EVGA X58 SLI Micro LGA1366 Motherboard Review

Stability & Overclocking Results

This is obviously the favorite section of any motherboard review for me. I am an overclocker first and foremost so this section takes up the majority of time spent with a motherboard. Learning the limits of what a board can and can't do is half the fun of testing new hardware all the time. We take pride in the fact that our overclocking section is so diverse, in-depth, and well tested here at Hardware Canucks and hope the information derived from this section goes to good use in your systems.

In the last i7 motherboard review on the ASUS Rampage II Gene - another mATX X58 motherboard - it was eluded to that i7 processors appear to be the limiting factor in the maximum BCLK that a setup can achieve. This has become even more apparent over past months since that review was published. In fact, the CPU also dictates memory overclocking for the most part. For this reason, we have an arsenal of i7 processors for testing individual overclocks. In the sections below, we use two different processors for the various overclocking testing. Let's look at the results as we explain each overclock.

Mushkin Redline Ascent 3x2GB PC3-12800 6-7-6-18 (998692) XMP Stability Testing

We start off our testing with a basic XMP profile test of the Mushkin Redline Ascent memory that we reviewed back in May. In that review we tested the XMP profile on both the EVGA X58 3X SLI and the EVGA X58 Classified motherboard, so it was only fitting to test the XMP profile on the younger sibling of those two boards, the X58 SLI Micro. As expected, the memory had no problem running the XMP profile when matched up to our i7 975 processor and stability testing went off without a hitch. This memory really is a compatible with every setup we have put it in, the EVGA X58 SLI Micro being no exception. vDIMM is set to the proper 1.65v and VTT gets set to 1.30v which should be enough for any CPU to run this kit at the XMP settings.

OCZ Blade 3x2GB PC3-17000 7-8-7-20 DDR3-1866 Stability Testing

Well, the title of this section is a bit of an edit from what we originally wanted to do. If you look at the screen shot closely you will notice that the CPU-Z tab showing the SPD profile lists the memory as OCZ Blade modules. We originally wanted to test the XMP profile of our Corsair Dominator-GT DDR3-1866 modules. As it turns out, the Corsair kit died on us after a period of inactivity. Corsair had been struggling with failing memory kits using the Elpida Hyper IC's and our kit was not spared from the carnage. Needless to say we wanted to test the DDR3-1866 XMP profile of the Dominator-GT kit so we loaded up the settings from that kit, then used our OCZ Blade PC3-17000 memory to do the actual testing. Again, the system handled setup extremely well with a limited amount of VTT and proper vDIMM. Obviously this isn't the ideal test as we really wanted to test the XMP profiles, but we at least know that DDR3-1866 modules should run on this board without issue.

Maximum Memory Stability Overclocking

You may notice a distinct lack of a screen shot here. The reason for that is that we were completely unsuccessful in getting any of our memory to run anything higher than DDR3-1900 on this motherboard. We have more than capable OCZ Blade PC3-16000, and Blade PC3-17000 modules when matched to our very strong Xeon W3540's memory controller. But no combination of VTT/vDIMM/timing adjustments could get our memory running at speed. This came as quite a disappointment as our knowledge of the EVGA X58 lineup is very extensive. We have discussed it briefly with EVGA but they didn't seem to be able to come up with anything to alleviate this issue.

It sounds really weird but we had the same issues with the mATX Rampage II Gene, which turned out to be related to B2B CAS latency, something that is disabled by default on the EVGA boards. However you look at it, we can't recommend high frequency memory based on our experience with the EVGA X58 SLI Micro.

Base Clock/QPI Stability Overclocking

Moving on to the max BCLK/QPI testing we went with the i7 975 over our 920 processor used in previous testing, this board just seemed to like it better. We did manage a solid 210BCLK for complete stability which is our highest yet, but all boards tested have handled at least 200BCLK. As we've said before, this is a limit of the CPU more than the motherboard since applying cold to the CPU breaks through this 200BCLK barrier easily, and some chips simply run BCLK higher on air. We will say it again, expecting over 200~210 BCLK to be stable 24/7 on an air or water cooled system will likely leave you disappointed, plain and simple. The platform just can't be expected to run those clocks. The EVGA X58 SLI Micro is right up there with all other boards we have tested and should not be considered handicapped in this capacity as it is quite the capable base clocker.

Overall Stability Overclocking

For the overall overclock we went back to the super strong W3540 we have in the stable so that we could really push this board, and push it we did. Clocking in at a whopping 4335MHz on the CPU and a very stout 942MHz or DDR3-1882 at 7-7-6 on memory, we have ourselves a solid 24/7 stable overclock. We left uncore clocks down just slightly as we wanted to keep VTT low so that less heat was being generated by the processor enabling us to run a bit more vCORE and higher CPU clock. Overall the board was a dream to get setup for a 24/7 overclock. The X58 SLI Micro was predictable and scaled nicely as we moved up in voltage. PWM temperatures were never an issue - thanks to a little bit of airflow coming from the fan cooling the memory - and allowed for us to really push this processor, despite being cooled by just a Thermalright Ultra eXtreme CU.

So despite the setback with high memory clocks - which in our opinion is a waste anyway because performance really doesn't increase with high memory frequency - the EVGA X58 SLI Micro continued the tradition of the X58 motherboards being excellent overclockers. The BIOS is identical to previous X58 motherboards from EVGA and the motherboard responded like the previous boards as well. Having been a veteran EVGA X58 user since December, I felt right at home from the very first boot and was clipping along at 200 BCLK in a matter of minutes.