CPU Cooler Fit and Included Accessories
CPU Cooler Fit
To test the amount of space surrounding the CPU socket, we mounted the Noctua NH-D14 cooler to the CPU socket. This behemoth CPU air cooler sports a dual fan construction and two huge vertical cooling towers.
With the cooler oriented to blow air towards the rear panel, there is no space issues around the cooler boundaries with sufficient room on all side of the socket to accommodate the cooler as well as a PCIe video card seated in the primary PCI-Express x16 slot.
From the side view, EVGA designed the CPU socket area and surrounding heat sinks to easily accommodate even larger heat sinks like the Noctua NH-D14. The rear tower of the cooler and its associated heat pipes easily clear the heat sink above the CPU socket and all memory slots are usable.
The Noctua hold down mechanism is large enough to quickly determine exactly how much space is available around the CPU socket. While the mount looks tight on the left side of the socket, there is no contact between the mount's arm and the heat sink cooling the PLX chip.
The backplate rests securely on top of the CPU socket backplate with no risk of component or board damage because of the lack of chips in close proximity to the CPU socket.
Included Accessories
EVGA includes in everything you need to get the board up and running with several accessories included with the board supporting the its more esoteric features.
EVGA includes several manuals, an install dis containing all necessary drivers and utilities, and an EVGA-branded case badge with the Z97 Classified board. The included manuals contain rudimentary information concerning board setup and operation with the more esoteric components and board features quickly glossed over or not mentioned at all. The UEFI BIOS features are not discussed in the manuals at all, but a BIOS-centered manual can be found from the site's product download page.
EVGA designed the rear panel shield with a flat black background. All port identifying text and icons were printed in white, making them easily identified and read.
EVGA included a total of four 6Gb/s rated SATA cables for use with the integrated port. The cables have integrated port locks with straight connectors only.
For multi-GPU use, EVGA bundles the board with two-way, three-way, and four-way NVIDIA SLI cables for board support with up to a quad-SLI configuration.
EVGA includes a rear bracket, offering support for two additional USB 3.0 port through the on board header.
The included GPU Link cables can be used to connect a supported via card to the on board GPU Link header (located just below the DIMM slots), giving the user access to GPU card voltage manipulation settings from within the UEFI BIOS.
The Probe It cable plugs directly into the on board Probe It header just below the DIMM slots to measure board voltages directly from the traces. Instead of having to place the multi-meter leads directly on the board surface, you attach them to the integrated extension cable ports.
To protect the board traces and rear panel assembly, EVGA includes a branded rear panel cover. The cover is a matte-black colored aluminum construction, shaped to fit the rear panel assembly without conflicting with the VRM heat sink. The cover is held in place by the motherboard mounting screws in the top right section of the motherboard.
Can you please talk about
Can you please talk about motherboard support for DDR4?
Reports are that DDR4 is available in Japan now.
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/38609/ddr4-ram-hits-japan-retail-shelves-16gb-and-32gb-modules-available/index.html
I pretty much refuse to upgrade my mobo without DDR4 support.
DDR4 will require a new
DDR4 will require a new processor architecture and new chipset. That will not be occuring with the Z97 platform.
When will we see DDR4 on
When will we see DDR4 on mainstream boards.
Whenever Skylake comes out,
Whenever Skylake comes out, sometime in 2015 if the leaked roadmap holds up.
Haswell-E (X99 Chipset) will
Haswell-E (X99 Chipset) will have quad-channel DDR4 support. It is scheduled for release Q3 2014.
It seems that EVGA still has
It seems that EVGA still has a ways to go with its motherboards before it’s on Asus’ level.
Aesthetically-speaking, it is
Aesthetically-speaking, it is a nice looking board though. And it performs well once its dialed in…
Quite a few connectors
Quite a few connectors oriented 90 degrees to face the edge of the motherboard. This has to be one of the first implementations of 24pin ATX in this way.
The 90 Degree ATX came about
The 90 Degree ATX came about during a phone call between myself and Jacob while I was working at OCZ in their development labs. I had all sorts of motherboard ideas that OCZ would never get around to doing after we decided NOT to get into the motherboard-marketing game. I am glad Jacob ran with the 90 Degree ATX.
And the sideways connectors
And the sideways connectors has been around since their Z68 series of stuff. Z68 FTW was first with it.
“would have detrimental
“would have detrimental effects on the board’s long term health or use.”
Is that supposed to be (would not have) ?
Thanks for pointing that out,
Thanks for pointing that out, its been corrected…
You missed one strong point
You missed one strong point on this one.
There is only few boards that can do triple SLI with one space between cards; or triple SLI with three slot cards.
I have ASRock 3-Way-SLI 2S2S bridge.
So can this board do SLI with 1-3-6 PCI-e slots?
Next, Dolby Digital Live / DTS Connect.
I think that not all Core3D boards support this.
Manufacturers must pay for this option.
So can this board do Dolby Digital Live / DTS Connect?
Cheers
I don’t believe it can. I
I don’t believe it can. I have a board with a similar layout. Morry can correct me if I’m wrong, but on my board (a z77 board), the third PCI-e does not use the PLX chip, where as the 2,4,and 6 slots do. Once i put anything in those slots, the third slot is deactivated. This board may behave the same way.
Concerning the PCIe X16
Concerning the PCIe X16 ports, any of the five ports can be used with the following bandwidth constraints (per the product manual):
PCI-E Lane Distribution
PE1 – x16 (x8 if PE2 is used)
PE2 – x16 (x8 if PE3 is used)
PE3 – x8
PE4 – x16 (x8 if PE6 is used)
PE5 – x1
PE6 – x8
Thanks…
Just heard back from our
Just heard back from our corporate rep on this – the board does not support Dolby Digital Live / DTS unfortunately…
Hello,
By chance would you
Hello,
By chance would you still have around the ASRock 3-Way-SLI 2S2S bridge without using it? I have been looking for it for a while without success.
Thanks a lot in advance for your kind help.
Earlier in the thread it was
Earlier in the thread it was stated this board does Quad SLI but you really mean 4 way SLI correct? I was checking the spec sheet and there is no mention of Quad SLI ie two dual gpu cards in SLI only using two slots. I have two Asus Mars 760 dual gpu cards and want to use them on this board as you have a better layout for my needs with the 8 sata ports and msata port available. So my first question is QuadSLI supported?
Second question: Can the marvell se9220 controller be used for a bootable array? I need to run all 8 ports, 2 for os, 6 for a massive storage array/scratch disk, and the msata for temporary download storage. I currently only have 5 and need more space/throughput and will probably use at least one other expansion slot for an extra video card to run my television for the wife and kids, I don’t have cable so I stream and download everything. lol 🙂
Thank you!