BIOS Setup

Mainboard makers have different approaches to product differentiation when it comes to BIOS functionality. By some makers, the BIOS functionality of junior and senior models differs dramatically, by others, it is merely the same. EVGA Company belongs to the latter type, the BIOS of EVGA X58 SLI LE mainboard is practically the same as that of the flagship solution.

We will not dwell in the first several sections of the BIOS, as their functionality has already been discussed in detail in previous articles. Let’s move over to the section called “PC Health Status”.

I would like to point out once again how pleased we are with the extremely detailed information about the voltages, temperatures and fans rotation speeds. The “SmartFan Function” sub-section will let you manually set the rotation speed at a fixed rate (in percents from the maximum) or so that it could change dynamically depending on the corresponding temperature. Compared with the previous model, they also introduced the “Aux Fan” option allowing to adjust the corresponding fan rotation speed.

“Frequency/Voltage Control” section with all the settings related to overclocking and increasing the performance has also remained unchanged compared with the flagship mainboard solution. It is very convenient and quite informative; all parameters are intuitively understandable from their names.

I would only like to specifically mention “Dummy O.C.” parameter. It allows automatic overclocking by locking the processor clock frequency multiplier at 20x, which is the nominal setting for our processor. It also disables Intel processor power-saving technologies, lowers the memory frequency and increases the base frequency from 133 to 160 MHz.

Numerous parameters dealing with the memory subsystem configuration are singled out into a separate sub-section called “Memory Feature”. Everything is again very informative and convenient. We know the current memory frequency and all memory timings. All parameters can be adjusted individually, independent of the others.

Only the “Voltage Control” sub-section differs a little from the corresponding sub-section on the flagship EVGA solution. However, all most important parameters are still in place and the sub-section remained highly informative: they use easy-to-understand color coding scheme, display the current voltages.

“CPU Feature” sub-section offers you to manage all processor-related technologies:

The BIOS of EVGA X58 SLI LE mainboard allows saving up to eight settings profiles and load the desired one quickly when needed. This is a sufficient number of profiles, but the implementation could have been a little more convenient. You can’t give profiles your own unique names or descriptions, you can’t see which profiles are already in use, there is no warning popping up that you are attempting to write over the existing profile.

At first glance the BIOS of EVGA X58 SLI LE mainboard is if not absolutely ideal, but at least very close perfection. Inconvenient work with settings profiles is the only drawback we can point out. Unfortunately, we uncovered a few frustrating issues in the BIOS during our work with EVGA X58 SLI LE, which we are going to discuss later in this review.