X58.

Now if the damn TRUE Black would show up I could throw that board into my case and get cranking...
 
bought a evga x58, havent even opened it yet, need to return it because of the cpu mounting position, doesnt work well with my silverstone ft01 case.
 
.Kyle, nice video - ;)U o.b.!!!(I'm one too, so no-bad there!!)
..We don't even have these yet in Aussie, not even a mention;(..
First board I've seen with a clean looking 3xSLI layout...damn, that silver thing is blinding !!;)
..and no NV200 chip again? Just an SLI license fee for the Greenies...mmm, how times change...
BTW, anybody, how much $$$???
 
jfreund said:
"The performance boost to 5 GT/s is by far the most important feature of the PCI Express 2.0 specifications. It effectively increases the aggregate bandwidth of a 16-lane link to approximately 16 GB/s."


The PCIe 3.0 spec is supposed to increase the data rate to 8GT/s (from 5 GT/s in ver 2.0 and 2.5 GT/s in ver 1.0/1.1). So 3.0 will increase, but not quite double, the bandwidth of 2.0.
Click to expand...
That's the first time I've read that, I guess I haven't been keeping up on it enough.

I do know though, with PCIe 3.0 they plan on removing the 8b/10b encoding that they added in 2.0. PCIe 2.0 is 20% slower than the listed data rate making it equal to 4 GT/s of real data.
 
cyclone3d said:
hmmm... with 3 video cards, there is no way to use an add-on sound card or any other add-on PCI cards for that matter.
Click to expand...

It can be done if you want to watercool the middle card.

I had Triple-SLi on a 680i MB with the 8800 GTX cards, the 8x lane was in the middle, so I watercooled that card, making it a single-slot and was able to use my X-Fi with no problem.

Yeah, it took some work, but I was able to do it pretty easily......expensive to add the block and time to route the hoses, etc.......I don't think I'll do it again.:D

I really want to see the review of this board......I'm torn between this one and the Gigabyte X58-UD5.
 
magoo said:
It can be done if you want to watercool the middle card.

I had Triple-SLi on a 680i MB with the 8800 GTX cards, the 8x lane was in the middle, so I watercooled that card, making it a single-slot and was able to use my X-Fi with no problem.

Yeah, it took some work, but I was able to do it pretty easily......expensive to add the block and time to route the hoses, etc.......I don't think I'll do it again.:D

I really want to see the review of this board......I'm torn between this one and the Gigabyte X58-UD5.
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By the time most people get to Tri-SLI, expensive really isn't that much of an issue. :p
 
What is the issue with the non-centered cpu socket? How could this be a problem?

The only thing I can think of that pushing it to the top will cause fitment problems between cpu coolers and the case/psu.
 
the traces at one end of the slot leading to the cpu are longer than the traces at the other end, potentially hindering high speed memory stability.
 
Wow, got into the BIOS tonight; it does not support 1600MHz DDR3 speed with 965 processors; only 1333. Talked to EVGA about it; was explained to me that Intel has put limitations that stands in the way of "turning on" 1600 at stock speeds. Obviously the ASUS and Gigabyte boards get around this already. Seems as though Intel is not being as forthcoming with information to NVIDIA as it is the others. EVGA explains it has nothing to do with socket positioning on the board. Obviously in most situations you will be dropping back RAM speed anyway in so if you are OCing the BCLK, you likely will not give a damn about no 1600MHz support.
 
Ever notice how Kyle just spins these new motherboards around on that table? No static cloth or strap for him! I guess if the hardware withstands his punishment, its truly [H]ardcore!

:D
 
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