• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

EVGA Formally Launches the SR-3 DARK Motherboard for Xeon W-3175X

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
47,878 (7.38/day)
Location
Dublin, Ireland
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard Gigabyte B550 AORUS Elite V2
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 16GB DDR4-3200
Video Card(s) Galax RTX 4070 Ti EX
Storage Samsung 990 1TB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
The DARK rises again. Not content to merely shatter records and competition in the consumer market, the EVGA SR-3 DARK merges two extreme performance lines of EVGA motherboards to bring balance to the force with exceptional performance and engineering. Featuring the Intel C622 chipset, hexa-channel memory support, 23 phase power design, 16-layer PCB, dual-10 GbE LAN ports, a waterblock to passively or actively cool the DARK's VRM, and so much more, this board is packed with everything and is still compact enough to fit in a full E-ATX form factor.

With the EVGA SR-3 DARK, you don't need to see its identification to know that the next evolution of the X299 and Z390 DARK motherboards features the latest improvements for performance and enthusiast needs.



Key Features:
  • 1. 16-Layer PCB: A 16-layer high-speed E-ATX PCBA with gold-plated shielded edge enhances stability for heavy loads, improved overclocking, and durability for today's extreme cooling hardware.
  • 2. Highly-Efficient 24-Phase PWM: The SR-3 DARK features a 24-phase Digital VRM (18 VCore, 1 VSA, 1 VCCIO, 4 VDDR) for the cleanest, most stable power design to ensure that you're ready for Intel's 28-core XEON W-3175X Processor.
  • 3. 300% Higher Gold Content in CPU Socket: Higher volume of precious metal (300% Gold) used in the Narrow 30u socket creates lower contact resistance, resulting in better power delivery.
  • 4. Intel sSATA to Mini-SAS 6Gb/s Port: The Intel C622 PCH supports 10 SATA 6Gb/s drives, including an additional 4 ports through a mini-SAS connector located behind the SATA Ports. The controller also supports NCQ, TRIM, hot swap capability, and RAID levels 0/1/5/10.
  • 5. PCIe Disable Switches: The SR-3 DARK offers PCIe disable switches to quickly shut off PCIe slots to troubleshoot or restore used resources without the need to physically uninstall hardware.
  • 6. Triple BIOS Select Switch Switch between up to 3 different BIOS ROMs for overclocking, benching, 24/7 use, or anything you can think of.
  • 7. SW Slow Mode Switch: Changes the CPU Ratio to the minimum CPU ratio in real-time for stability purposes or to reduce heat/power usage between long benching sessions.
  • 8. ProbeIT Connectors Attach your Digital Multimeter to the included ProbeIT adapter and monitor all your voltages in real-time.
  • 9. Creative Core3D Audio: Creative 5.1 Channel Audio with output amplifiers - the industry standard for audio quality.
  • 10. Safeboot Button: Pressing this button will restart the system and launch into the BIOS at safe setting, while keeping the same settings when you previously left the BIOS. Handy for those times when the board fails to POST, but you only need to make one or two changes to fix it!
For more information, visit the product page.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
If only EVGA stop being exclusively an INTEL platform and made motherboards for AMD. I would buy one of their board in a heartbeat.
EVGA isn't so much about Intel only with motherboards, they originally made broads with nVidia chipsets until Intel stop letting anyone else making chipsets.
EVGA's relation with nVidia means they basically signed GPP before GPP was a thing, that means NO AMD. :banghead:
 
EVGA isn't so much about Intel only with motherboards, they originally made broads with nVidia chipsets until Intel stop letting anyone else making chipsets.
EVGA's relation with nVidia means they basically signed GPP before GPP was a thing, that means NO AMD. :banghead:

Lol WTF did i just read early morning :banghead:

If only EVGA stop being exclusively an INTEL platform and made motherboards for AMD. I would buy one of their board in a heartbeat.

If Intel continues like this , i think EVGA won't have much of a choice . Intel must be paying them good money for the exclusivity but all the market share they are loosing on AMD side can only be bad for their business in long term. It's just a shame they don't realise this themselves !
 
Last edited:
Last edited:
Pretty nice looking board.
 
$1,800 board, Hmm ok... I guess.

As for evga making AMD boards, or AMD anything, it's just not gonna happen anytime soon. It's a big point of their corporate pride.
 
An over dramatic take on what it basically comes down to. :laugh:

Anyway Intel did sue nVidia for the nForce chipsets.
https://www.cnet.com/news/intel-takes-chipset-dispute-with-nvidia-to-court/
EVGA used to make broads pretty much exclusively with nVidia chipsets.
They switched to Intel chipsets when they obviously had no choice anymore.

iirc the IMC was moved on-die, following suit after AMD, rendering a chipset(northbridge specifically) pointless. Nvidia trying to remain relevant in the motherboard space created one anyway under the pretext of having an existing license. That's when Intel sued,.
 
iirc the IMC was moved on-die, following suit after AMD, rendering a chipset(northbridge specifically) pointless. Nvidia trying to remain relevant in the motherboard space created one anyway under the pretext of having an existing license. That's when Intel sued,.
That is a rather odd reason to sue someone. There is no law against making a pointless product.
AMD moved the IMC into the CPU since K8, yet nVidia was still allowed to make chipset long afterwards.
Also AMD up to AM3 still has an external northbridge to handle the PCI-E functions. Intel had one up to X58.
So I don't see why nVidia was not allowed to at least make a Southbridge / PCH for Intel platform.
 
$1,800 board, Hmm ok... I guess.

As for evga making AMD boards, or AMD anything, it's just not gonna happen anytime soon. It's a big point of their corporate pride.

Has nothing to do with the pride of anyone. They have an exclusivity contract with NV that prevents them from producing anything that comes from team red. Consider it as Nvidia "Geforce Partner Program" early-beta with some additional stuff.
 
I do like it, but at $1800 I don't like it that much.... Plus I couldn't warrant the $3000 on a CPU either, even more so when I know the latest Threadrippers are faster.. My SR-2 and possibly the SR-X would be the last SR boards I have from EVGA unless one came up stupidly priced and I mean something like $500 with a CPU or something :love: :laugh:

If only EVGA stop being exclusively an INTEL platform and made motherboards for AMD. I would buy one of their board in a heartbeat.
You are definitely not the only one... But Asus or Asrock are my go to boards for AMD setups I think :)
 
Has nothing to do with the pride of anyone. They have an exclusivity contract with NV that prevents them from producing anything that comes from team red. Consider it as Nvidia "Geforce Partner Program" early-beta with some additional stuff.
I'm gonna want a source on that. Nvidia hasn't made chipsets in 11 years and no sane business will sign a contract that means you can't source products your partner can't supply. I very much doubt that the contract isn't long expired, and I double doubt that EVGA were ever obligated to not make boards for competing chipset manufacturers in the event Nvidia ceased to be such a manufacturer.

Hell, that was AMD's way out of the GloFo agreement - The contract obligated AMD to buy from GloFo if GloFo could meet the material spec. Since GloFo couldn't, AMD were free to go to TSMC for 7nm as long as GloFo still got the orders for anything 14nm.
 
An over dramatic take on what it basically comes down to. :laugh:

Well glad you realized it :laugh: but not only this . I mean EVGA can very well still make exclusively Nvidia GPUs and open their motherboard business to AMD im pretty sure this has nothing to do with Nvidia !

As you said in your comment they started to make Intel boards because they had no choice and sooner or latter it will happen the same with AMD if Intel continues on this road .

Has nothing to do with the pride of anyone. They have an exclusivity contract with NV that prevents them from producing anything that comes from team red. Consider it as Nvidia "Geforce Partner Program" early-beta with some additional stuff.

This is total bollocks , peoples have to stop spreading BS like this ! EVGA has an exclusivity contract with NV as far as GPUs go , for the rest you are making this up ..........
 
Last edited:
Wow, beautiful motherboard, kinda stinks EVGA sank so much money into this project - now, Intel dropping the price of the Xeon W-3175X CPU by $1000.

The timing of Threadripper 3960X and 3970X launch certainly didn't help sell this platform at all. :oops:

I like this EVGA board because it actually will mount to most EATX motherboard trays (same height couple inches wider?), whereas the ROG Dominus and Gigabyte boards in this same class will not.

parts_diagram.png
 
Last edited:
This is total bollocks , peoples have to stop spreading BS like this ! EVGA has an exclusivity contract with NV as far as GPUs go , for the rest you are making this up ..........
Hell, we don't actually know for certain that they even have *that*, at this point. Or when such a contract would be up for renewal. Or whether EVGA could buy out of said contract if AMD released a juggernaut GPU out of nowhere and EVGA wanted part of that action.

It'd be absolutely insane for EVGA to work in the industry they do and not try to retain flexibility in their potential offerings. Acting like EVGA is tied to NVidia with some ironclad, permanent, self-renewing contract, just because @PrEzi wants to make shit up, is ridiculous.

Do they probably have SOMETHING contractually obligating them to Nvidia under certain circumstances in return for certain benefits? Almost definitely. Does @PrEzi have any idea the details of that contract? Almost certainly not. Is that contract going to be as simple as "EVGA = Nvidia forever"? Absolutely not, unless it was written and signed by two 13 year olds.

I like this EVGA board because it actually will mount to most EATX motherboard trays (same height couple inches wider?)
I love that you said this in a post where you literally included a photograph of the board, showing that the mounting screws were right at the very edge of the board, meaning it's exactly EATX spec, not wider at all. Well done Captain Observant.
 
It'd be absolutely insane for EVGA to work in the industry they do and not try to retain flexibility in their potential offerings. Acting like EVGA is tied to NVidia with some ironclad, permanent, self-renewing contract, just because @PrEzi wants to make shit up, is ridiculous.

Do they probably have SOMETHING contractually obligating them to Nvidia under certain circumstances in return for certain benefits? Almost definitely. Does @PrEzi have any idea the details of that contract? Almost certainly not. Is that contract going to be as simple as "EVGA = Nvidia forever"? Absolutely not, unless it was written and signed by two 13 year olds.

Sums up everything perfectly , and i agree 1000% .
 
Hell, we don't actually know for certain that they even have *that*, at this point. Or when such a contract would be up for renewal. Or whether EVGA could buy out of said contract if AMD released a juggernaut GPU out of nowhere and EVGA wanted part of that action.

It'd be absolutely insane for EVGA to work in the industry they do and not try to retain flexibility in their potential offerings. Acting like EVGA is tied to NVidia with some ironclad, permanent, self-renewing contract, just because @PrEzi wants to make shit up, is ridiculous.

Do they probably have SOMETHING contractually obligating them to Nvidia under certain circumstances in return for certain benefits? Almost definitely. Does @PrEzi have any idea the details of that contract? Almost certainly not. Is that contract going to be as simple as "EVGA = Nvidia forever"? Absolutely not, unless it was written and signed by two 13 year olds.


I love that you said this in a post where you literally included a photograph of the board, showing that the mounting screws were right at the very edge of the board, meaning it's exactly EATX spec, not wider at all. Well done Captain Observant.

Some enthusiasts require additional visual aids to achieve higher comprehension. :laugh:

...not you, yet some enthusiasts. lol

I can't always be right, was only a B+ student. lolol :roll:
 
Last edited:
16 layer PCB, love the Sata connectors turned like that.
 
Has nothing to do with the pride of anyone. They have an exclusivity contract with NV that prevents them from producing anything that comes from team red. Consider it as Nvidia "Geforce Partner Program" early-beta with some additional stuff.

Will look back for the quote from evga ceo. Yes, evga has to be exclusive to Nvidia, and they have used it for bragging too when AMD CPUs were not "all they could be"...
 
Guys this isn't marketed to the avg CS:Go player nor is for any gamer for that matter LOL

$1800 is a bargain if you know what you are getting and what this will be used for, also what the CPU is going to cost you and again used for.

You don't slap a air cooler to this and play WoW
 
What could be better for overclocking an 8700K and 8086K than an EVGA Z390 Dark? :confused:

(2) Z390 Darks :roll:

...yea I'm good till Rocket Lake. :p

IMG_9310.JPG

IMG_9311.JPG
 
Hell, we don't actually know for certain that they even have *that*, at this point. Or when such a contract would be up for renewal. Or whether EVGA could buy out of said contract if AMD released a juggernaut GPU out of nowhere and EVGA wanted part of that action.

It'd be absolutely insane for EVGA to work in the industry they do and not try to retain flexibility in their potential offerings. Acting like EVGA is tied to NVidia with some ironclad, permanent, self-renewing contract, just because @PrEzi wants to make shit up, is ridiculous.

Do they probably have SOMETHING contractually obligating them to Nvidia under certain circumstances in return for certain benefits? Almost definitely. Does @PrEzi have any idea the details of that contract? Almost certainly not. Is that contract going to be as simple as "EVGA = Nvidia forever"? Absolutely not, unless it was written and signed by two 13 year olds.


I love that you said this in a post where you literally included a photograph of the board, showing that the mounting screws were right at the very edge of the board, meaning it's exactly EATX spec, not wider at all. Well done Captain Observant.

 
Back
Top