EVGA X58 SLI Micro Motherboard Review

Performance Analysis

Out of the box, the X58 SLI Micro was a lacklustre performer, as its overall Media Benchmarks score of 1,995 means that it’s a lot slower than any other X58 motherboard.

After digging around, we discovered the cause of the X58 SLI Micro’s poor performance: unlike any other LGA1366 motherboard we’ve seen, Turbo Mode is disabled by default. This meant that the CPU was stuck at its default 3.33GHz frequency, rather than the 3.46GHz it achieved on the other motherboards.

The X58 SLI Micro isn't a great gaming either, as its minimum frame rate of 31fps in Crysis is a couple of fps slower than the best X58 motherboards we've tested.

On a more positive note, the ICH10R Southbridge delivered a very fast 259MB/sec average read speed in HD Tach, which is second only to the turbocharged Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7.

Conclusion

While the X58 SLI Micro isn’t the worst LGA1366 motherboard we’ve seen, its unfriendly and unintuitive BIOS massively limits the performance of the Intel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition CPU.

The PCB layout isn't particularly great either, such as the poor positioning of the 8-pin EPS12V power socket and tall X58 chipset heatsink.

Even if you only judge the X58 SLI Micro alongside its micro-ATX peers, the Asus Rampage II Gene and MSI X58M, this board is a poor choice.

• Performance
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• -
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• 6/10

• Features
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• -
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• 6/10

• Value
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• -
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• 6/10

• Overall
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• -
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• 6/10

Score Guide