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EVGA X58 LE - Brolloks Review

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Brolloks

Benching Senior on Siesta, Premium Member #8
Joined
Dec 26, 2006
Location
Land of Long Horns
Let's see how this new mini EVGA X58 handles a few D0 CPU's:

Main Board
: EVGA X58 LE

CPU - Intel i7-920 D0

RAM - Mushkin DDR3 1600 7-8-7-20 (3 x 1 GB)

GPU - EVGA GTX 260

Cooling - TRUE Copper with push-pull fans
 

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Reserved for Bios shots
 

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Some more Bios pics
 

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Some Comments before I begin to show OC results :

Board layout, packaging and accessories:

The board is a full ATX board, not mATX which is misleading when it was launched

Board comes with LED error debugger, when in Windows it actually displays the CPU die temperature

Comes with on board Power, Reset and reset CMOS buttons which is really a plus for this level board

The clearance between the RAM slots and the CPU socket is far enough that a TRUE with a fan between the socket and slots will not cause interference with RAM sticks that have high HS fins....this seems to be a problem with most X58 boards I've tried.

Only thing that I do not like about the board layout is the 8 pin CPU power socket somewhat oddly situated to the left of the PWM HS which means you have the cable running across the PWM HS, normally the socket is just behind the PS2 socket out of the way.

Only drawback I see on the design is the fact that it only comes with one x 16 PCIe slot, it has 4 x PCIe slots which are as follows, from the socket side : x 16, x 8, x4 , x4. This will hamper any SLI or Crossfire configuration with higher end cards such as GTX 280 or HD 4890 repectively.

In general I'm very pleased with the board's layout, not crowded, well thought through.


Bios :

Most of the X58 board's Bios are so loaded with features that it is confusing even for the people that have had a few boards.

This EVGA X58 LE Bios IMO have got it right with the balance of functionality and practicality...you have enough settings to optimize your OC, at the same time they did not overload you with all sorts of settings that makes it challenging to use.

Under CPU features you will notice all the relevant EIST and C1E and other settings one disables in preparation for OC has already been disabled, even when you start after clear CMOS, very nice of EVGA to do that IMO.

Enabling Turbo mode is also automatic, I have found that on some X58 boards out there it is quite a mission to figure out how to enable turbo, with this board is is ready to go.

Under PC health all the relevant voltages and temperatures are displayed, some boards out there still do not show this in the bios

Your target CPU speed based on what you set your base clocks (i.e. Host Frequency) is displayed so no guessing

All the voltage settings are set in a list except for CPU VTT which is a +number, not sure why, the Biostar board's bios normally likes these +number for their voltage settings, personally I do not as you then have to note the default voltages and add on whetever you set it in the bios.

True to EVGA you can set the RAM speeds on a multiplier based on CPU's base clock speed or you can set it unlinked (i.e. 800, 1073, 1333, 1600 etc) which I have always liked and glad they put this feature on their X58 board.

You can as with most boards set your uncore frequency to be linked (auto) which sets it to 2 x RAM speed or you can set it by using the drop down list.

At the bottom of ypur main OC menu you can save and load your OC profile, nice to save a stable one and work from there, if it fails then you just reload the stable one.
 
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Subscribed.. as well, ill have some questions cause im looking at this for my next build :)
 
920 at Stock Settings in Bios
 

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First set of OC results:

Something to note...THE BOARD HAS ZERO VDROP OR VDROOP !!!

Most of the boards out there have LLC (Load Line Calibration) which is in most cases very poor. I set the V-Core to 1.30v in Bios, boot up, CPUz showed 1.30v while idling and when I engaged Prime 95, the V-core did not move from 1.30v

V-Core at 1.30
VDIMM at 1.65
Rest of voltage settings on auto

RAM set at 1600 Mhz
 

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With EVGA's very powerful, effective and seemingly bug free OC tool (E-Leet) I could get up to 4.5 Ghz staying at the settings I started at 4 Ghz
 

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OMGGGG I am so getting this board. But I have two questions:

Can you test the dummy OC feature? I'm curious to see how well that works.

Is it true this board can't run X16 - X16 in SLI in the PCIe slots?
 
Have not tried the Dummy feature.

The board unfortunately only has one true x 16 slot which makes Cross Fire or SLI with anything above a HD 4870 or 8800 GT/GTS 512 respectively a waste as your cards will be suffocated by dual x 8 lanes (when you SLI a x 16 and x8 lane the result is dual x 8 lanes)
 
Sure Dom, my pics are a bit crappy as I misplaced my decent camera and I'm using an older one.

thanks for the thought Dom :)
 
The board unfortunately only has one true x 16 slot which makes Cross Fire or SLI with anything above a HD 4870 or 8800 GT/GTS 512 respectively a waste as your cards will be suffocated by dual x 8 lanes (when you SLI a x 16 and x8 lane the result is dual x 8 lanes)

That's retarded, you can get other X58 boards for less then this with 2 x16 slots... why market this as "X58 SLI" when it can't handle it?

Ugh... do you think one ATi 4890 would be sufficient for my 1920 x 1080 resolution?
 
@nuva007, agree that they could really have put in dual X16 slots in stead of 4 slots,
A single HD4890 is plenty at your resolution to max out any game and then some, getting another card will be a waste unless you only do it for benching like us freaks, yeah Miah /\, you too;)
 
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To the x16 vs x8 lanes, PCIe 2.0 has wayy too much bandwidth as it is. Even with three cards you will probably be just reaching the limits of bandwidth. Two cards will in no way be "choked" by dual x8.
 
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