Conclusion This early in a hardware cycle it is tough to really know how happy you are with a product, especially a motherboard. There is no list in the back of your head of things that annoyed you about past motherboards tested that you continually check during an evaluation, because that list hasn't formulated yet. Making this task even harder is the fact that the Intel X58 chipset is impressively full of features and trying to keep track of them all is a handful. One thing is certain, EVGA has done quite well in taking advantage of all that the X58 chipset offers. They have also provided additional features to the platform that really give it the strength to wrestle with the known bullies on the playground. The PWM cooling, rear venting north bridge heat sink fan, well spaced PCI-E 16X slots, onboard buttons, E-LEET software package and onboard voltage test points are all features that impressed us with the X58 SLI. On top of this, the board was easily able to overclock within the narrow range all X58 motherboards should be able to and it handled our 2x3GB Corsair kit just fine.  In addition to its fine physical attributes, the EVGA X58 SLI is backed by arguably the best service and support in the industry. The EVGA technical support crew are highly regarded in the industry and rightfully so. Despite being a small team, they really do their jobs well and EVGA on a whole, has done an amazing job creating a community with their customers. One really impressive aspect of this small support team that we relied on during the review process was the BIOS development team. Shortly before publishing this review, we were receiving BIOS updates daily at times. This is positive and negative. The full part of the glass indicates a willingness to work out the BIOS bugs while the empty portion of the glass asks the question, 'why are there so many bugs to work out'?
If we had one major concern with this motherboard it would be the seemingly immature state that the hardware came to market in. Of course this isn't just isolated to the EVGA X58 SLI as other motherboard manufacturers are feeling the growing pains of a new chipset, but when a premium product is released - and the Intel X58 chipset is the Rolls Royce of chipsets right now - users should be able to fully utilize it without having to deal with hassles. This is confirmed in the price we pay for these products. At over $350, the X58 SLI from EVGA is actually priced relatively well with the competition in this segment. The whole segment is simply on the upper end of the pricing spectrum.
The market for this platform knows what they want, where to get it, and are willing to pay for it so the price isn't that large of a shadow being cast over the landscape. Instead, the stability, compatibility, and strength of features is what customers are looking for from an X58 platform and the EVGA X58 SLI is quite strong in all three categories. We have spent a lot of time in the EVGA forums as of late and the rash of memory incompatibility threads that seem to plague motherboards these days just aren't present with the X58 SLI. The amount of users posting about fully stable and happy setups are plentiful and our sample has been nothing but a treat to work with. It has been crunching WCG on all eight threads of the processor as well as F@H on two GTX 280s for the last few weeks when not benchmarking and stability has been excellent, even with a rather hefty overclock. The feature set of the X58 SLI we looked at today speaks for itself with the biggest feature being the EVGA support that comes with the hardware. It would be hard not to put the EVGA X58 SLI on a list of potential motherboards when setting up your i7 system, whether you simply need a daily driver, 1/4 mile benchmarking dragster, or a nice combination of both. Pros:- Best possible PCI-E 16X layout for Tri-SLI of available motherboards...SLI or Crossfire goodness
- Rock solid daily performance with proper cooling where it needs to be
- Capable and easy overclocker for the enthusiast looking to squeeze a little more value from their money
- Ready for the big time benchmarking arena as proved by us and many others in the scene already
- E-LEET software package is solid already, and future development looks very promising
- EVGA...service, support, and community; one of the best manufacturers in the industry
Cons:- The Intel X58 SLI chipset is new, there are some issues...but BIOS development is top priority for EVGA
- CPU socket is tight and some two-stepping is required for large CPU/RAM coolers
- Premium chipset, premium hardware required, premium prices
We would like to thank EVGA for making this review possible, especially Jake, Joe, Peter, and Jacob...top notch support for customers and reviewers alike. | 
