EVGA X58 SLI Micro LGA1366 Motherboard Review

Hardware Installation

Right off the bat, I will admit that our cooling solution we are going to be doing the installation section with may not be the perfect choice for a mATX motherboard. A large, stand up cooler like the Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme (TRUE) is not synonymous with small mATX specific cases or LAN boxes. But, we figure if the TRUE fits, then anything else should. Plus, we don't have any low profile coolers laying around to test with...if there even is such a thing anymore.

First up is the trio of memory test fits. In this review we will be utilizing three kits of memory, all with varying heat sink profiles. With the TRUE in a North/South orientation, the wingspan reaches out over top of the first memory slot. This is bad news for OCZ Blade and Corsair Dominator/Dominator-GT owners wishing to run 6 DIMMS. Mushkin Ascent owners have no problem fitting under the TRUE in the first slot, but the width of those modules simply won't allow for 6 DIMM operation either...in any motherboard. Needless to say, 3 DIMM operation in the primary slots (outer red DIMM slots) works with all three kits of memory with the TRUE facing North/South.

Focusing our installation attention on fans now, we can see that even a fat 38mm thick fan will work just fine pushing air through the TRUE. It won't be able to sit down low but with a standard 25mm fan, that isn't a problem. At the top side of the motherboard, we have mounted a 25mm fan to show that there is the slightest of overhang from the fan over the top edge of the board. Even in a tight fitting case, this shouldn't be an issue and would allow a push/pull setup with at least the top fan being of the 25mm thick variety.

We now swivel the TRUE 90 degrees and leave it facing East/West on the motherboard, or front to back. In this orientation memory can be in any of the 6 DIMM slots and with only three modules in the primary red slots, a 38mm fan fits nicely. Even the tall heat sinks on the Dominator-GT memory aren't going to cause an issue with a fat fan. Of course, with standard size modules or even just a 25mm fan, all 6 DIMM slots can easily be filled with a fan pushing toward the rear of the case.

In the first photo above, we can see that two 38mm fans running in a push pull setup fits nicely on the TRUE amongst the EVGA X58 SLI Micro heat sinks and a kit of OCZ Blade memory in the primary red slots. At the rear of the case the PWM heat sink sits plenty low enough to accommodate any size fan on the TRUE so that isn't an issue at all. As we complete our standard test setup by adding in the GTX 295, we can see that there is a nice gap from the back of the video card to the north bridge heat sink, but there is very little room in-between the DIMM slots and the video card.

In fact, there is so little room that removing the memory is problematic. It is possible, but certainly not as simple a task as it would be without the GPU there. We would really like to see the single locking tab DIMM slots like ASUS is now using on virtually all of their motherboards. These new DIMM slots only have locking tabs on the top end of the motherboard. This would completely alleviate the tight space seen here on the X58 SLI Micro. We won't hold it against EVGA since this is a mATX motherboard and most people aren't constantly removing memory, but an inventive solution would have been nice to see.

Having just received a pair of MSI R4890 Cyclone OC video cards, we figured we would add a bonus set of images with these cards for the installation section of the X58 SLI Micro. Now these cards have aftermarket cooling on them and they are bigger than reference coolers and this actually was a problem in this motherboard. Despite a single slot in-between the PCI-E 16X slots, two of these cards sit too tight together and the top cards fan is actually unable to spin do to pressure from the back side of the bottom card. We alleviated the pressure with a small end cap from a GPU connector wedged between the two cards at the top near the back of the heat sinks. In the second photo, however, we can see another small issue with the bottom fan headers. These cards make it impossible to use them. Both of these issues are a product of the video card cooling solutions and not the motherboard, but one of those things you need to be on the lookout for.