This
morning at Computex in
EVGA’s suite at the Hyatt, the company unveiled its first motherboards based on
the Intel P55 chipset as well as its single-PCB version of the Geforce GTX 295.
Given the fact that EVGA has proved itself a leader in innovation more than
several times already, we are interested in what it has to bring to the table
with its second Intel chipset design and a revision to a very popular enthusiast
graphics card.
First up is the EVGA 655 SLI FTW Edition (132-LF-E655) motherboard, the first from EVGA to use the 45nm socket LGA 1156 Lynnfield processors. This is a high-end board with three PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots that run x16/x8/x8 in Tri-SLI. It also features a PCI-E x1 slot positioned at the very top and two standard PCI slots. As with the X58 SLI Classified, this board also features the red glowing “E” just for kicks.
On the chipset side of things it
features four dual-channel DDR3 slots, six SATA II 3.0Gb/s ports, an onboard
LED for POST codes and temperature monitoring, and passive heatsinks all around.
EVGA is also developing another board
codenamed 132-LF-E657. For some reason we have the feeling that this is going
to be a P57-based motherboard releasing sometime in early 2010, although it’s
too early to tell at this point. Regardless, it is another high-end board with
three PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots that run x16/x8/x8 in Tri-SLI, along with a
PCI-E x1 slot and two standard PCI slots.
As far as power design is concerned,
this motherboard really sets the bar high with a 12-phase analog PWM design
powered by the same dual EPS 12v connectors found on the Classified. On the
chipset side of things, it features four dual-channel DDR3 slots, six SATA II
3.0Gb/s ports, an onboard LED for POST codes and temperature monitoring.
Last but not least, EVGA has finally
revealed its single-PCB version of the popular Geforce GTX 295. The company is
calling this model the CO-OP Edition. No specific details have been mentioned as
of yet, other than the fact that there will also be a Hydro Copper edition when
it launches very soon. The specifications should be the same as the current GTX
295 models as given by Nvidia, which are a 576Mhz core speed, 1242MHz shaders,
and 1998MHz memory.
Pricing and release dates have not
been mentioned yet, but stay tuned for more information very soon. On a side
note, let’s just hope that the new GTX 295 gets placed at a lower price point
instead of the upwards hike that happened with the dual-PCB model.
Pictures can be found at VR-Zone’s coverage here.