Review by DISenchanted:

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 .99

Premium EVGA Prepaid Ground Yes .99

Ground

2nd Day EVGA Prepaid 2nd Day Yes .99

Ground

Overnight EVGA Prepaid Standard Yes .99

Ground Overnight

Saturday Priority EVGA Prepaid Saturday Delivery Yes .99

Ground

If you think you’ll need expedited service for any possible RMA, then even the most expensive option, .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 to 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.

Review by Tyler Soelberg:

Actually, it just shows black and green with splashes of blue and white.

I haven’t had any trouble with this MoBo. I love the layout–although if I were a 3-way SLI-er, and you know who you are, I might have trouble connecting some auxiliary cables (front HD audio).

Great BiOS, easy to use.

Review by B. Little:

I just spent a weekend building a XP Media Center 2005 PC using this mini-ATX board. It has everything: HDMI output, optical digital audio output, and built-in ATI HD3200 video with Avivo.

Just run HDMI to your TV/monitor for video and the optical digital to your receiver for Dolby Digital…no need to buy an add-on sound or video card. If you want coaxial digital audio you can fabricate a RCA jack with two wires directly to the SPDIF jack on the board. An easier route is to buy a optical to coaxial digital converter from Radio Shack. That’s what I did, works great.

HDMI tip: do not install a separate video card before first startup. Otherwise the Asus driver CD will not ‘show’ the ATI video drivers on the CD. If you pull the video board, the ATI and HDMI drivers magically appear on the CD as a choice to select. Puzzled me at first.

The only flaw I’ve seen is that it uses “auto-configure” rear panel jacks to sense what’s connected. This means I have to have my plasma TV on and set to the HDMI input before I turn on the PC…otherwise the motherboard thinks the TV is off and disables its HDMI output. Kind if a pain as I then have to reboot the PC. Easy for me but not so easy for my wife and kids. Asus needs to allow this feature to be shut off in the bios.

**11/2009 update. I am using this with Windows 7 Pro 64-bit and Media Center works great with this board. And yes audio does pass out of the HDMI jack, you just have to switch it from SPDIF to HDMI in the bios.

Review by T. Savage:

I actually don’t own this board. I own another ASUS board. But this is relevant.

ASUS tech support is ASTOUNDING. The best I have ever used by far. They answer quickly– I’ve never held for more then 3-5 minutes– and when they do, oh boy. They hire people with real, serious tech training. They listen carefully and know problem causes by heart– they’re not using an automated troubleshooting system. They suggest a solution and then wait on the line while you try it, so you don’t have to go to the trouble of calling back. They don’t retreat after 2 minutes to telling you that come component X is no good and you need a new one, like so many tech lines. I’ve been using the same MOBO (A Striker Extreme) for three years, and their support is to thank for that. Additionally, they can help the tech-unsavvy and the tech-savvy in different ways. I’m pretty in-tuned, and when the tech I spoke to realized this he told me to grab a multi-meter and start poking around, which prevented us from having to test hunches in indirect ways, saving a lot of time.

I’m posting here (and on a few other asus board reviews) because I want people to know how awesome their support is and buy their stuff for that reason. I want the top guys at ASUS to see that this business model (spend more on keeping customers happy, make more on repeat sales) can succeed in a market where it is so rare. We need to show corporations that we respond well to being treated well, and maybe one day amazing tech support will be the standard.

I’m serious: I will never own a main-board other than an ASUS as long as they keep this level of customer respect.

Review by Nathan Beauchamp:

I upgraded to the i7 from an Intel Core 2 Duo E8400. The main reasons I made the upgrade were:

1. Low power consumption (significantly lower than a Q6600 which is about 0 cheaper than the i7)

2. 8 logical cores available (quad core + hyper threading)

3. The ability to play cutting edge games that take advantage of all 8 cores.

4. The potential ability to load share between CPU & GPU once Windows 7 is released.

The upgrade might have been a bit premature, as the primary reason to buy an I7 processor won’t be possible until Windows 7 is released. Windows 7 will allow load sharing between GPU (graphics card) and CPU. This will enable some really nice performance gains in games, or other graphic intensive applications like video editing software. Allegedly, games like Crysis will get a 20-30 percent performance increase. However, I heard that before when Windows stated that Vista would provide significant performance gains for DirectX10 games, which has not proved to be the case.

Regardless, the i7 920 is truly an amazing CPU. I’ve yet to experiment with overclocking much, but I do have it running at 3.12ghz stable and with a core temperature of 41C at idle and around 60C under load. I’ll likely push things further in the coming weeks, and I’ll give updates on temperatures and performance when I do.

Combining this card with two 4870hd 512mb graphics cards in Crossfire mode produced a 3DMark06 score of just over 19,000! That is a 5,000 point gain from my previous rig, and is in about the top 4% of all systems out there. That is pretty phenomenal performance. In Crysis with all settings at very high and DX10, I average over 50 frames at 1980×1200. This CPU is a gaming beast.

If you plan to overclock this card even a little, invest in an aftermarket heat sink and some Arctic Silver thermal compound. The heatsink provided with the retail package is small and ineffective at cooling an overclocked card. I recommend this Zalman Cpu Cooler for moderate overclocking. It is a very quite and very effective fan.

If your in the market for a ‘future-proof’ processor, this is a great option at a reasonable price point. The ceiling speed of processors is growing increasingly unimportant as multi-thread programing become the norm in both games and applications. You could spend a lot more for a higher GHZ CPU, but you’re not really gaining as much performance as the jump from 2 to 4 cores, and then quad core to octo core. This processor will eat anything you throw at it and come back for more. Just make sure your mother board supports i7 chips before you buy one.

Review by kelvinator:

Pros:

It’s my first build and coming from a Pentium 4 3.4 ghz in my Dell to this processor is simply amazing. I can now play Oblivion and L4D in the settings I want! Everything else it pretty much cuts through it like butter. It get a Windows 7 WEI of 7.6 3dmark Vantage CPU score P42500+ and I have it overclocked to 3.67 with blck of 184 vcore 1.225 with vdroop. Coupled with a Cooler Master V8 it’s prime 95 stable (small ffts – 2 hours, large – 2 hours, blend – 9 hours) and LinX stable (max memory 10 runs) 75 degrees C max. Ambient 80 F

Cons:

None

Other thoughts:

If you are new to overclocking like I was here are some simple steps for a modest overclock:

WARNING: It is entirely possible to burn your CPU! Don’t go crazy and set a high base clock from the start. Follow the steps!

1) download Realtemp.exe, cpu-z, prime 95, and LinX (google em)

2) go into your bios and increase the base clock by 5 (or 10 if impatient but remember my warning)

3) Load Windows and breath a sigh of relief if it does. But thats only 1/5 of the battle.

4) Run CPU-z to verify your overclock, close it then run realtemp.

5) Run LinX max memory, 3 runs. If it blue screens, restarts or errors then you’ve gone too far and you need to dial it down to keep your machine stable. Your last setting is your max overclock without adding vcore (cpu voltage).

6) If it passes with no errors and your max temps aren’t above 85 C (some people use 80) then you’re good, and you can add more base clock.

7) Go back to step 2 rinse and repeat.

8)Once you get to a speed you’re happy with and it passes LinX, and is below 85 C, run prime 95 stress test for at least 6 hours of blend, 2 hours of small ffts, and 2 hours of large ffts. If it survives that then you’re good for gaming and most everyday apps. If it survives p95 blend for 24 hours (no errors, < 85 C) then you're rock stable ready for mission critical or server work.

You can run Linx for more passes or folding@home SMP for further stability testing.

Finally don’t expect much if you’re using the heatsink that came with the processor.

Good luck. If I made a mistake somewhere please correct me in the comments.

BTW my motherboard is the EVGA X58 vanilla. The folks at the forums in their website are the most helpful and supportive folks you can find. Really thats the stuff that money can’t buy, I strongly recommend their motherboards just for that. They have guides for more serious overclocks and guides explaining voltages, guides on optimizing Vista etc.

All the info about overclocking and stability testing comes from the stickied threads on the EVGA forums