EVGA’s Dual-Socket W555 Debuts as the Classified SR-2

If Intel’s recent launch of the Core i7-980X Extreme Edition six-core, twelve-threaded monster of a CPU wasn’t attractive enough to get you drooling into your keyboard, then the latest motherboard from EVGA aims to fix that. Formerly known by the W555 codename, the EVGA Classified SR-2 (Super Record 2) is designed as the ultimate motherboard.

Courtesy of Intel’s 5520 server chipset, the Classified SR-2 is capable of housing and overclocking two six-core Xeon processors and running Quad SLI or AMD’s Tri-fire. Needless to say the potential processing capabilities of this mother of all boards will rival that of some supercomputers from just a few years back. For those curious, the Core i7-980X Gulftown chips will not work in this motherboard, as only Xeon’s featuring two QPI links will suffice.

The spittle doesn’t stop there either. In an attempt to break the record for number of features on a motherboard, the SR-2 offers twelve memory slots to house up to 48GB of DDR3-1333 memory, or ECC memory if preferred. Probably of more interest is the inclusion of two SATA 3 6Gb/s ports and six more SATA 2 3Gb/s ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, six USB 2.0 ports, and two eSATA ports on the back I/O panel. Should we even bother to mention the two blue USB 3.0 ports at this point?

The SR-2 also makes sure to include all the features one would expect on a flagship overclocking-oriented motherboard, such as PCB level restart and clear CMOS buttons, LED code readout, 100% solid cap design, high-quality phases, extra gold content on the CPU contact pins, and of course the must-have black chrome LGA1366 sockets.

Not just any power supply will be capable of the honor of powering this motherboard. In addition to the standard 24-pin motherboard connector each CPU socket will require its own EPS12V connector and and additional 6-pin PCIe power connector. Yes, indeed this motherboard has been designed from the ground up for overclocking. In total, three 6-pin PCIe power connectors will be required just to provide additional power to the motherboard!

EVGA is readying a special model PSU designed especially for this motherboard, however several PC Power & Cooling power supplies should work in addition to Cooler Master’s UCP 1100W. Of course going by Shamino’s numbers, if Quad-SLI or subzero cooling will be used, a 1500 watt power supply with additional PCIe connectors would be necessary.

The dual-socket SR-2 further deviates from any old enthusiast motherboard by offering a full complement of no less than seven PCIe 16x slots. There are no other slots. This is not a problem though, as of course PCIe 1x, 4x, and any other PCIe card can be plugged into a PCIe 16x slot without issue. The only real problem might be finding a spare slot if four two-slot GPUs are added to the board! Thanks in part to two NVIDIA N200 PCIe bridge chips lurking beneath the southbridge cooler, up to four PCie 16x slots can operate at full speed at once time.

In keeping with the theme, this motherboard isn’t just huge, but EVGA purports they had to invent an entirely new form-factor called HPTX (13.6×15 inches) just for the Classified SR-2! As one might have guessed this means finding a suitable case for such a beast will be tough, although EVGA mentions that the SR-2 should fit in Wide ATX chassis that feature 9 or more expansion slots. For those looking for a guaranteed, finished case solution that doesn’t require any modifications, then currently Mountain Mods has a list of six cases that is compatible with their specially designed HPTX SR-2 motherboard tray assembly.

If your mouth is feeling a bit dry, then you are not alone, as the Classified SR-2 was designed by world-renowned overclocker Shamino with extended record-breaking sessions involving dry ice and liquid nitrogen in mind. Such an awesome board naturally will include an awesomely high price, but for once we can imagine the $599 MSRP of EVGA’s latest creation to perhaps be justified given the dual-socket nature and raw potential of this mother of all boards. Store availability is expected within a few weeks.

We are proud to present the EVGA Classified SR-2, the absolute ultimate for the extreme user. It takes everything that made the X58 Classified 4-way SLI motherboard great and doubled it up. Now you can experience the ultimate in overclocked multithreaded performance by way of Dual 1366 sockets which allow for hyper-threaded Intel Xeon CPU’s to be combined together for massive amounts of workload to be spread across a multitude of processing threads.