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Rating:  - Solid BoardI recently looked at the price and I am glad I got this early. As part of a bundle I got this board for $249. If you want to enable eSATA as a hot plugin make sure you change your BIOS settings before you install your OS as it will cause BSOD if you try changing it after you OS is installed. Rating:  - EVGA 132-BL-E758-A1-X58 SLI x 3 Mainboard=Rock Solid Performer!What a name for a motherboard! EVGA 132-BL-E758-A1-X58 SLI x 3 Motherboard....!!! WOW, you'd think that EVGA would have picked something trendy, or KUHL, like "E758 Rocketboard", or "BL-132 Blast Off Board"..oh I dunno, I am failing miserably just like EVGA did, so I'll stop there. No harm in trying to get a handle on it though, right? Well, the review of this thing is long, long overdue, so I'm going to have a go at it, wish me luck in getting all my thoughts about this great intermediate X58 board, and I only write that because it IS an intermediate board to the Classified series of EVGA boards. By itself, the 132-BL E758 board stands on its own merits, and has a lot of good people who have built it up over the past year since its release, but people are always wanting to compare it to Classified...that will NOT be the case here, tonight, I promise you that. I started out with this motherboard and the Core i7 920 series CPU, my 1st i7 920 build this year, and the motherboard never disappointed me at all. I naturally gravitated to a Classified for my main PC as the year progressed, but I have always kept this board in the box, safely stored in my garage cabinet for later use, and lo and behold I finally had so many "spare parts" sitting around that I built a 2nd Core i7-based CPU with the 132-BL E758 board and it has had my attention for the past couple of weeks as I trained it for duty here in my studio as an auxilary PC. I don't have a lot of uses for it presently, but as time goes on I'll devote more time and energy to using it. It's a really nice build-up that is running @ 4210Mhz 24/7 now, a very substantial number, one that certainly is making a lot of Folding@Home WUnits get into my tally at Stanford.edu! When I started out with the Core i7 920 series, it was with a C0/C1 CPU, tendered from back in March, 2009, where its life began at the Costa Rica Intel factory. Thus, I didn't have an easily over-clockable i7 920 D0-series CPU to work with initially, and suffice to say I had my work cut out for me to get the C0/C1 clocked up to 3.8Ghz, and run stable, and cool with a (*then*) Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler in the house, a most daunting task. I *was* running 12GB of Dominator C8G 1600Mhz CL-8-8-8-24-74 SDRAM in the beginning though, so that posed some unique issues for me also. Read BIG HEADACHE! That RAM was just all junk, the long and the short of it, and was later RMA'd to Corsair, who replaced it all for some very, very nice RAM that was shipped direct to me from their Taiwan, CN factory, a very nifty trick they pulled off, and I was finally a happy camper with some Corsair RAM that was worthy of the name "Dominator", not "Suckinator"! But this is a review of the 132-Bl board, not my build with it, so let me start out by writing some of its strengths and attributes of note. First, with the right CPU in tow these boards are capable of achieving an overclocking that is right up there with the best of the X58 boards, Classified included. One of the key ingredients to a successful launch and maintenance is the board's BIOS, and I found that the BIOS from May, 2009 worked best for me, YMMV, and you may want to go with the latest and greatest BIOS for the 132-BL boards, but I felt, and still feel that that is the best BIOS for my purposes. Conversely, you may just want to use the current BIOS at EVGA since there won't be anything else available unless you have kept an ever-larger-growing library of the various BIOS enhancements from EVGA, and Lord only knows that the wizards at EVGA are constantly churning out a new BIOS! On that subject, let me write a few words...if the hose ain't broke, would you change it out for a new one? Probably not, right? Well, I feel just like that about BIOS for these boards...if your board is working great, why should/would you change BIOS? Right! So now you get my drift, and I'll leave that alone and let that be a personal decision between your conscience, reason, and outlook on such things...you know where I stand on it, that's all she wrote for my purposes. The 132-BL SLi x 3 motherboard can handle RAID 0, 1, and 5 as I recall on the internal bus, but suffice to say that I never used it. I very simply in the beginning went for the non-RAID SATA IDE/ATA application on the ICH10R bus, and used the JMicron (red SATA tabs on the board) for a 2TB RAID system, which never really did much for me in terms of storage. Later on I went for an Areca 1680IX-8 SAS RAID Controller and ran ALL my HD's off the Areca controller bus, didn't even use the internal bus, so I am a bad source for information on how to use the Intel RAID bus with this board...won't even go there. I did use the 12GB of RAM on board from the get-go, and that was a handful for me but not because running that much RAM is hard to do...it was a handful because the RAM was defective, and I didn't know it! How about that? NOT a good thing...to say the least. The boards have an interesting quirk with respect to over-volting the VDIMM though, which you may want to jot down for future use, and that is this: When you are adjusting VDIMM in BIOS, the board do NOT have the increments 1.63V or 1.64V in BIOS, they go from 1.625V all the way to 1.65V, nothing in-between there! So if you are wanting to run 1.63V or 1.64V on the VDIMM adjustment, you cannot do it! Crazy! But true...so buyer beware there. Further, when you run the SDRAM @ 1.65V VDIMM (many believe this one of the keys to successful overclocking with the boards and most SDRAM of the 1600Mhz+ DDR3 variety), it over-volts the SDRAM to 1.69V in BIOS, and that can be too much voltage for some RAM. Me? I preferred running my SDRAM @ 1.625V VDIMM, which resulted in a setting of 1.65V in BIOS if you set the SDRAM. then jumped back into the BIOS and went to the "System Health" Report in BIOS, and BAM! You can get the accurate actual voltage for these boards then, and then alone, unless you are using a DMM (Digital Mutli-Meter) on the test points on the board UNDER LOAD, to get an accurate reading of actual voltage being applied by the board to the components. So that is an interesting little quirk of these boards that you might want to note for the future, and if you are using RAM at higher voltages those ideas will apply. What else is interesting and unique to these boards of note. Oh yes, you might want to read this if you are concerned about the VREG assembly of the boards. These tend to run HOT! Yes, it's a proven weakness, weak point of the assembly process mostly, but the VREG heat sink, which is the heat sink assembly which faces YOU when you look down at the CPU area of the boards, opposite the SDRAM area...yes, THAT heat sink and assembly. Well, if it does run HOT in your board consider this, because I had to do it to mine: If your VREG is consistently running at higher than 75-80-degrees Celsius UNDER LOAD you may want to remove the bolts that hold it to the motherboard, remove it, and R&R the TIM material (which is a set of paper insulating thermal pads OEM from EVGA) therein, and replace it with some good, high-test TIM material, which is NOT CONDUCTIVE, ie don't use Artic Silver 5 there!! Use something like MX-1-2, OCZ Freeze, any of the good non-metallic TIM materials, and replace those pads, and to the best of your ability clean up that area, see if you can get the heat sink and the VREG assembly to to seal reasonably well, (which can sometimes be impossible, or at least seem impossible, because they are so far "off center" and not in alignment), reinstall the heat sink and the VREG assembly, and BAM! You will if you do a nice job of it that is, probably change those temps to be sub-50-degree Celsius ON LOAD, and certainly sub-60-degree Celsius ON LOAD, merely by straightening out the VREG assembly and the TIM material therein! So that is another little tidbit about this board, a caveat if you will, that CAN be important. If your board runs cool on the VREG this will not apply to your board, but most of them do run hot! An easy fix to the VREG issues in addition to doing the TIM Shuffle? Put a small 40mm fan on the VREG assembly, have it taped down there with some double-sided 3M Tape is the usual way that people do this, and just put a little current of air across the heat sink there and that is another way to cool it down, even with the above treatment, for super low temps at the VREG. Here's another caveat, and I am asked this question all the time: Will a Megahalems CPU Cooler FIT with this board? With twin 25mm or 38mm fans? Answer: YES, a resounding YES it will fit! The fit is tight on the North Bridge Heat Sink and assembly, but with a little coaxing you are Golden! No issues there, ok? You CAN use the Megahalems CPU Cooler with this board, no sweat, no hill for a climber! Those are my simple tips for this board thus far, and I'll come back and answer any other questions if people have them for me-- so don't be shy if you have a question about the board and it's not any of the above questions, just ask here and I'll be notified and do my best to answer any other trick or interesting questions with regard to the 132-BL E758 boards. They are a good board, every board series has its quirks, this is not unique with respect to motherboards...they ALL have something weird that is unique to each one, THIS IS NO DIFFERENT! It doesn't mean they are bad boards, it just means what it is! EVGA has made a beautiful package here, they can run 12GB of RAM no sweat, they can run with the best of the CPU overclockers no sweat, and I have personally gone as high as 4528Mhz with my board, just for fun, ON AIR, no problem really, just wouldn't want to be doing it, going there 24/7. A good number on AIR is about the 4200Mhz area, which is do-able, easily with the right adjustments and CPU in the house, always you need a nice CPU to do such things, but it is possible to overclock these waaaay up there into the stratosphere! Have fun, and happy overclocking with the 132-BL-E758-X58 A1 SLI x 3 (WHEW!) Motherboards! Wavey Davey - Dec 1, 2009 Rating: - EVGA x58 SLIEVGA Great name and lifetime warranty. If anyone has ever dealt with EVGA then they know the meaning of customer service, they are second to none. I have bought their products for years and have no complaints they are excellent in every regard! Rating:  - Tech support/Customer service needs helpThis review relates more to the company than to the product. I'm quite disappointed in EVGA as a company. I've had issues with mine since I purchased it. The first issue I was able to resolve on my own by visiting forums and reading other user fixes. This new problem appeared approx 1 year + less than 1 month after the purchase, I wasn't able to resolve it on my own, and it will not be covered by EVGA because I didn't send in my registration information on time. I paid the same amount of money as everyone else. I bought an absolute top of the line item. I spared no expense in building my system. I asked that EVGA accept the registration for my card as if I had sent it earlier and extend my warranty since it requires nothing for them to do so, and provides only the service I would have otherwise received. I'm left with a computer that produces errors and no warranty versus the lifetime warranty that should have come with it had I registered. Note: It is absolutely my fault for not sending in my registration information. I can't do much about it, and I'm angry with the company. Rating: - SweetIt 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.
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| EVGA 132-BL-E758-A1 X58 3-Way SLI Core i7 Motherboard with Tri-Channel DDR3 and Tuning Utility |