More Details Surface on EVGA's Dual-Socket W555

[Rob Williams]

At CES held a couple of months ago, there were motherboard vendors all over showing off their latest wares, but there was no motherboard that grabbed as much attention as EVGA's W555. It's for good reason, too, given that it's a dual-socket enthusiast offering, to be equipped with LGA1366-based Xeons, including the upcoming Gulftown six-core models.

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[Optix]

The realist in me thinks this thing is a complete piece of garbage but the tech monkey in me is going buck nutty!

Cool idea but I wonder if the dollars spent in development will be recouped since not many people will be able to afford this although the enterprise market may bite. I'm expecting a $500+ USD price tag.

NZXT is going to clean up with their Tempest and Tempest EVO cases.

 

[slugbug]

EVGA is giving one away on their Facebook page.

 

[Tharic-Nar]

Giving one away is all well and good, but since hardly anyone has a case to put it in... kind of defeats the point. It's still one hell of a premium to pay for a server-board you can overclock with 7 PCI-E slots. But that's not really the point is it, it's a nice 'this is what we can do' stunt, which is working well for them.

Not that i'd complain if i got one.

 

[crowTrobot]

Finding a case alone that would fit this would be quite the task.
I don't think even Corsair's 800D could fit this baby.

So the cost would be:
custom case + two Xeon processors + at least 1000w PSU

and that's not even populating all 6 slots. It really isn't for anyone with a sensible budget
Although looking through the EVGA forums and the setups most of those guys are rocking, I'm sure they will sell a whole lot of these.

 

[Optix]

Forget the case. I couldn't afford the CPU's!

 

[killem2]

I don't even understand who this is for.. Graphics rendering? I mean games don't understand multiple cpus like that? Let alone more than 3-4 gfx cards

 

[Rob Williams]

I don't know of a single chassis on the market that could fit this, but I'm sure EVGA will come out with a list (it will be small) when the W555 gets released. I was told that one chassis from Lian Li hold it, but on the enthusiast side, that's all I know. Some server chassis will be able to handle it, but let's be real... no one will want to use a server chassis for a beast like this.

Forget the case. I couldn't afford the CPU's!

You got that right. Check out the price difference between the i7-920 and Xeon equivelent:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115202
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117182

Now THAT'S what I call a price premium. You're better off just building a bunch of single-CPU systems if you need it for rendering. I honestly can't understand the true benefit of the W555 to be honest. It's amazing for what it is, but it seems far too expensive for what it can do.

 

[Optix]

Isn't the board E-ATX or is it even wider?

If that is the case (no pun intended), NZXT's Tempest should be able to hande it no problem.

This is one of those + e-peen pieces of hardware.

 

[Rob Williams]

I'm not sure of the form-factor, but it is indeed wider than eATX. You can see a comparison between an ATX and the W555 board here:

http://forums.techgage.com/showpost.php?p=35234&postcount=2

Judging by the photo, the W555 is about 80% wider than a standard ATX and 4" longer height-wise. As I mentioned, even EVGA itself could only list one single chassis model during our meeting that could handle it, but I don't recall that right now (it was from Lian Li).