EVGA today introduced the compact X58 SLI Micro motherboard (model number: 121-BL-E756-TR), supporting the Micro-ATX form factor. Don't be fooled by the small size, in performance figures this motherboard is a match for all standard ATX Intel X58 equipped motherboards, it supports all LGA1366 Core i7 processors to date, has six DDR3-1600+ memory slots, two PCI-Express x16 slots, a single PCI slot and one PCI-E x1 slot. In addition EVGA gives you full range of overclocking features including: EVGA VDroop Control, EVGA E-LEET support, enthusiast BIOS options and of course the chance to put a SLI or CrossFireX setup of video cards in a micro-ATX system. The board's build quality is also off the hook, 100% solid capacitors are used, and passive heatsink design is incorporated so the board is 100% silent. The EVGA X58 SLI Micro will be available very soon for around $200.

EVGA published the 13th release of its SLI Enhancement Patch. The patch works in conjunction with NVIDIA's drivers, and expands its SLI profiles for games. Based on GeForce drivers 186.18 WHQL, EVGA SLI Enhancement Patch v13 adds SLI support for the games ArmA 2 and Merchants of Brooklyn, along with the new SLI profiles GeForce 186.18 brings for the games Dark Sector, Trine, Prototype, Wallace and Gromit's Grand Adventures, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, Free Realms, Wolfenstein, Order of War, Disciples 3, and Bigworld. Registered EVGA users (registration is free) can download the software from here.

Earlier this month, EVGA announced its GTX 295 HydroCopper water-block which it plans to sell separately, and not pre-installed with the GeForce GTX 295 CO-OP Edition. In the company's press release, EVGA called itself the " the undisputed leader for water cooling solutions". Apparently this statement hasn't gone down well with its market competitor BFG, which circulated an email across its press-contact list officially challenging the statement, just so the claim doesn't remain "undisputed".

The reasons BFG claims, revolve basically around the longer history the company had with selling factory-fitted water-cooling ready graphics cards, the fact that all its offerings are factory-fitted solutions unlike EVGA's, which relies on user installation, puts the installation risk entirely on the customer, amongst other regular claims of having superior customer support and lifetime warranty.

Also announced this weekend was EVGA's GeForce GTX 295 CO-OP Edition (PN: 017-P3-1295-AR) which represents NVIDIA's first single PCB dual-GPU video card with EVGA descent. Again, this card combines two 55 nm GT200 GPUs onto a single PCB, comes with 1792 MB of onboard DDR3 memory and even more it's QUAD SLI ready. For the CO-OP Edition EVGA has imprinted 576 MHz GPU clock speeds and 2016 MHz effective clock speed for the memory. Outputs are standard and only two in the form of DVI-I connectors. The card is still on hold and not in stores, but the price one should pay for it is $529 USD.

Without further delay EVGA also issued a full-cover waterblock only for the single-PCB GTX 295 CO-OP card. The EVGA GTX 295 CO-OP Hydro Copper waterblock (PN: 200-CU-HC95-B1) is constructed from a massive copper baseplate and sealed from an all black top. This block cools everything that needs cooling on the PCB and will cost you $129.99 USD. Again like in most cases, the Hydro Copper block for GTX 295 CO-OP ships with both 3/8-inch & 1/2-inch fittings for different watercooling loops.

During the weekend EVGA released a new part - the Hydro Copper waterblock (PN: 200-CU-HC59-B1) for its EVGA X58 Classified top of the line motherboards. Featuring a sleek black top and a full copper design, the Hydro Copper waterblock can drop the operating temps of the X58 Classified by half, and still it won't make your watercooling system too restrictive because of the block's unique E-Flow design. Priced at $129.99 USD the block ships with both hi-flow 1/2-inch and 3/8-inch fittings depending on your needs. The Hydro Copper is fully compatible with the following EVGA parts: 141-BL-E759-XX, 141-BL-E760-XX, and 141-BL-E761-XX.

EVGA quietly slipped in the GeForce GTX 285 Mac Edition graphics card, which is its fastest offering to Mac users. The card uses a standard PCI-Express interface available with Intel x86 based Mac Pro workstations, and provides all the features of NVIDIA's fastest GPU. It is technically identical to its base-model PC counterpart, using a reference design for the PCB and cooler, reference clock speeds of 648/1476/2484 MHz (core/shader/memory), and 1 GB of GDDR3 memory across a 512-bit interface. It bundles the necessary power dongles, and packs system software for Mac. Two dual-link DVI connectors support two Apple Cinema displays with resolutions of 2560 x 1600 each. The OpenGL 3.0 acceleration backs the advanced drawing features of Adobe CS4 applications. EVGA is pricing this at US $449.99, a notch higher than the GTX 285 2 GB FTW accelerator for PC.

EVGA expanded its motherboard lineup with the LGA-1366 based X58 SLI LE (141-BL-E757-TR). This ATX motherboard supports the most common standards of EVGA motherboards in the sub-series, at a price-point lower than that of its 3X-SLI series. It is priced at US $239. Making use of only the X58+ICH10R chipset, with no companion nForce 200 chips, the board goes on to feature four PCI-Express x16 slots, for NVIDIA 3-way SLI, or ATI CrossFireX. A 8-channel audio, and one gigabit Ethernet connection make for the rest of the signficant feature set. Popular retailer Newegg.com has already started listing it.

Known for good performance and value when it comes to water blocks, EK Water Blocks has water block for most applications. The company is working on a full-coverage block specially designed for the EVGA X58 Classified series of motherboards. The block cools the most significant heat sources of the motherboard, namely the X58+ICH10R chipset, the companion NVIDIA BR-03 chips, and the VRM areas. A draft design surfaced on XtremeSystems Forums, revealing the complex construction of the cooler. The design is still under development, and could vary from the actual product.

EVGA released yet another version of its SLI Enhancement Patch, version 12 (05.21.09). This release comes barely a week after version 11, and continues to be based on NVIDIA GeForce 185.85 drivers. Apart from the list of new games the driver supported, namely Guitar Hero: World Tour, Earthrise, Digital Combat Simulator: Black Shark, Shadow Harvest, and Terminator: Salvation, the patch adds SLI support for SBK 09, Zeno Clash, and Merchants of Brooklyn.

The EVGA SLI Enhancement Patch works in with NVIDIA GeForce drivers, and helps expand the list of games that support NVIDIA SLI technology beyond what the drivers offer, by adding SLI profiles made by EVGA. Registered EVGA users can get the patch from here.

Two new EVGA Core i7 motherboards are being worked out at the company's factories, we've learned. First on the list is the EVGA X58 SLI LE (141-BL-E757) motherboard, which will be placed directly under and priced lower than the current X58 SLI (141-BL-E758) model. This motherboard has four PCI-Express 2.0 slots that run at x16/x16/x8/x8, and also features a PCI-E x1 slot and single PCI slot. The new X58 SLI LE utilizes a 6-phase analog PWM design with a single EPS 12v connector. The board includes six triple-channel DDR3 1600 MHz slots, 6x SATA II 3.0 Gb/s slots, an onboard LED for POST codes and has a simple passive heatsink with no heatpipes.
Second in the list lines up EVGA X58 SLI Micro (141-BL-E756). One of its most notable features is that it boasts Micro-ATX form factor. The board features two PCI-Express x16 2.0 slots and one PCI-E x1 slot. It has a 6-phase analog PWM design, six triple-channel DDR3 1600 MHz slots, 6x SATA II 3.0 Gb/s slots, an onboard POST LED, and the same passive heatsink found on the X58 SLI LE mainboard.
Expect to find the new motherboards in stock soon.

EVGA today launches the latest "tuning kit" for GeForce GTX 285. EVGA GeForce GTX 285 2 GB FTW Edition (part number 02G-P3-1187-AR) is based on the NVIDIA's reference design, from the outside nothing has changed except for the cool front sticker. The same stock dual-cooler is used, but the card's BIOS has been modified to deliver 702 MHz (648 MHz stock) GPU, 1584 MHz (1476 MHz), and 2484 MHz memory clock speeds. The card has 240 Processing Cores, 512-bit memory interface, two 6-pin PCI-E external power connectors, two DVI outputs and support for NVIDIA 3-way SLI technology. The EVGA GeForce GTX 285 2 GB FTW is now listed with a MSRP of $439.99 USD, it should be available very soon.

EVGA published the 11th version of its SLI Enhancement Patch. Version 11 (05.15.09) is based on NVIDIA GeForce drivers 185.85, and enables SLI support for Zeno Clash and Merchants of Brooklyn, beyond the new additions NVIDIA's general release brings along: Guitar Hero: World Tour, Earthrise, Digital Combat Simulator: Black Shark, Shadow Harvest, and Terminator: Salvation.

The software works in conjunction with NVIDIA GeForce drivers, and helps expand the list of games that support NVIDIA SLI technology beyond what the drivers offer. For a 3D application to take full-advantage of SLI technology, typically NVIDIA creates an SLI profile that is released along with a usually new driver release. Registered EVGA users can download the patch from here.

DisplayLink Corp. today celebrated reaching sales of more than one million USB graphics semiconductors. Embedded in more than thirty consumer and business products, DisplayLink chips - the DL-120 and DL-160 - make it possible for people to connect various visual computing devices to displays with an easy USB connection.

"DisplayLink has completely reinvented the way computers talk to displays. Our IC's make it possible to use standard plug and play USB to connect a laptop to one or more displsys, bringing the world a major step closer to the ideal "single world connector" status. Achieving sales of one million chips clearly shows the mainstream reach of our technology with customers and end-users who readily appreciate the simplicity of our approach and the productivity benefits of using multiple displays" said Hamid Farzaneh, president and CEO of DisplayLink.

NVIDIA is pushing forth a special variant of its high-end GeForce GTX 285 graphics accelerator. This one is specific for use in Apple Mac systems that support PCI-Express addon-cards. Its hardware specifications remain the same: 240 stream processors and 1 GB of 512-bit GDDR3 memory. Available in June, the accelerator will benefit the upcoming Mac OS X "Snow Leopard" that makes use of GPGPU. NVIDIA partner EVGA seems to be ready with one. Pictured below, the card resembles the reference design accelerator commonly available for PCs.

EVGA introduced version 1.7.1 of the EVGA Precision graphics cards overclocking and monitoring software. This version adds two nifty features over the previous version, 1.7.0, that includes an update-checker module that automatically checks for new versions of the software and alerts the user. The other feature benefits users of Logitech gamer keyboards with built-in LCDs. The users can now use the keyboards' soft-buttons to scroll text posted by EVGA Precision on the LCD both horizontally, and vertically. The scrolled text can be easily reset by pressing up-down or left-right soft-buttons simultaneously. EVGA Precision v1.7.1 can be downloaded from here.

EVGA released the 10th version of its SLI Enhancement Patch since its initial release in mid-February. The patch expands upon the SLI profiles NVIDIA's official drivers come with. An SLI profile is an application-specific optimization to take advantage of two or more NVIDIA GPUs in an SLI setup. With this release (version 10, 04.24.09), EVGA adds SLI support for the games Zeno Clash and Merchants of Brooklyn. The patch is based on NVIDIA GeForce 185.68 driver, and is available for 32/64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista. Registered EVGA users can download the software from here.

Premium maker EVGA is now offering a shiny new water block for its Intel X58 powered motherboards. The EVGA X58 Hydro Copper Waterblock, part number: 200-CU-HC58-B1 guarantees to drop the temps of your chipset by half and also make your motherboard look very cool. The water block includes both 1/2" and 3/8" fittings for maximum compatibility with all water cooling systems. EVGA is asking $129.99 USD for the part. Find more info here.

Pushing up the ante, EVGA introduced the GeForce GTX 275 FTW Edition (model 896-P3-1173-AR). FTW means "for the win", in gamer jargon. The company has been using the "FTW" label for peak-performance variants of graphics cards and motherboards. In the case of graphics cards, it comes with the highest factory-overclocked parameters available in its lineup.

Featuring the default design of the rest of the cards in its series, the GeForce GTX 275 FTW comes with clock speeds of 713/1512/2520 MHz (core/shader/memory), against the reference speeds of 633/1404/2268 MHz. The card features 240 stream processors, and 896 MB of memory across a 448-bit wide GDDR3 interface. The card is listed on the company store for US $299.99, a $50 premium over the base-model.

Having begun its GeForce GTX 275 lineup with two cards: the 896 MB base-model (896-P3-1170-AR) and its 1792 MB twin (017-P3-1175-AR), EVGA sought to expand it with factory-overclocked models with its usual overclock-grading scheme. The first in its series is the SuperClocked (SC) model (896-P3-1171-AR). The card features the design and color-theme EVGA used for its GeForce GTX 260 55 nm series. It features 240 stream processors, 896 MB of GDDR3 memory across a 448-bit wide interface, and support for 3-way SLI.

Featuring a tier-one factory overclock, the card comes with clock speeds of 648 MHz (core), 1458 MHz (shader) and 2376 MHz (memory), against the reference clock speeds of 633/1404/2268 MHz (core/shader/memory). Put on pre-order by the EVGA store, the card is set to retail for US $269.99.

Pursuing legal action against Intel for bringing its Intel-compatible platform development to a grinding halt due to legal complications, NVIDIA has kept its platform development for AMD on track. The company has made the nForce 980a SLI platform official, that supports the latest Phenom II series processors from AMD. The company published the product page on its website, and has pictured its reference design motherboard based on the chipset. The motherboard carries the "designed by NVIDIA" marking, which makes it a design that several of its AIC partners such as EVGA, XFX, Zotac, etc., can use simultaneously.

The motherboard sports the nForce 980a SLI chipset, paired with the nForce 200 PCI-Express bridge chip. The motherboard features a GeForce 8300-class IGP, with DVI-D and D-Sub outputs. It supports NVIDIA 3-way SLI and Quad-SLI. As an AMD platform, the chipset supports AM2, AM2+ and AM3 socket processors, with DDR3 and DDR2 memory support (depending on the processor). A 5-phase digital PWM circuit powers the processor. The nForce 980a SLI and nForce 200 chips are located adjacent to each other, and are cooled actively by a fan-heatsink. The product design looks production-grade and may attract partners to sell it.

EVGA introduced a new version of its Precision graphics cards overclocking and monitoring software. Version 1.6.0 brings in a host of changes as listed by EVGA:

• Now Precision monitoring window can be detached from the main form allowing the user to define custom monitoring window position and size. Double click attached monitoring window to detach it from the main form, double click it one more time or simply close it to attach it back
• Now Precision provides multi-GPU control for the systems with up to 8 NVIDIA GPUs to ensure compatibility with future SLI systems and provide support for modern 5-GPU Quad-SLI + PhysX systems
• Optimized multi-GPU profiles loader drastically reduces profiles load time when GPU synchronization mode is enabled
• Now Precision always sorts GPUs by PCI location to ensure that GPU indices stay the same in the system regardless of operating system, display driver version and GPU display outputs connection
• EVGA On-Screen Display Server has been updated to version 3.2.0. Similar to the previous version of Precision, new server also features new skin format v1.1 adding bitmap effects support to the skin compiler
• Added new black skin edition

Registered EVGA users can download the application from here.

Bigfoot Networks is perhaps the first company that gave the network interface card (NIC) a high-end consumer take. The Killer N1 and K1 PCI NICs were known to come with some very innovative features that, as our review showed, did impact positively on networked gaming performance. After close to two and a half years since its previous NIC, Bigfoot Networks Killer is back. In the making is the Killer Xeno NIC.

With near identical features and more, this NIC takes the advantage of the newer leaner components in the market, such as the NPU which may be using a newer manufacturing process, NPU-accelerated audio that provides audio-chat with zero system-overhead, and up to 256 MB of onboard memory to drive this mini "PC inside PC". The ASIC is done away with, a newer gigabit Ethernet transceiver made by Broadcom is present. The card uses a native PCI-Express x1 interface. It comes in two variants: the 128 MB "Pro", and 256 MB "Ultra". Apart from selling these cards under its own banner, Bigfoot Networks has struck an OEM deal with Alienware. Also, the company has an AIB partner (a-la graphics cards), and guess who it is - EVGA. The Xeno Ultra will be priced at US $179.99, and the Xeno Pro at $129.99.

EVGA piped out yet another version of its SLI Enhancement patch, that adds SLI profiles to the driver installation, profiles which let games take advantage of multiple NVIDIA GPUs in SLI. Version 03.18.09 (dated yesterday) is based on NVIDIA 182.08 drivers, and enhances the following games with SLI support:

• Merchants of Brooklyn
• The Hunter
• Watchmen
• MLB 2K9
• Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.
• The Last Remnant Demo and Benchmark

Exclusively available for registered EVGA users, the patch can be downloaded from here.

With no official press release, a new version of EVGA's GTX 295 has appeared on their website. Dubbed the GTX 295 Red Edition, the card is clocked at the stock speeds of 576 MHz on the core, 1242 MHz on the shaders, and a 1998 MHz memory clock, using a reference cooler, which appears to have simply been painted red. Although the card appears to bring nothing new to the table other than the option of a new colour, EVGA are asking US$549.99 for the card, which is $45 more than the standard black variant. It would appear following the launch of their X58 classified motherboard not long ago, that EVGA could be heading towards a new colour scheme, at least for their premium products.

As of yesterday, EVGA is promoting its Loaner Program which gives you the opportunity to test out the latest EVGA hardware for two weeks right in your home for free. Here's how it works. First you need a free registration (free), then you need to choose the product you want to receive. The company will randomly select participants and then send out the product you wished for at no cost. Once your two weeks with the product are up, you simply pay the shipping cost to the next person on the list selected by EVGA. There's one more catch, you need to be living the US or Canada to be eligible for the program. For now the only two products available in the Loaner Program are the EVGA X58 Classified motherboard, and a 22" Samsung monithor with 3D Vision Glasses. If you meet the requirements, you can sign up for them at any time here.