EVGA 680i LT SLI - What You Get continued
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You are also missing the third PCI-Express 16x slot. This doesn't matter now, since you can only use dual graphics cards, but this will change very soon. It's time to explore the motherboard.
This is a very clean and basic motherboard. It is identical to the 680i SLI motherboard but with the missing features whacked off. You can see here where the pin outs for a third PCI-Express slot should be, but were left off.
The socket area is really clean and caused no problems for any cooler I put on. There is also enough space between the memory and socket to put RAM into the first channel.
We also find the main ATX power connector here and sadly, the only IDE connector as well. We have great placement to help cable management. Also snuggled in here are 4 of the 6 SATA points. Normally we find these a little further down, but having them here doesn’t cause any problems.
The chipset cooler here is small, but fully capable of cooling.
Where are the power, reset, and other pins to connect to the case? Well normally they are down in the right corner, but I tried and failed. Apparently, the USB headers don’t work well enough to power on your computer. They are found up by the ATX, IDE, and SATA connectors. It’s starting to get a little cramped around here isn’t it?
As far as slots go we’re good. We have (2) 16x PCI-Express slots, a 1x PCI- Express and (2) PCI slots. I feel this is the best mixture of now and future you can get.
The chipset cooler here is a billion times better than the one on the ASUS P5N-E SLI. To begin with, it works and cools the chipset efficiently. It has a small footprint and isn’t tall enough to interfere with big CPU coolers.
On the back we find the PS2’s ports, a firewire, 4 USB, your Ethernet port, and sound. This is a fairly nice mixture of ports; it includes none that are outdated and doesn't skimp on any ports. The firewire port is a very nice feature that isn’t found in many boards anymore.
Next: BIOS/Testing >>
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