SOMEWHAT UNEXPECTEDLY AFTER all the rumours earlier this year, EVGA have shown off its first LGA-1155 motherboard, the P67 Classified. At first glance the multitude of x16 PCI Express slots stand out, something you don’t expect to see on a P67 board, but that’s not the only unusual feature of this motherboard.
Due to the nature of the nForce 200 chip which enables the vast number of PCI Express slots, the various slots offer different amounts of bandwidth. The details printed on the PCB suggest a slot configuration of x16/x8, x1, x16/x8, x8, x16/x8 and x8. We’re not quite sure how this was worked out, as the nForce 200 chip only supplies 32 lanes of bandwidth in total and it looks like there are a few too many available here, not counting the black slot with x1 bandwidth. There’s also a single x1 PCI Express slot at the top crammed in between a Molex power connector and the nForce 200 heatsink.
Unusually the P67 Classified has its 24-pin ATX power connector at a 90 degree angle and it also has a pair of 8-pin 12V EPS connectors. Other features include four SATA 3Gbps ports, two SATA 6Gbps ports, two front USB 3.0 ports, pin headers for four USB 2.0 ports and a FireWire port, power and reset buttons and a POST80 debug LED display. The rear I/O has a custom connector for EVGA’s EV-Bot module, at least four, if not six USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, a FireWire port, dual Gigabit Ethernet, eSATA and 7.1-channel analogue audio jacks.
Three things stood out to us when we took a closer look at the board, first a strange connector located behind the power connector that looks somewhat akin to a vertically mounted CF card slot, although we can’t quite figure out what it’s for. Secondly there’s a large block of jumpers between the power connector and the SATA ports and finally a switch just below the bottom PCI Express x16, next to the buzzer. The switch might be used for quick switching between BIOS chips, as the board appears to have no less than three of them, with one of them being mounted in a socket.
We’re not sold on the board design; although we’re sure it’ll be popular with certain users, especially for those that are looking for a board that can accept three or four graphics cards. The extra features are intriguing but not something that appears to be revolutionizing, but we don’t have enough information about what EVGA has fitted to the board to be able to make a truly educated comment on it. At least it goes to show that EVGA has found a new motherboard design team and we’ll continue to see motherboard products from them.S|A
Lars-Göran Nilsson
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