EVGA's Enthusiast Platform for LGA-1156 Processors Detailed

[btarunr]

EVGA seems to have found its roots in Intel's 5-series chipset due to lack of chipsets from NVIDIA that support the latest Intel processors. In the process, EVGA gets to make Intel 5-series motherboards brandishing SLI support, as well as some pretty impressive enthusiast-grade features. With the X58 Classified series, EVGA took on the mighty ASUS to give out a full-featured motherboard for overclocking LGA-1366 processors. It looks like the company is working on another motherboard with similar credentials for LGA-1156 socket processors, based on the Intel P55/P57 chipset.

The EVGA 132-LF-E657 is a full-featured LGA-1156 motherboard focussed on overclocking. The CPU is powered by a lavish 12-phase circuit that makes use of DrMOS (driver-MOSFETs). The CPU socket further seats LICC (Low Inductance Ceramic Capacitors). Electrical stability is brought about by two 8-pin ATX CPU power connectors, a design first featured on the X58 Classified. Additional power stability for the expansion slots is brought about by a 4-pin Molex input. The four DDR3 DIMM slots are powered by a 3-phase circuit. Intel Braidwood technology is supported on this motherboard. The technology involves an NVRAM module that speeds up OS and applications loading. There are two clock generators on this board, perhaps to handle two independent clock domains that gives the user greater control over a few settings.



The expansion on this board is care of three PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots. Two of these are routed to the processor northbridge, and work electrically x8, x8, when both are populated. A third one is connected to the P55/P57 PCH, which is electrically x4. Other slots include one PCI-E x1, and two legacy PCI slots. The board further features PCI-E slot disable jumpers that cut off power to specific slots, turning off the associated voltage regulators.



Apart from a plethora of enthusiast-friendly settings one might be able to find in the system BIOS setup utility, greater control is offered by EVGA ECP module that extends core motherboard controls on a PCB over a ribbon cable, including the PCI-E disable jumpers. Another feature is the redundant BIOS that stores three physical copies of the BIOS on separate EEPROM chips. EVGA may also include a motherboard control gadget that has a screen, a few control buttons, and lets users tune low-level overclocking settings on the fly. Not much is known about this gadget. On the peripheral connectivity front, the P55 PCH provides six SATA II ports, while an additional controller drives eSATA ports. 8-channel audio with digital IO, two gigabit Ethernet controllers, FireWire, and a number of USB ports make for the rest of it. The board may feature in the first wave of motherboard launches following the introduction of the processor platform.



Source: XtremeSystems Forums

[AltecV1]

looks very nice but no cooling!!prototype?

[btarunr]

Yes, unreleased motherboards usually aren't pictured with their coolers.

[Jizzler]

Kinda wish they came that way. Save time of removing the stock grease for better grease and/or a waterblock/better heatsink.

As for the board itself... I like the muted color scheme. Leaves a lot of room for your own color scheme (video card, heatsink, ramsinks, etc).

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

Wheres the northbridge?

[Yukikaze]

Originally Posted by Bjorn_Of_Iceland

Wheres the northbridge?

There is none on the motherboard.

[Easo]

Floppy and IDE has died at last (well, on this mobo)!

[AltecV1]

Originally Posted by Easo

Floppy and IDE has died at last (well, on this mobo)!

hey my dvd wrighter is IDE!!! ide will never die

[Easo]

Originally Posted by AltecV1

hey my dvd wrighter is IDE!!! ide will never die

Well,i shouldnt speak about my old PC...

After all, progress is heresy! BURN EVGA!

[btarunr]

With heatsinks picture added.

[Dreadnought33]

The absence of the NB kind of reminds me the first socket 754 & 940 motherboards. I am getting a little bit nostalgic

[zAAm]

Originally Posted by Easo

Floppy and IDE has died at last (well, on this mobo)!

At least it still has a PS/2 keyboard connector, unlike my Intel board which doesn't have IDE, Floppy or any PS/2 connectors...

[KieranD]

i am right in thinking the north bridge is essentially on the cpu?
fantastic layout, plenty of ports too, sata ports are in a good place, pci ex 1 slot is before the 16x slot thus not blocked

[a_ump]

SLI 8x/8x. come on....i mean i guess the x58 chipset replaced the x16/x16 ability of the 680i/759-90i but dam i figured it'd stilll have x16 x16 on this chipset. I find it somewhat ridiculous, x16 tech has been around for quite some time now a lil pathetic not to have it here imo. though i gues no reason to b1#^h since x8/x8 is enough for current graphic cards in SLI. Besides that it looks nice, and sounds great but i figure its gonna be around $200+(hence why i think it should have x16/x16).

[DanishDevil]

Wait, am I the only one that's seeing this? TWO 8-pin ATX connectors? I have never seen a PSU with both. Are they going to force us to upgrade PSUs to go high-end P55? And I never noticed that the X58 classified had it either.

Does anyone know of any PSUs that have dual 8-pin ATX CPU connectors?

[cavemanthreeonesix]

such a beautiful board, black pcb with black and gun metal grey pci & ram slots and all block heatsinks.

GOD *****ng dammit it has to be EVGA who bl***y makes it

[DanishDevil]

Other thoughts to add:

Sexy heatsinks, horrible molex placement, and finally, a desktop with a USB/eSATA combo port! Hopefully somebody will release a USB/eSATA combo port flash drive once these ports become more popular.

Shame it's Dual x8 and an x4, though. I think they should have added a few PCI-E lanes for a higher-end version.

[a_ump]

i agree, and nope i'd never heard of 2x8pin CPU connectors. shit i didn't even know it was necessary as i figured the 8-pin supplied plenty of power as boards used to just have a 4-pin connector and Power draw from Pentium D's wasn't any lower than today's high-end CPU. i can't imagine that extra 8-pin actually helping stability any when the regular 8-pin should be able to handle anything. unless its for those crazy mofo's that OC quad CPU's to like 5ghz+ with LN2. molex connector definitely shoulda been at the right edge of hte board or the top right.

[tigger]

Hopefully it will still boot with only 1 8pin atx connected,otherwise there will be lots of bodged psu's in the land.

[a_ump]

it should, my brother's i7 920 boots with only a 4-pin cpu connector in and its an 8-pin socket.

[aximbigfan]

Aren't 'LGA1156' and 'enthusiast' oxymorons?

The way I see it, LGA1156 is a socket for low end procs. i7 is high end, make enthusiast products for that...

[a_ump]

nah LGA 775 is low end :P. Socket wise LGA 1156 is mainstream(i5/lower end i7's), LGA 1155 is supposed to be for i3 "i thk" but could be wrong.

[DanishDevil]

It's kind of complicated. This is the way I see it.

i7 is the high-end socket. There are low-end i7 chips (dual core Xeon chips with no HT) and high-end i7 chips (975XE, etc.)

i5 is the mainstream socket. There are low-end i5 chips (dual cores) and high-end i5 chips (quad cores).

i3 is the budget socket. There will be low and high end chips as well.

It's like tiered categories, but there will still be enthusiast boards for each category, which will allow a mainstream buyer who doesn't need triple channel DDR3 to buy a great overclocking board with tons of options, like EVGA's offering above.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by aximbigfan

Aren't 'LGA1156' and 'enthusiast' oxymorons?

The way I see it, LGA1156 is a socket for low end procs. i7 is high end, make enthusiast products for that...

They're not, especially when Intel has $600 LGA-1156 processors in the making.

[aximbigfan]

Originally Posted by btarunr

They're not, especially when Intel has $600 LGA-1156 processors in the making.

I wonder what the performance difference will be between that and an i7 920...