EVGA X79 FTW 151-SE-E777-K2 LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: - There's so many USB 3.0 ports!
- (If I remember right) four internal USB 2.0 headers and one 3.0 header.
- Two SATA 6GB ports, and 6 normal SATA ports.
- Nice looking heatsinks all over the board covering the MOSFET and bridges.

Cons: The first board was defective. One DIMM was broken so that when it was populated, the system wouldn't post.
After spending about two days on the phone with EVGA and Newegg, I was able to get an RMA for $45 in shipping.

The new board works like a charm, but I had to take off an egg for the painful RMA process.

Other Thoughts: The RMA process was such a pain.

After being on the phone with Newegg for about 20 minutes, we had set up a refund RMA for the board (Or so I thought). Basically I would just re-order the board with whatever shipping I wanted, ship out the defective board and the new one would get here before they even got the old one. After a few minutes we had set that up and I thought all was well.

The next day, I logged onto Newegg and noticed that he had set up the refund RMA on the wrong board (I ordered two different boards in the same order, the other one being for a different build).
That wasn't a big deal, it was a simple mistake, so I called back Newegg support and explained the situation only to find out that my defective board was not refundable. The only way I could get an RMA would be the normal week-or-so wait.

THEN I ended up calling EVGA and I found out their RMA process was much simpler and more end-user friendly. They offered a cross-shipment method, meaning that they would send me a board after I paid them like 3 dollars collateral (and shipping), and I would send them the defective board in the packaging the new one came in. I ended up getting the next day shipping, which was $45 for both ways.

Pros: One of the best boards I have bought from EVGA. Easy setup, no problem with Bios update. Runs windows 8 Flawlessly.What else can I say, but Awesome.

Cons: None

Pros: It wasn't DOA.

Cons: Poor compatibility, bad bios. No xmp... Over clocking is a real guessing game. Even compatibility with newer hardware is chancy. This manufacturer has gone downhill.

Manufacturer Response:

Hello,

This motherboard was designed for overclocking. Please make sure to follow the overclocking guides on our forums.

Thank you,
Brandon B

Pros: Supports a bunch of GPUs, plenty of OC ability, good board, stable.

Cons: If you have two dual-slot GPUs installed in the PCIex16 slots, you CANNOT have cables plugged into the on-board USB headers. you would think a company renowned for their GPUs would realize this problem.

Pros: Very nice looking PCB, 3way SLI, red and black theme with almost all red leds. Bios has become very stable with release 47. Tons of USB 3.0 ports on the back. Built in Bluetooth is a plus. PCIe 3.0 speeds working with my GTX Titan after NVidia 3.0 force patch. Came with 8gb of free memory that I won't be using but I like getting free stuff. OC up to 4.5 at 1.31v and vdroop off is not too bad. Hoping for 4.6 to 4.8 speeds with my 3930k.

Cons: USB 3.0 issues! This thing has major driver/firmware issues on the USB 3.0 controller. Installing evga drivers for the ASmedia controller would make half or all USB ports stop working when changing BIOS settings. Tried updating the driver to the newest out and had reports of power surges on USB ports.

Finally found a firmware update for the VLI VL-810 XHCI usb controller hubs and updated to the newest version. After a reboot that seemed to help with my USB issues. Not saying that will help everyone but its worth a try. I'm still using the drivers from evga, haven't tried the newest ones again but if it aint broke.

Only 4 dim slots so making a RAM disk is limited and people wanting more DDR3 is out of the question. right angle 24pin power and sata connectors are good or bad depending on your PC case. Came with evga classified drivers, doesn't really matter since I get all mine from the evga website.

Other Thoughts: This motherboard is a nice piece of tech. All the latest and greatest stuff minus a couple dim slots and BIOS options. For me it has been great. Other people have not been so lucky with it. My biggest gripe is with the USB 3.0 ports but once you find the right firmware and drivers then it should just work like normal. All the rest of my cons I knew before buying this board so I can't take off any eggs for those. I would have taken away an egg if I hadn't been able to fix my USB problems.

Pros: It's EVGA everything's a pro. (haha)

I just love the overall love the look of the board :)

Cons: One of my biggest complaints about the board is the location of the front panel audio. For some reason they decided to place it right in-between the edge of the board and your pci-e slots. So if you are planning on running 3-sli or depending on your card size 2-sli, unless you don't care about your front panel audio you might have problems of the connection fitting.

Other than that, I cant think of really anything negative.

It's a motherboard - I looks nice, clean and it does it's job, and I knew what the specs and caps were when I bought it.

Other Thoughts: I would like to say prior to buying the board I spent a lot of time reading reviews, being a previous evga board owner, i wanted to stay loyal. I love their customer service.

I was a bit skeptical after reading so many people having so many issues. Which to me were early bios issues, I have flashed to the newest 047 bios on a clean install ssd. Havnt had any problems what so ever. Smooth streaming of maxed out bf3 and hots.

It's a great board, I would recommend it to anyone if you're on the fence about which one to get.


Specs:
Evga x79ftw
i7 3820 (zalman 9900max)
evga 670ftw
16gb corsair vengance
500gb samsung ssd
corsair HX850

:)

Pros: Very solid board, good OCing features, very stable, good bios with alot of option.

Cons: Still few bugs that EVGA never fixed like some USB 3 port that randomly stop working.

Other Thoughts: I really like this board but mostly for the price i paid, 179.99$... for an high end X79 board this is very cheap. Today the board is selling for 89.99$ ! NM the little bug this board still have ... at that price you cant go wrong !

Pros: Booted fine first try for me. After installing Windows updates and drivers I have had zero issues. Great looking board, decent layout. Fit well in my HAF-X case (24-pin power was at a great location for this case, easy to hide wiring with the provided grommets). All hardware I have installed and provided ports have worked flawlessly. EVGA has yet to let me down after years of using their products and I will continue to buy from them in the future. Thanks again EVGA (and Newegg!).

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: System Specs:
Intel i7 3820 @ 4.3Ghz
Cooler Master HAF-X
EVGA X79 FTW
32GB Corsair Vengeance Red Quad Channel
EVGA GTX 660 Ti FTW+
Intel X25-M 80SSD
2x WD Caviar Black 1TB RAID 0
Corsair AX1200 PSU

Pros: Spacious mobo Room enough for all the goodies. No issue putting a couple of Titans on it with a sound card and a capture card.

Cons: DOA - Enough said.

Other Thoughts: Its sad that newegg does not offer a refund on a newly purchased, defective item if the factory warranty is still in effect. I've since read reviews on this motherboard, and simply do not want a replacement, but a refund. This option was unavailable for me (less than a week since purchase). Another retailer (mcenter) has a 15 day refund/replacement - No questions ask. They will probably become my new best friend.

Pros: Number of USB 3 ports

Cons: Where to begin......from day 1 it will not set up a RAID 1 setup. When I tried, it erased my existing hard drives from old machine. At least everything was backed up.

My hard drives, both internal and external, it regularly wants to reformat them. Says they are unreadable. When I put them in another machine, they work perfect.

Twice, when I was attempting to backup a drive, it crashed and erased both drives. Mostly music, so I had to dig out my cd's and recut my music to mp3's. Did this with 2 3TB drives and 2 2TB drives.

Doesn't have an overheating problem, just a POJ. Tech support I gave up on. I've updated BIOS repeatedly, and this has not helped.

I switched to EVGA from ASUS because of the lack of tech support/RMA from ASUS. This is the 2nd EVGA board in a row, old core i7, now 2011 core i7 and they have both been a HUGE disappointment.

Now researching to find comparable features on another brand board. I'm thru with EVGA mobos. Anybody have any recommendations?

DON'T BUY THID BOARD!!!!!

It's even more disheartening, because I have high end pieces, from the case, down to the memory and power supply. It is a 9+ hour job to disassemble/reassemble this machine.

Other Thoughts: Been building my own machines since 1998. Always used ASUS until they got unreliable. Tried EVGA due to other builder reviews. They are just as unreliable as ASUS. From the reviews, it seems most everyone is having problems with their 2011 socket boards. Somebody please make a feature laden mobo that is reliable!!!!!

Manufacturer Response:

Hello,

What you are descibing is not the behavior we expect from this board. Please contact me directly at bbrunson@evga.com so I can see what I can do to get you a resolution on this.

Thank you,
Brandon B