Features:
Intel X58/iCH10R
6-phase VRM
ISL6336 VRM controller



2x Realtek RTL8111DL PCIe Gb LAN controller
JMicro JMB362 SATA II/PATA controller
VIA VT6308P PCI Firewire controller
ITE IT8720F super I/O controller
Realtek ALC888S
IDT CY193CPAG clock generator
passive cooling of chipsets/VRM
8Mb BIOS, version: 0628
Mainboard Revision: 1.00




Slots:
2x PCIe 2.0 x16
1x PCIe x4
2x PCIe x1
1x PCI

Memory:
6x Triple-Channel DDR3-slots for PC3-12800U memory up to 24GB

Storage:
6-Port SATA II featuring RAID 0, 1, 5, 0+1, JBOD




Backpanel ports:
1x PS/2 keyboard
1x PS/2 mouse
2x Gb LAN
6x USB 2.0
1x Firewire 400
2x eSATA II
7.1 analog audio
1x optical audio out
1x CMOS clear button




Accessories:
1x Dual-SLI bridge
1x Triple-SLI bridge
6x SATA cable angled with clips
1x eSATA cable
1x 2-port USB 2.0 & Firewire 400 bracket


In recent months Elitegroup has created its Black-Series to improve its standing in the retail market. They are still lower cost compared to other brands but should offer decent quality. Elitegroup is not on the triple PCIe x16 which is nice indeed. You get two PCIe x16 slots for your graphics cards, and at least you can add an additional card to the PCIe x4 slot.

The layout is quite pleasing and even Elitegroup went for a debug LED. Sadly this LED does not show the CPU-temperature when running any OS. This board comes with all energy saving features enabled, but the BIOS has Executive Bit Support disabled. We have mailed Elitegroup about this issue, but according to Elitegroup some games have problems when it is enabled. We have never encountered such problem, and as far as we're concerned it's not wise to disable a security feature.

The backpanel offers all connections you need, also with two eSATA ports, well done. This is the only board which comes without legacy devices such as PATA and Floppy, so some companies have indeed moved on.

The board is clocked according to spec, and we like that.






Overclocking:


This board offers quite a lot overclocking capabilities, not yet seen on any other Elitegroup board. Luckily if you set a higher BCLK and don't increase the VCore the board won't boot. So overclocking is in your hands. On the i7 920 we set the VCore to 1.3000V which is quite high, but it did not need any other voltage increase. The i7 975 was not a problem with 1.2500VCore.