The story about EVGA’s motherboards was always about a combination of Nvidia chipset and Intel processors. This changed a little with the introduction of X58 chipset based motherboard, but it still features Nvidia’s nForce 200 chip.
But, those products addressed Intel Socket 775 and Socket 1366. When I inquired EVGA’s reps about motherboards for AMD, I was often told that “until the company is able to deliver a product for enthusiasts, we’re not interested”. But then again, the moment EVGA acquired EPoX’es engineering team, I knew that there were souls in that team that created one of best nForce 2 motherboards on the market, the legendary EP-8RDA+. Yep, these folks don’t forget the glory days.
During Computex 2008 in June, little has changed in the attitude of the company towards AMD, but there were talks about nForce-7 based product for AMD platform.
EVGA's AMD motherboard features all the nice things EVGA is known for: EMI-shielded chokes, solid-state caps, overclocking BIOS... what will happen when Phenom II arrives?
That product is now in stores, retailing for around $95 under the name nForce 730a (GeForce 8200+730a, the 113-M2-E113). The board comes with custom design cooler, all passive, and features solid-state caps all around. But, you can expect real fireworks coming in time for Phenom II and Dragon platform launch. EVGA will not depart from nForce chipset world, but you can expect something spectacular, as far as overclocking is concerned. After all, EVGA didn’t poach Shamino and joined him with Vince for the sake of burning hundreds of kilos of LN2 on trade shows – expect some heavy-duty overclocking expertise on improving every enthusiast motherboard that EVGA will manufacture.
I could bet my red hair that first folk to reach 7 GHz on Phenom II platform would be either Shamino or Vince, since now they have a whole motherboard R&D team tweaking not just the BIOS, but hardware components as well – and bear in mind, that whoever has the highest clocked board that works, it will work “all peachy” in regular conditions, yet alone overclocking.
I wonder what’s brewing in EVGA’s halls… after all, nForce 8 chipsets (MCP8A series) for AMD are around the corner.
