Finally, a piece that makes my case finally look like something useful has arrived. It came in a brown box which in the beginning made me ask myself if I had order a Blendtec Industrial Blender or an EVGA mobo. In the end it was indeed a mobo, and a kick-arse one if I might add. Performance specs:
- NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI chipset, the best on the market up to now
- 1333 FSB support (Which I will use with my e6750 which runs only at 1333)
- 4 RAM DIMMs, of which two are in use by my Corsair XMS2 sticks, in dual channel configuration
- HUGE chipset heatsink, with an optional fan that I will use.
- 3 PCI-E slots, and from what I read these are all 16x. I might be totally illiterate, but the PCB below clearly indicates that. Triple SLI?
- A wide array of USB connections, and even bare pins inside for further extension through the case or whatnot. I <3 USB.
- Dual RJ gigabit connections, which allows for splitting a full duplex connection over two ethernet lines. Yes, you understood right: a dedicated up line, and a dedicated down line. 1 gigabit per second on each side.
- Constructed purposely for the overclocking of the Core 2 Duo line of processors. Of which I am buying the second best, the e6750. Ha. 3.4 ghz on air cooling anyone?
- It even has the power and reset buttons built in on the board, which is very useful.
Check out my unboxing gallery.
Also, since this is one of the biggest parts, I was able to start installing stuff in my case and optimizing the whole thing. The ever so long power supply cables are all now neatly folded out of sight, and I mounted a temporary CD drive to get an idea of what the finished product will look like. I`ve setup a flickr gallery for that right here.