One is by the molex, one by the 24-pin ATX connector, two in the upper corner by the memory, one by the clear CMOS switch, and one more by the Debug hex panel.
Given the fact that you can't run GPU's in the PCI/e X4 slot (3rd slot) and the fact that there is enough room for a twin slot GPU to be installed in the first slot, I can't see a major problem other than perhaps airflow for the primary GPU. The secondary graphics slot (8X electrical) is the 5th slot. So even if you were running 2 graphics cards, you'd still be able to squeeze something into the PCI/e X4 slot in a well ventilated case with some cross-flow in the PCI/e area.
I can't see a major problem other than perhaps airflow for the primary GPU
Thats my beef with the single slot spacing, i'd never buy a board that has this setup.
The top gpu will always run hotter because it can't breathe. Every other p55 board has 2 slot spacing, not sure why evga went with this design.
Was that really the reason behind this? How many people are going to run 3 gpu's, let alone on a x8/x8/x4 mobo? Makes a bit more sense on a x58 mobo with x16/x8/x8.
Purist in the sense of a design not relying on external multiplexers to sub-divide phases for a pseudo phase effect. In most cases the current is still limited by the buck controller no matter how you sub-divide downstream. Point is, you can have 24 phases supplying 300~400w peak or a 12 phase solution supplying 600w. SO when motherboard vendors advertise their boards under the guise of phase count - its really not telling us much at all. There really is no need for a multitude of phases adding extra complexity to the design plus additional switching noise when you can make a fast transient response supply by using the right parts and a less complex topology.
Multiphase designs can be cheaper to implement if they use more cheap parts rather than fewer expensive ones. Given the way mobo manufacturers penny pinch I am certain that's the real reason lots of phases have become fashionable, it also helps that it's easy to market 'MOAR=BETTAR' to the enthusiast crowd which isn't aware of the real details of power supply design.
Good to see the 3 bios backups - presumably, the two offline chips aren't writable unless the slider switch is set to them?
What I think would be the best rootkit defense is a method to overwrite the functioning bios at post time by pressing a button. That would restore the bios to a known good state. If you want to flash a new bios from the OS, you still have to push the button or flip a toggle before the chip is writable. Once the bios write button was pressed, the flash utility could proceed. So pressing the button at post time says - "overwrite the current bios". Pressing the same button at os time says - "yeah, it's ok to flash a new bios but if I press this button at post time, erase what I'm about to write."
That way, a rootkit wouldn't be able to stealth its way into the bios. And if it somehow did, the post-time button press would wipe it with the factory bios. That means the factory bios would have to be in some sort of ROM.
I noticed that the board has two EPS12V connectors, are these actually required or does it work when you only connect one?
If it actually requires the two then it's quite strange that EVGA decides to release such a board. The vast majority of potential customers will not have a PSU like that, and people who have one are likely already using a Nehalem. That leaves EVGA with hardcore overclockers that want to achieve WR on P55, but it's an economically questionable decision to release a board jsut targeted at that crowd.
The board does look quite good though, the only "problem" I see is the placement of the CF/SLI molex 4-pin.
If you were to very extreme overclock, THEN you would need both to supply the current the PWM subcircuit can handle since the wires and connector contacts have inherent limits in current. Otherwise, for normal overclocking you could use only one connector.
It does sit slightly proud of the PCIeX1 slot. As it serves no purpose other than to glow red (its not a heatsink), I think you'd probably be able to remove it without voiding your warranty. It's held in place by a couple of screws.
Now that ASRock and eVGA have revealed their boards with the creative LGA775 heatsink mounts I wonder how many other boards will have a quick v1.1 revision to add them.
If you have a sufficiently large (heavy) heatsink it should come with a backplate. Otherwise, ripping apart a PCB is not likely anyway, the larger problem is when the pressure flexes a larger region of the board and breaks surface mounted parts or solder junctions.
Alos, is the back of the CPU soicket clear of clutter? Every evga board I've used had crap back there that prevented the use of after market coolers with back plates.
The molex connecter is to augment PCE/e slot power when using a couple of heavily overclocked GPU's. It's usage is not a necessity unless you're really pushing the GPU's hard.
Cooler backplates designed for use with i5 boards should be fine. The only infringement into the mounting area is the presence of thru hole cap leads which are a requirement gievn the need for bulk capacitance close to the CPU socket (all boards have them - some a lot more than others). Vendors designing coolers for socket 1156 should already be aware of this and be using suitable brackets for upcoming coolers.
Chipset limitation: 16 lanes from the CPU northbridge and 4 from the P55 chipset.
I'm not too bothered by PCI on full ATX boards if they are layed out right to take in to account those who actually use that many cards. I do however wish that PCI would die faster on mATX boards.
Just to clarify, P55 supports up to 8 PCIe lanes.
But some of those will be eaten by Gigabit LAN, additional SATA Controllers, etc.
The beginning of the article mentions that the "Classified" version of this board will use an NF200 chip, so you will be able to do:
16-16-4 for full bandwidth to both cards or possibly even 16-8-8 for Triple SLI.
You know, PCI really can't die unless peripheral makers actually make PCI-E CARDS. It's complete failure how there's a total lack of pci express 1x cards for a ton of things. If there was a good marketplace of every type of device in PCI-E style, we'd be all set to kill PCI.
Perhaps you haven't looked at add-in cards in quite some time but just about every type of add-in card is available in PCIe nowadays. The main reason for PCI seems to be for those carrying over cards they already own, much like IDE which people like to hate upon more (some older optical drives that are IDE are better for certain things than new ones.) I don't understand the IDE hate though, it takes up a minial amount of space and doesn't really take away from what you can do with the PC unlike expansion slots. It does look like this board has pads for an IDE port though ;)
After I read your post, I thought about how most manufacturers still include floppy and IDE ports. I think this EVGA board is the first non-Intel branded motherboard I've seen that doesn't include floppy or IDE ports.
Well, yah it's a lot of money. But people buy these board because they appreciate their hardware. tehy want the best. Not all people are your Emachine, drop a buck and a half sail for a year or two Pc surfer. We get the hardest of hardware and push it till it can't be pushed anymore. I mean come on dude, we all need some sort of hobby, else we'd all be at the bar or some other debaucherous antic. I love buying hardware, specing it out, ordering it up, and yeah, one who follows this stuff, can get the deals and steals, and once yah get it, yah admore it, yah prey to the hardware gods that it'll kick like yah want it to, and wooolah, the need for speed is realized. Appearently, you must have a different hobby? Stamp collector maybe? what's a stamp collector doing reading Anandtech? lol.
What limits are being pushed? Give me facts, not sensationalism. What does "the best" have over "more bang for your buck"?
Or for comparison, the equivalent question in CPU land would be what is the difference between $1000 Intel CPU and one of $500? And the response would be "a few megahertz and maybe some more L3 cache". I don't see what more a $250 mobo is adding when a $130 mobo would have overclock support, support for tons of USB ports and SATA channels, 7.1 audio, etc...
For someone using conventional cooling methods the differences betwween at $130 and $250 won't be worth the increased outlay.
If sub-zero cooling is your thing (probably not in your case, but the FTW and Classified line from EVGA caters to this crowd), what we're seeing at the moment is the flexibility to change voltages during boot cycle time and being able to run lower overall CPU temperatures on one of our samples without the board locking up (the other vendor boards are topping out lower in some cases). The signal compensation adjustments allow slightly higher stable BCLK potential than the pother boards translating to higher benchmark scores in one way or another to those that care about such things. To some these little advantages are worth the extra. For the rest of us, there are plenty of products filling the $130-$200 bracket (including upcoming boards from EVGA (they have stuff coming in below $200), Gigiabyte, DFI the list goes on).
As it was said before, this board is not your conventional run of the mill best bang for the buck board. Given this and all other features bundled with this board, why don't they include a decent sound card, or a cheap high riser card that can be removed and replaced with a good one? Why is the sound component neglected on so many boards nowadays (especially the high end ones)?
... because a high quality audio solution requires a lot of PCB real-estate, it simply wouldn't fit on a board unless it were designed to accomodate only mATX amount of slots/etc then the entire bottom devoted to the audio.
Why they don't include an audio card is simple to understand, that anyone can buy the card/features they want and someone willing to spend the excessive amount of money on this board and the cost of sub-zero cooling needed to exploit the board's features, must be willing to throw a lot of money at their system so if audio is important to them another $100 or 2 wouldn't be much of a factor.
That stamp collector probably has a faster system for less money and all he probably had to do was forego some clear windows, rainbow LEDs, and color coordinated mobo plastic.
Can someone tell me why you would spend so much on a motherboard? I mean, from what I know, there are just lots of other things to spend money on that will get you higher performance. I know you that the bottom of the barrel stuff is missing some decent features, but what does the high-end stuff bring?
Or maybe I'll have to wait for the review to find out...
This motherboard is stupid, why someone would bother to buy this if you can get an X58 motherboard with equal or less money, P55 is supposed to be a mainstream aproach of the nehalem technology.
Totally agree, EVGA P55 FTW was introduced recently in the UK for a price of £127, that lasted a few hours and then the price shot up to £170 (GBP), that's approx $280 (US). Sure it's a nice board but the price is way over the top for what is supposed to be a "mainstream" board. At this kind of money it goes head to head with the X58's. It's not just EVGA, but Asus, and Gigabyte too. These high priced P55 boards need to drop their prices by around £50 (GBP) to make them competitive against X58. It's interesting to see that the humble MSI P55 GD65 (6 + 1 phase power system) costing £120, thrashed the high-end Asus P7P55D Deluxe (16 + 3 phase power system) costing £170, in every possible benchmark.
you're apparently missing the point of what this board is. it's designed as the P55 counterpart to the X58 classified boards, which come in starting at $400. the only reason you would buy one of these boards is for sub zero cooling (dry ice or liquid nitrogen) for benchmarking purposes and overclocking competitions. normal board design runs into all sorts of issues due to the extremely low temperatures the boards are exposed to under these conditions, so EVGA is filling this gap with something which can take the heat (or lack there of). it was even said in the article this board isnt intended for the mainstream enthusiast crowd
Totally agree. This board is made for the extreme overclockers who are in it for max overclock and top benchmarks (superPi, 3dmark, clockspeed, etc). But for 24/7 use this board is too overpriced and out of the mainstream enthusiast, or dare I say even the high-end enthusiast market.
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54 Comments
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alkalinetaupehat - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
There's 1 CPU and 6 regular fan headers btw.One is by the molex, one by the 24-pin ATX connector, two in the upper corner by the memory, one by the clear CMOS switch, and one more by the Debug hex panel.
Rajinder Gill - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Oops! Missed that one out; I've corrected it above..thanks
Raja
Ananke - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Does anybody knows when is i5 due for release to retail?jasonbird - Friday, December 25, 2009 - link
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alkalinetaupehat - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
While the specific date is under NDA, it is expected to be in September and personally I would speculate the second or third week thereof.shabby - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
1 slot spacing between x16 pcie slots = FTL, evga should change the name of the board.Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Given the fact that you can't run GPU's in the PCI/e X4 slot (3rd slot) and the fact that there is enough room for a twin slot GPU to be installed in the first slot, I can't see a major problem other than perhaps airflow for the primary GPU. The secondary graphics slot (8X electrical) is the 5th slot. So even if you were running 2 graphics cards, you'd still be able to squeeze something into the PCI/e X4 slot in a well ventilated case with some cross-flow in the PCI/e area.shabby - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
I can't see a major problem other than perhaps airflow for the primary GPUThats my beef with the single slot spacing, i'd never buy a board that has this setup.
The top gpu will always run hotter because it can't breathe. Every other p55 board has 2 slot spacing, not sure why evga went with this design.
jAkUp - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
The slot layout is designed this way so you can have 3 dual slot cards + a PCIe 1x card.shabby - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Was that really the reason behind this? How many people are going to run 3 gpu's, let alone on a x8/x8/x4 mobo? Makes a bit more sense on a x58 mobo with x16/x8/x8.flipmode - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
The fact that you can put a 775 heatsink on here is worth some real money to those with some nice $30-$60 775 heatsinks.Um, what the HECK is the "purist approach" to power phase design? Is it "more is better" or "quality is better"? Just trying to be "in the know".
Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Purist in the sense of a design not relying on external multiplexers to sub-divide phases for a pseudo phase effect. In most cases the current is still limited by the buck controller no matter how you sub-divide downstream. Point is, you can have 24 phases supplying 300~400w peak or a 12 phase solution supplying 600w. SO when motherboard vendors advertise their boards under the guise of phase count - its really not telling us much at all. There really is no need for a multitude of phases adding extra complexity to the design plus additional switching noise when you can make a fast transient response supply by using the right parts and a less complex topology.MadMan007 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Multiphase designs can be cheaper to implement if they use more cheap parts rather than fewer expensive ones. Given the way mobo manufacturers penny pinch I am certain that's the real reason lots of phases have become fashionable, it also helps that it's easy to market 'MOAR=BETTAR' to the enthusiast crowd which isn't aware of the real details of power supply design.anandreader - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Good to see the 3 bios backups - presumably, the two offline chips aren't writable unless the slider switch is set to them?What I think would be the best rootkit defense is a method to overwrite the functioning bios at post time by pressing a button. That would restore the bios to a known good state. If you want to flash a new bios from the OS, you still have to push the button or flip a toggle before the chip is writable. Once the bios write button was pressed, the flash utility could proceed. So pressing the button at post time says - "overwrite the current bios". Pressing the same button at os time says - "yeah, it's ok to flash a new bios but if I press this button at post time, erase what I'm about to write."
That way, a rootkit wouldn't be able to stealth its way into the bios. And if it somehow did, the post-time button press would wipe it with the factory bios. That means the factory bios would have to be in some sort of ROM.
Furuno - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Hey, there's some solder pads beside the memory slots. I wonder what's that for?strikeback03 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Read the silkscreen - Braidwood.Casper42 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Wonder why they didnt include the connector?For an OC Board, I would think they would want to give you the option of Braidwood assist for conventional Hard Drives.
Nickel020 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
I noticed that the board has two EPS12V connectors, are these actually required or does it work when you only connect one?If it actually requires the two then it's quite strange that EVGA decides to release such a board. The vast majority of potential customers will not have a PSU like that, and people who have one are likely already using a Nehalem. That leaves EVGA with hardcore overclockers that want to achieve WR on P55, but it's an economically questionable decision to release a board jsut targeted at that crowd.
The board does look quite good though, the only "problem" I see is the placement of the CF/SLI molex 4-pin.
mindless1 - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
If you were to very extreme overclock, THEN you would need both to supply the current the PWM subcircuit can handle since the wires and connector contacts have inherent limits in current. Otherwise, for normal overclocking you could use only one connector.AznBoi36 - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
I've got 2x EPS12V connectors on my Corsair HX1000 :)But I'm already on i7 so no need for P55 :)
Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Both EPS12V sockets are in parallel so the board works fine with a single EPS12V connector.The molex connecter won't be needed mostly. Only for the suicide run stuff with LN2 I'd imagine as with the secondary EPS12V.
Axaion - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Damn, looks to me as if I wont be able to put my Xonar DX in the top PCI-e x1 slot cause of that.. thing! there :pRajinder Gill - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
It does sit slightly proud of the PCIeX1 slot. As it serves no purpose other than to glow red (its not a heatsink), I think you'd probably be able to remove it without voiding your warranty. It's held in place by a couple of screws.later
UNHchabo - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Heh; I thought that was a handle, so you could hang on to something besides the edge of the board or the heatsink when lowering the board into a case.MadMan007 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Wow what a stupid thing for eVGA to put on their board. Blingbling branding over being able to use an expansion slot? Fail.Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
I spoke with EVGA this morning, apparently there are no obstruction issues with overhanging soundcards. They confirmed the recess is sufficient.RagingDragon - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
I like the colours, and the heatsink designs. But at that price point I'd probably opt for an X58 board.MadMan007 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Now that ASRock and eVGA have revealed their boards with the creative LGA775 heatsink mounts I wonder how many other boards will have a quick v1.1 revision to add them.AznBoi36 - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
I'll imagine that the board will break very easily, since the spacing between the holes are like 2mm thin....mindless1 - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
If you have a sufficiently large (heavy) heatsink it should come with a backplate. Otherwise, ripping apart a PCB is not likely anyway, the larger problem is when the pressure flexes a larger region of the board and breaks surface mounted parts or solder junctions.strikeback03 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
I wonder why Intel felt the need to create another set of mounting holes. The 1156 holes are what, less than a mm further out than the 775?GeorgeH - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
What's the reasoning for the molex connector by the x1 slot?ianken - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
I;d like to know that too.Alos, is the back of the CPU soicket clear of clutter? Every evga board I've used had crap back there that prevented the use of after market coolers with back plates.
AznBoi36 - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
I remember these. I had them on my 680i LT SLI board also. Seems to be a "EVGA" thing.Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
The molex connecter is to augment PCE/e slot power when using a couple of heavily overclocked GPU's. It's usage is not a necessity unless you're really pushing the GPU's hard.Cooler backplates designed for use with i5 boards should be fine. The only infringement into the mounting area is the presence of thru hole cap leads which are a requirement gievn the need for bulk capacitance close to the CPU socket (all boards have them - some a lot more than others). Vendors designing coolers for socket 1156 should already be aware of this and be using suitable brackets for upcoming coolers.
later
Sagath - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Is this a chipset limitation or a choice by EVGA to try and push those with SLI to X58?Also, its been said a million times before, and needs to be said again; Let PCI die.
Nice lookin' board. I guess they listened to the feedback from the X58 SE. I loved the look, just didnt have the features I wanted.
MadMan007 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Chipset limitation: 16 lanes from the CPU northbridge and 4 from the P55 chipset.I'm not too bothered by PCI on full ATX boards if they are layed out right to take in to account those who actually use that many cards. I do however wish that PCI would die faster on mATX boards.
Casper42 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Just to clarify, P55 supports up to 8 PCIe lanes.But some of those will be eaten by Gigabit LAN, additional SATA Controllers, etc.
The beginning of the article mentions that the "Classified" version of this board will use an NF200 chip, so you will be able to do:
16-16-4 for full bandwidth to both cards or possibly even 16-8-8 for Triple SLI.
tomoyo - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
You know, PCI really can't die unless peripheral makers actually make PCI-E CARDS. It's complete failure how there's a total lack of pci express 1x cards for a ton of things. If there was a good marketplace of every type of device in PCI-E style, we'd be all set to kill PCI.MadMan007 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
Perhaps you haven't looked at add-in cards in quite some time but just about every type of add-in card is available in PCIe nowadays. The main reason for PCI seems to be for those carrying over cards they already own, much like IDE which people like to hate upon more (some older optical drives that are IDE are better for certain things than new ones.) I don't understand the IDE hate though, it takes up a minial amount of space and doesn't really take away from what you can do with the PC unlike expansion slots. It does look like this board has pads for an IDE port though ;)CK804 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
After I read your post, I thought about how most manufacturers still include floppy and IDE ports. I think this EVGA board is the first non-Intel branded motherboard I've seen that doesn't include floppy or IDE ports.Penzelbub2010 - Monday, August 10, 2009 - link
Well, yah it's a lot of money. But people buy these board because they appreciate their hardware. tehy want the best. Not all people are your Emachine, drop a buck and a half sail for a year or two Pc surfer. We get the hardest of hardware and push it till it can't be pushed anymore. I mean come on dude, we all need some sort of hobby, else we'd all be at the bar or some other debaucherous antic. I love buying hardware, specing it out, ordering it up, and yeah, one who follows this stuff, can get the deals and steals, and once yah get it, yah admore it, yah prey to the hardware gods that it'll kick like yah want it to, and wooolah, the need for speed is realized. Appearently, you must have a different hobby? Stamp collector maybe? what's a stamp collector doing reading Anandtech? lol.Ratman6161 - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
But for those that feel that way there is the x58 and i7. Looks like I'll be sticking with 775 and my Q6600 for quite a while longer.dagamer34 - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
What limits are being pushed? Give me facts, not sensationalism. What does "the best" have over "more bang for your buck"?Or for comparison, the equivalent question in CPU land would be what is the difference between $1000 Intel CPU and one of $500? And the response would be "a few megahertz and maybe some more L3 cache". I don't see what more a $250 mobo is adding when a $130 mobo would have overclock support, support for tons of USB ports and SATA channels, 7.1 audio, etc...
Rajinder Gill - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
For someone using conventional cooling methods the differences betwween at $130 and $250 won't be worth the increased outlay.If sub-zero cooling is your thing (probably not in your case, but the FTW and Classified line from EVGA caters to this crowd), what we're seeing at the moment is the flexibility to change voltages during boot cycle time and being able to run lower overall CPU temperatures on one of our samples without the board locking up (the other vendor boards are topping out lower in some cases). The signal compensation adjustments allow slightly higher stable BCLK potential than the pother boards translating to higher benchmark scores in one way or another to those that care about such things. To some these little advantages are worth the extra. For the rest of us, there are plenty of products filling the $130-$200 bracket (including upcoming boards from EVGA (they have stuff coming in below $200), Gigiabyte, DFI the list goes on).
later
Hxx - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
As it was said before, this board is not your conventional run of the mill best bang for the buck board. Given this and all other features bundled with this board, why don't they include a decent sound card, or a cheap high riser card that can be removed and replaced with a good one? Why is the sound component neglected on so many boards nowadays (especially the high end ones)?mindless1 - Thursday, August 20, 2009 - link
... because a high quality audio solution requires a lot of PCB real-estate, it simply wouldn't fit on a board unless it were designed to accomodate only mATX amount of slots/etc then the entire bottom devoted to the audio.Why they don't include an audio card is simple to understand, that anyone can buy the card/features they want and someone willing to spend the excessive amount of money on this board and the cost of sub-zero cooling needed to exploit the board's features, must be willing to throw a lot of money at their system so if audio is important to them another $100 or 2 wouldn't be much of a factor.
NA1NSXR - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
That stamp collector probably has a faster system for less money and all he probably had to do was forego some clear windows, rainbow LEDs, and color coordinated mobo plastic.dagamer34 - Monday, August 10, 2009 - link
Can someone tell me why you would spend so much on a motherboard? I mean, from what I know, there are just lots of other things to spend money on that will get you higher performance. I know you that the bottom of the barrel stuff is missing some decent features, but what does the high-end stuff bring?Or maybe I'll have to wait for the review to find out...
Hapikern - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
This motherboard is stupid, why someone would bother to buy this if you can get an X58 motherboard with equal or less money, P55 is supposed to be a mainstream aproach of the nehalem technology.RFV - Friday, September 11, 2009 - link
Totally agree, EVGA P55 FTW was introduced recently in the UK for a price of £127, that lasted a few hours and then the price shot up to £170 (GBP), that's approx $280 (US). Sure it's a nice board but the price is way over the top for what is supposed to be a "mainstream" board. At this kind of money it goes head to head with the X58's. It's not just EVGA, but Asus, and Gigabyte too. These high priced P55 boards need to drop their prices by around £50 (GBP) to make them competitive against X58. It's interesting to see that the humble MSI P55 GD65 (6 + 1 phase power system) costing £120, thrashed the high-end Asus P7P55D Deluxe (16 + 3 phase power system) costing £170, in every possible benchmark.http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2009...">http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2009...
faxon - Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - link
you're apparently missing the point of what this board is. it's designed as the P55 counterpart to the X58 classified boards, which come in starting at $400. the only reason you would buy one of these boards is for sub zero cooling (dry ice or liquid nitrogen) for benchmarking purposes and overclocking competitions. normal board design runs into all sorts of issues due to the extremely low temperatures the boards are exposed to under these conditions, so EVGA is filling this gap with something which can take the heat (or lack there of). it was even said in the article this board isnt intended for the mainstream enthusiast crowdAznBoi36 - Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - link
Totally agree. This board is made for the extreme overclockers who are in it for max overclock and top benchmarks (superPi, 3dmark, clockspeed, etc). But for 24/7 use this board is too overpriced and out of the mainstream enthusiast, or dare I say even the high-end enthusiast market.dwade123 - Saturday, August 15, 2009 - link
Then they're still better off with x58. 6 core monster coming out exclusively for x58 as well.