EVGA 132-BL-E758-A1 X58 3-Way SLI Core i7 Motherboard with Tri-Channel DDR3 and Tuning Utility
by EVGA
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List Price: Our Price: $150.00 You Save: $172.99 (54%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of EVGA 132-BL-E758-A1 X58 3-Way SLI Core i7 Motherboard with Tri-Channel DDR3 and Tuning Utility
Customer Review: Great board. Your P/S must have an EPS12volt, 8-pin connector
Summary: 5 Stars
PROs:
- Solid board. Very heavy compared to most other mobo's I've worked with (heavy being a good thing, due to the heatsink material,which you want in a mobo that will be running an i7)
Easy install
Easy setup.
I ordered one for a client and it operates fine. It was built for a business environment, so it is built as a desktop PC, NOT a gaming rig.
-cables - EVGA includes like 5 or 6 Sata cables, about 4 molex-to-sata adapters.
-adapters - evga includes the video connectors for multiple video card operation.
- onboard reset and cmos reset buttons
- 2 digit display on mobo, as a troubleshooting tool
- Warranty - register within 30 days and you will get the lifetime warranty on this mobo.
Otherwise it is only 2 years.
- Advanced RMA options:
NOTE: When you register this mobo at EVGA, you get ONE OPPORTUNITY to upgrade to an "Advanced RMA" program.
If you pass on it during registration, you will NOT get a second chance to order the advanced RMA option.
"quote"
......During the registration process, you will be asked if you want to participate in the EAR program. After the registration process is complete, customers will no longer be able to participate in the EAR program.....
"unquote"
-Advanced RMA program:
"Quote"
The EVGA Advanced RMA (EAR) Program is a program to protect yourself and your product in the case of product failure. If something was to go wrong with your EVGA product the standard RMA process will be accelerated by prepaying for your shipping options with one of the plans available. This will cut down the amount of time your system will be down and save you money on shipping. Customers can choose to not participate in this program and if anything does go wrong in the future they can still apply for a standard RMA. Cross-Shipment on standard RMAs are not available and customers will be required to pay for shipping the product(s) back to EVGA. "Unquote"
The basic, free, RMA service requires customer to pay S&H, then EVGA will return ship it via standard ground. There is NO CROSS-SHIPPING.
Plan Ship In Ship Out Cross Ship Price
Standard RMA Customer Pays Free Ground No Free
Standard EAR Customer Pays Ground Yes $10.99
Premium EVGA Prepaid Ground Yes $14.99
Ground
2nd Day EVGA Prepaid 2nd Day Yes $21.99
Ground
Overnight EVGA Prepaid Standard Yes $29.99
Ground Overnight
Saturday Priority EVGA Prepaid Saturday Delivery Yes $39.99
Ground
If you think you'll need expedited service for any possible RMA, then even the most expensive option, $39.99, is not bad.
CONS:
- Requires an EPS 12volt (8-pin) power adapter, in addition to the standard 24-pin ATX.
If you plan to use an EXISTING POWER SUPPLY, make sure it has an EPS power connector.
The EPS 8-pin looks "similar" to the PCI-e 8-pin but is KEYED DIFFERENTLY.
You can buy a "Molex-to-EPS12" adapter for about $3 to $5 bucks.
NOTE: if you will be gaming with this mobo, then plan on buying a new power supply.
EVGA did NOT include the molex-to-EPS adapter, because it seems they don't want you to use a non-EPS power supply.
So if your power supply is a couple/few years old, plan on buying a new one.
Customer Review: Fantastic x58 board for i7 Processors
Summary: 5 Stars
This was by far my favorite motherboard. It was both easy to handle, setup, and install into my case. The manual is the best. It's well worded and easy to understand. I also love the poster that comes with this board. It shows a huge picture of the motherboard and all of its parts. All of the parts are labeled within the poster. I loved that! There customer/technical service is outstanding. They will respond to you either the same day (if it's early enough) or the next business day. After your email and their response, they send a quick survey about how they are doing. Definitely shows that they care about their customers. I did a similar survey but for a restaurant. My wife and I were so annoyed at the horrible service we experienced, I slammed the restaurant on the survey. A few days later, I got a call from the general manager asking for more info and sent me a $25 gift card along with an apology. That tells me that they care. When I received my EVGA kit, I must admit that the first time I saw the box, it looked imposing; the size, x58 enlarged, blackish-grey-white color. My only minus is that I wished that they spread out the PCIe x16 sockets (3 of them although 1 is a true x16 ). Also, if you have a huge aftermarket heatsink ( I have the Dark Knight), it's extremely hard and is a tight fit when connecting the 8pin power plug from the power supply to the motherboard (sits in between the IO Panel, a large "metal fence" and the CPU.
The box is bigger than I thought but I loved the packaging inside. Wrapped in a plastic box, it came with all sort of goodies. Some of these include molex connections, SATA cables, SLI bridge (both for 2 cards and 3), and the IDE cable. Speaking of the SATA cables, I was surprised to see the SATA connectors on the right-hand side of the board. It was interesting connecting the long SATA cable to the connector on the motherboard to my hard drives but not an issue. I like the fact that since the SATA connectors are on the edge of the board, the SATA cable isn't sitting "in" the motherboard.
I love the temperature readout on the display that sits on the motherboard. It also shows the error codes if your system doesn't properly post. EVGA's manual shows all the possible codes along with what the codes mean. The motherboard also has 7 spots to connect a bunch of fans (12v each) but I just connect them directly to my power supply.
[...]
My specs:
i7 920
EVGA x58 motherboard
6GB (3x2GB) DDR3-1600 RAM
Auzentech Forte (PCIe sound card)
Western Digital 300GB Velociraptor
Western Digital 1TB SATA II HDD
LG 22x SATA DVD-RW (CAV)
Sapphire Overclocked ATI 4890 (901mhz/1GHZ)
Cooler Master HAF932 Full Tower Case
Logitech G15 Gaming keyboard
Logitech G5 (orange one) gaming mouse
Logitech Z-5500 5.1 digital speakers
Xigametek Dark Knight S1283 Heatsink
Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit for System Builders (very stable)
Customer Review: Great product, read this to save yourself some headaches
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm extremely happy with the board. There were two issues that I had, not with the board, but read this to avoid problems. Initially I purchased two sets of OCZ3G2000LV6GK 6GB tri channel kits to populate 12GB on the board. Each kit worked by itself just fine as 6GB, but put in together I would see any random amount of memory from 4GB to 10GB, but never 12GB. Playing with timings did not yields any better results. It looked like there were some potentially bad memory slots on the board, and I had read reviews where other people had jumped to this conclusion. However I went out and purchased more expensive Corsair tr3x6g1600c7g kits. These worked perfectly out of the box at 1600 Mhz with no parameter tweaking necessary. Needless to say the OCZs were RMA'd.
The second was a more problematic problem. I installed Windows 7 x64 ultimate and had configured a Raid 10 array with 4 x Seagate 1.5TB drives. Everything worked fine for about a week, then suddenly my system locked up. Upon reboot the Raid bios claimed I had a bad drive. I tested the drive standalone in an external enclosure and it was fine, so I reinserted the drive and marked it OK. The rebuild took 22 Hrs. Meanwhile I did some research and the problem that many people are also experiencing is with the Intel Matrix Raid drivers version 8.9.0.1023. Intel is aware people are having problems but continues to put the software out there, and says they can't reproduce the issue. I can assure Intel I had no trouble reproducing it !! Anyway I did what others have done, back level my Matrix Raid drivers to 8.8.0.1099. Intel claims this version does not support Windows 7, but it seems to work better than the version they say does !!! Anyway six weeks have now gone by without any other problems.
With 12GB memory I only need a minimal page file, despite the heavy duty development work that I am doing. I'm sometimes getting up to 8GB commit charge, but plenty to spare.
I used a Corsair water cool kit, which I can recommend over the stock fan. I put it in a case with 140mm fans and my system is very quiet. I hardly hear any noise from the four Seagate drives either.
Customer Review: Sweet
Summary: 5 Stars
It works great with my new i7 rig and the extra expansion and ram slots allow for greater enhancements over time. I was able to attach all my usb devices in the rear with a couple of spares so my front jacks can be for usb drives and game controllers. I was able to install the board with a massive cooling unit in a coolermaster full tower and the i7 cpu's run in a range of 28-39 c before overclocking. This board's materials definitely help diffuse heat form the rest of the board because it's down in the 22-26 c range regardless of what I throw at it.
I use my system primarily for photoshop and 3D modeling in MAX, and I like to either listen to music or watch a movie on another screen while I work. This beast with an i7-950 and 10 gigs of ram running a 64-bit operating system from a 'raptor hard drive has exceeded all expectations.
I also really like the digital display for diagnosing problems and the key in the booklet that says what the codes mean. I haven't had any problems with it but on my older setup I had to listen for beeps and try to figure out what they meant and what counted as a long beep compared to a medium or short beep and what was a long pause. With this thing it'll tell me with a simple 2-digit display directly on the board.
I can also appreciate the SLI features, can't wait to get a third card hooked up.
All the greatest parts in the world won't help if you don't have a motherboard that is up to the task, this one certainly is and at a good price to boot.
Customer Review: EVGA i7 Motherboard
Summary: 5 Stars
What's not to like? If $300 sounds like a lot to pay for a motherboard, you're right. But for cutting edge technology it's par for the course and less than some. If your reading this then I must believe you are doing your homework and know alot about the technical aspects of this board. I am not knowlegeable enough to add to the technical discussions so I won't try.
What I can say is that EVGA support is first rate. I had a problem with the board hanging on restart, with a post code of 50 which indicated a problem wtih USB innitialization. EVGA techs suggested a MB CMOS upgrade, (which they helped me through), that didn't solve the problem and then other methods of troubleshooting that pinpointed the problem as having to do with an OLD USB cardreader plugged into the USB header on the MB. Not a board problem at all. New USB cardreader plugged into the same header works perfectly.
If you're looking for a MB for the new Intel i7 chip then I think this board should be on your short list if for no other reason than because of the quality EVGA support.