You can easily guess why they needed the additional Nvidia NF200 controller for. As you know, Nvidia never supported SLI configurations on platforms based on third-party chipsets before. The only way out in this case was to integrate a corresponding Nvidia controller. We are already familiar with this solution from our Intel Skulltrail platform review. EVGA X58 SLI Classified mainboard was supposed to boast this unique advantage – fully-fledged Nvidia SLI support - over the competitor solutions that could only support ATI CrossFire. Who could have known at the development stage that Nvidia will remove this ban? Although, I think, that being Nvidia’s close partner EVGA should have known about it in advance. Maybe they found out too late…

According to EVGA representatives, integrating Nvidia NF200 onto EVGA X58 SLI Classified mainboard still has its unique benefits for the platform. To be more exact, it will show a little later. This controller should speed up data transfer between the two cards installed into the second and third slots, for instance. You will see the difference with the next generation graphics cards, the current graphics accelerators show no performance improvement of any kind. So, it is quite possible that some time down the road Nvidia NF200 controller will in fact prove worthy with a few new graphics accelerators installed into the system. However, at this point it is an evident drawback to have an additional controller that consumes a lot of energy and runs very hot at work. Anyway, we are going to talk more about power consumption later in this article.

There is one PS/2 keyboard port on the mainboard connector panel. The mouse is supposed to be connected to one of the eight USB ports. Besides, there is a Clear CMOS button, an optical and coaxial S/PDIF connector and six audio-connectors implemented via an eight-channel Realtek ALC889 HD codec. There are two RJ45 network connectors delivered by two Realtek 8111C chips, one IEEE1394 (FireWire) and one eSATA port.

eSATA connector on the back panel appeared there due to another additional controller – JMicron JMB362. It provides support for two Serial ATA ports, so the second SATA port is located very close by: between PCI Express x1 and the top PCI Express x16 slots. If you have already forgotten where they are, you can take a look at the components layout from the user manual:

If you take a close look at EVGA X58 SLI Classified mainboard, you can notice a couple of mysterious jumpers. One is a little lower than the memory slots and is called “X-COOL”. The second one is located next to the “CPU FAN” connector and is marked as “CSC Strap I-LIMIT”. There is no information about these jumpers in the user manual, the search didn’t produce any results, but the response from the company’s technical support group did make things clear. The only time you may need to reset the “X-COOL” jumper is if you use liquid nitrogen for CPU cooling and the temperatures drop below -50°C. By the way, there is a similar parameter in the mainboard BIOS. It is called “Extreme Cooling”. As for the “CSC Strap I-LIMIT” jumper, it has been reserved for future generation processors and is non-operational at this time.

The list of technical specifications from the mainboard manual will sum up everything we have just discussed in relation to EVGA X58 SLI Classified PCB design and functionality:

In my opinion, EVGA engineers who designed this unique board did a great job. Despite numerous additional controllers, the components are spread out in an almost classical manner that is why the board is very convenient to work with. All components that may run hot are covered larger with heatsinks; however, their very well thought-through shape shouldn’t cause any issues during system assembly. There is enough free room around the processor socket to accommodate large CPU coolers. The Power On, Reset and Clear CMOS buttons, the POST indicator and their duplicates on the external ECP panel make work in an open testbed very easy, too. The board truly impresses with such rarely seen features as two eight-pin ATX12V power connectors, a set of jumpers disabling idle graphics card slots or contact spots for voltage monitoring. The board doesn’t have any COM or LPT ports, which may be worth keeping in mind, but it is no longer a drawback these days anyway.