bit-tech Shopping: eVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 nForce 780i SLI Motherboard

• Intel Core 2 Duo
• Intel Core 2 Extreme
• Intel Core 2 Quad
• Intel Pentium Extreme Edition

• Audio - Bass/Center Audio Out Jack
• Audio - Line In (1/8" Mini)
• Audio - Line Out (1/8" Mini)
• Audio - Line Out (RCA Phono)
• Audio - Microphone In (1/8" Mini)
• Audio - Optical (S/PDIF)
• Audio - Rear Surround Audio Out Jack
• Audio - Side Surround Audio Out Jack
• Ethernet - RJ45 Twisted-Pair (XBaseT)
• IEEE 1394 - 6 pin Powered
• Keyboard - 6 pin mini-DIN (PS/2)
• Mouse - 6 pin mini-DIN (PS/2)
• USB - Universal Serial Bus 2.0

• IDE - ATA/EIDE/ATAPI 40 pin
• IEEE 1394a
• Serial ATA - 7 pin
• Serial RS-232
• USB 2.0

• IDE (Ultra ATA 133) Controller
• RAID Controller
• SATA 3Gbps (Serial ATA II)

Rating: 6

Time with product: 3 Months

Strengths: eVGA Support, boatload of features, x16 SLi Support, Supports New 45nm Core 2's, Dual Gigabit Ethernet

Weaknesses: Price, Unstable, 2 PCI Slots that are blocked in SLi configs, inadequate cooling on northbridge

Summary: Much better product than 680i (Nvidia seems to have ironed out some bugs from the 680i), but still unstable. SLi is nice to have, but the only thing better than the 680i is the 45nm Quad support. PCIe 2.0 is a nonissue since most cards don't use all of 1.0's bandwidth. All in all, a decent product, would be wonderful if it worked as advertised all the time!

Rating: 10

Time with product: 20 Days

Strengths: Overclocking and tweaking is great on this board.

Weaknesses: None so far

Summary: This board is great. It was my first build from scratch and I had no problems with the board assembly or boot. I like that the board is DDR2 which gives much better price to performance right now. I also choose this board for the wide varaity of options available for overclocking and tweeking the settings for the components.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 3 Weeks

Strengths: The board comes with so many options I cannot fill all the connectors. The board fired up with no hesitation and has performed flawlessly since my initial build. Does it all!

Weaknesses: None.

Summary: This is as upgrade machine and has worked perfectly. I want to recommend this board to anyone who has high standards and does not require the latest / greatest (DDR3). I have purchased my second EVGA 780i board to replace a system that recently died. It will be nice to have two machines on par for test work and then one for production applications. Great board.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 2

Strengths: Triple SLI, Plenty of Intel CPU support, supports ddr1200

Weaknesses: None so far.

Summary: Board booted right up and made sure I had the latest bios. Plenty of SATA connectors. Supports DDR1200. No over clocking but runs smoothly as a standard use non gaming machine at this point. 1st EVGA Motherboard owned and like it overall so far.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 2 Weeks

Strengths: Comes with everything you could possibly need, overclocks easily, easy to install and set up, PCI Express 2.0...too many others to list

Weaknesses: No eSata, not DDR3 (but who cares right now), no WiFi

Summary: This was my first ever PC build and this board made it easy! User's Manual explained many things and helped identify what to plug into where. I used this board with an Antec P182 case, a Q6600 CPU, a Coolermaster Real Pro Power 750w PSU, G. Skill pc8000 Ram 4gb (2x2gb)and an EVGA 8800GTS (g92) with Vista Ultimate 64-Bit. Everything went perfectly! Not a single problem installing and setting BIOS it even recognized my SATA DVD drive. EVGA has great support and there is a tutorial floating around the forums that explains how to overclock your system. I love this board and my new system and wouldn't hesitate purchasing any of their products.