EVGA X58 SLI Motherboard

Other Features

EVGA X58 SLI comes with other small yet important features. As mentioned before, all electrolytic capacitors used on this motherboard are solid, preventing the infamous capacitor leakage problem.

The voltage regulator circuit uses ferrite chokes, which provide 25% less power loss compared to iron chokes, and MOSFET transistors with low RDS(on), i.e., low leakage current, which provide less consumption and less heat. These transistors are cooled down by a big passive heatsink. This circuit uses a 10-phase design, which provides a lower heat generation, a higher life-span and a cleaner voltage for the CPU. For a better understanding of the importance of such design, read our Everything You Need to Know About the Motherboard Voltage Regulator Circuit tutorial.

Figure 8: 10-phase voltage regulator circuit.

Another important thing we noticed was that EVGA fixed the design of their north bridge cooler. On the design used by other EVGA motherboards, like EVGA nForce 790i SLI, the cooler blows hot air on the video card installed on the first PCI Express x16 slot. This causes the overheating of the video card, what can cause the system to crash. Now EVGA is using a fan that blows on the opposite direction, as you can see in Figure 9.

Figure 9: North bridge cooler.

EVGA X58 SLI comes with on-board power and reset switches, plus another clear CMOS button (there is another one on the rear panel).

Figure 10: Reset, power and clear CMOS switches.

In Figure 11, you can see all accessories that come with this motherboard, which includes six SATA cables, six SATA power adapters, I/O brackets for four USB ports, one FireWire port and one serial port, and bridges for two-way and three-way SLI modes.

Figure 11: Accessories.