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CES 2010 Consumer Electronics Show - Day 1
Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Thursday, January 07, 2010
EVGA Suite
On the first official day of CES we had an early morning NVidia press conference that really consumed the entire morning; as a result we didn't get to hit the show floor until well after lunch. The next major meeting we had was with EVGA and much like last year EVGA was not located in the convention center but rather in one of the nearby hotels.
Having meetings in area hotels is a huge hassle but in this case the trip was well worth the effort.
EVGA had several new items on display and by far the highlight was the new dual processor board designed for enthusiasts called the 270-GT-W555 Classified. The overall board design is similar to other Classified motherboards featuring an extra 16x PCIe slot that is required to run Quad SLI setups. This board also features dual NF200 chips to provide the additional PCIe lanes requires for full video card bandwidth.
Having meetings in area hotels is a huge hassle but in this case the trip was well worth the effort.
EVGA had several new items on display and by far the highlight was the new dual processor board designed for enthusiasts called the 270-GT-W555 Classified. The overall board design is similar to other Classified motherboards featuring an extra 16x PCIe slot that is required to run Quad SLI setups. This board also features dual NF200 chips to provide the additional PCIe lanes requires for full video card bandwidth.
Some of the other features include dual 8 phase digital PMWs for the processors. Extra 6-pin 12v power sockets for extreme overclocking stability.
The reverse of the motherboard features solid state capacitors and the typical metal backplate found on most Xeon motherboards.
The reverse of the motherboard features solid state capacitors and the typical metal backplate found on most Xeon motherboards.
Towards the end of our meeting we discovered that due to the built in memory controllers you can run processors of different speed in each socket and even set the multipliers differently if you so desire. This is a great feature when overclocking since you are not always guaranteed to get dual chips that clock the same.
Supported memory was a big surprise since they do not require you to run Registered ECC memory modules; in fact in their testing lab they have been using Corsair Dominators with great success but denied to release any sort of ballpark numbers so for actual overclocking we'll have to wait for the final release.
Given that the motherboard does feature the Classified skin the board is actually too tall to fit in most standard cases. EVGA "may" be providing a standard ATX edition of this motherboard if there is any real demand for it but you can expect that some features to be removed.
Supported memory was a big surprise since they do not require you to run Registered ECC memory modules; in fact in their testing lab they have been using Corsair Dominators with great success but denied to release any sort of ballpark numbers so for actual overclocking we'll have to wait for the final release.
Given that the motherboard does feature the Classified skin the board is actually too tall to fit in most standard cases. EVGA "may" be providing a standard ATX edition of this motherboard if there is any real demand for it but you can expect that some features to be removed.
