EVGA releases more details about W555 motherboard
Peter Tan, aka Shamino, one of EVGA’s most notable team members made an announcement on their forums further detailing the features of their new W555 motherboard which we reported on earlier during CES. This board appears to be extremely flexible for overclockers and for users who need a flexible board to match their needs. Reading the FAQs posted below will explain the power draw that this motherboard is cable of causing.
* "You can run different models of Dual QPI Xeon together - such as 5520 + 5540, even Quad Core + Hexa Core together – but must be from same family – ie, NO for Westmere + Nehalem - Performance scaling is fine.
* This feature could be huge for customers or companies who have different processors lying around but don’t have exactly identical ones and fear compatibility issues. This feature silences those fears.
You can run Turbo Mode on one CPU and non-Turbo Mode on the other too"
While this is a unique feature and shows the flexibility of the W555 motherboard, it doesn’t seem to carry much value for us unless customers for some reason want to run Turbo on one CPU and not the other due to some programs not liking it.
* "You can run a single CPU (Must be Dual QPI) in any one of the 2 sockets"
This is a good feature of this board because it enabled users to upgrade their CPUs one at a time, or even better it can reduce down time in the event that one of the CPUs goes bad. If the board can still run with one processor at a time, there should be no issue to swap out the bad processor without worrying about downtime. This yet again illustrates the flexibility of the W555’s platform.
* "You can run Non ECC normal DRAMs but also ECC Rams too"
The ECC and non ECC functionality allow for people to use high frequency unbuffered DDR modules like the 48GB DDR3-1600 Kingston HyperX modules we’ve got running in our Nehalem-EP setup in Singapore. This feature caters to both the enterprise/server crowd as well as the gaming/overclocking crowds. More importantly, this reminds us of legendary Abit BP6 motherboard that catered to Photoshop and Premiere users, that simply need affordable workstation that used regular Desktop processors.
* "Dual QPI Xeon DRAM Multipliers/Uncore Multipliers are locked so you will only be able to use maximum 2:8 or 2:10 depending on segment of CPU"
This is unfortunately, not a feature but a limitation. This limitation is common on dual processor boards, but it does mean that the DRAM speeds will be impacted by this locked multiplier.
* "You can run 200 – 205MHz BCLKs on air – 230+ needs LN2"
This FAQ doesn’t really have anything to do with the features of the board other than to show how well it overclocks. A 230 BCLK or base clock should yield a very healthy overclock with the right multiplier settings.
* "Motherboard is 381mm width by 345mm length"
This is as opposed to 305 x 300 which is what the standard E-ATX follows. So, if you want to run this motherboard in a case or even a rack… happy hunting. We welcome case manufacturers to measure their cases and validate whether or not this motherboard can fit. We know large cases such as Cooler Master Stacker should fit this product.
* "Motherboard supports 4-way SLI on current GTX285/upcoming Flagship VGA"
We saw this feature back at CES when we pictured the W555 with four GTX 285 Classified boards installed. We can definitely confirm that this is possible. In addition to that, Peter also alludes to the fact that it may also support Quad GeForce GTX 480, which shouldn’t be too hard to fit... but a pain to cool.
* "Motherboard supports 4-way Quad Fire"
This is a good thing to know considering the prevalence of the 5870 and 5970 in benchmarks and world records. This should also make ATi fans happy because they have yet another motherboard option when trying to go QuadFire.
* "Motherboard will ship with typical 1366 Xeon socket back-plates but normal X58 socket back-plates will be bundled in package"
The fact that this board will come with the X58 socket backplates means that there is the possibility that users may have the chance to use aftermarket coolers that fit X58 motherboards. Given the limitation of Xeon cooling products, this is a welcomed addon to the world of Xeons - and if you already have your favorite heatsink, you can buy an identical one and cool both processors.
* "Motherboard bundled with ECP V3 – Vcore Boosters + Speedfan 100% Click Boost + CPUs/PCIEs Disable"
This is another overclocking feature added to this board, but in this case it comes as part of the EVGA Control Panel which is a removable connector based control panel that enables the user to monitor temperatures, voltages, and many other things. This new instance appears to add the VCore booster featureer and Speedfan 100% click boost which should mean that with a single click you throw all the fans to 100%.
* "Power Consumption Tests:
2.8GHz x 2 @ 1.20v w 24 threads Full Load + 12GB Rams + 1x GTX285 Classified Full Load = 535w from AC socket
2.8GHz x 2 @ 1.20v w 24 threads Full Load + 12GB Rams + 4x GTX285 Classified Full Load = 991w from AC socket
4.0GHz x 2 @ 1.30v w 24 threads Full Load + 12GB Rams + 1x GTX285 Classified Full Load = 766w from AC socket
4.0GHz x 2 @ 1.30v w 24 threads Full Load + 12GB Rams + 4x GTX285 Classified Full Load = 1,243w from AC socket
4.2GHz x 2 @ 1.40v w 24 threads Full Load + 12GB Rams + 1x GTX285 Classified Full Load = 913w from AC socket
4.2GHz x 2 @ 1.40v w 24 threads Full Load + 12GB Rams + 4x GTX285 Classified Full Load = 1,390w from AC socket"
These numbers are useful because they not only show how high this board can overclock, but what kind of power draw and power supplies customers should be looking at when purchasing this board and the corresponding processors, memory and graphics cards.
We appreciate Shamino taking his time to address some of the questions about the W555 platform and to pre-empt any future questions like the power consumption ones. We can only assume that all of this information coming out now may possibly indicate a release of this board very soon.
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Evga workstation class -W555 Motherboard
Originally Posted by Jason4eveR
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