Originally posted by: lopri
Throughout this thread, I feel like I've been overly critical about this board so I'd like to say some nice things about this board for the folks who're eying on it. This board is for you if you:
1. Are looking for a solidly-built (high quality components), best-in-class feature set, best layout (by far, except the front-panel jumpers) board
2. Are looking to SLI with Intel CPUs
3. Are not crazy about aggressive memory frequencies / timings, OR
4. Are into tweaking aggressive FSB/memory configuration AND are patient

5. Are not into RAID (which is nearly useless on desktop) and are not planning to hook up 6 hard disks and 2 SATA DVD-ROMs.
6. Value on-going service from EVGA/NVIDIA. (EVGA's customer service is far and away better than any other motherboard company's)
Note #3 and #4 are mutually exclusive. With this board, you can set it and forget it - on the condition that you're not being too greedy. On a stark contrast, you can try to tweak the hell out of the board with many options that are not available on Intel chipsets - but it'll require lots of patience and effort on your part.
For the set-it-and-forget-it folks, I'd recommend no more stressful configuration than 400FSB / DDR2-800 (4-4-4-2T) / 3 hard disks (No RAID) . You will not likely experience critical symptoms with a configuration equal to / lower than that. For E6600, that means 3.20GHz (8x400) / 3.60GHz (9x400) with DDR2-800 (4-4-4-2T). It may be ever so slightly slower than 975X, but you get lots of features and an option for SLI. The performance difference will not be noticeable at all and if anything, it'll actually feel snappier than 975X due to the fast disk controller in MCP.
Most of the time the trouble begins when you try more stressful configuration than above exampled. Admittedly, it's one of the initial attractiveness of this chipset, but with the current state of BIOS, it's wise to be not overly excited with all those possibilities. As a return of being modest with the overclocking and configuration, you get a high quality board with the best layout ever designed, as well as SLI which none of the Intel chipsets support at this time. Or if you are really into tweaking and have the resource (be it time or energy), the board will reward you with better performance than 975X in the end. It's tiny, but a reward regardless.