Hello EVGA... Staff, Community, Moderators and Helpers... Hello. I am back again from the darkness tho nobody remembers me I am sure. Anyhow, with Haswell-E here I am looking to swap my most trusty i5-2500k for a newer and better i7-5930K this time around. Who doesn't like the early numbers on the X99 chipset, it looks extremely promising so far and truly has my mouth watering. Just need to work the funds out in my budget and the sale will be final.
 
Anyhow the point of this posting is that I have supported EVGA products since I started building PC's years ago. But I have a specific question. What the heck happened with motherboard pricing? The last motherboard I could justify buying was the 680i (years ago) which was later upgraded to the 750i via warranty. This seems like the stoneage to me, I can't even remember how many years ago... In these days, these motherboard were cheap but still excellent quality, they were the products that really hooked me with EVGA. But something changed since then. 
 
I have upgraded my system 3 times since then... I am currently running EVGA video and EVGA PSU... Even my girlfriend is running EVGA video and EVGA PSU... But neither of us have EVGA motherboards, they just cost so damn much. And have for quite some time.
 
Why is it that EVGA has such a high premium expense on their motherboards today? I can get the same motherboard from any of the other companies for half the cost. Same features, whatever you gotta say about it, sacrifice 1% in performance does not justify double the price. Video cards and PSU's are competitive, why are the motherboard so costly?
 
I miss the days of running an EVGA system. I guess that's my whole point here. Is there any hope of a decently priced X99 motherboard in the future here? Or will I have to just throw my dimes at a competitor for yet another release?

Well, I cannot speak about the quality of the competition as I have only read their specs but I have not used one.  But I have used all 3 of our X99 offerings and several engineering revisions back from release.  I can say that I do not regret the purchase of my Dark board (granted I wish my X58 held on a bit longer so I could have gone X99, but oh well) but the X99 Classy took a lot of the great aspects of the Dark as well as the simplicity of the Z97 Classified, we looked at both of those and made the X99, IMHO in all areas it is an improvement over the Dark and the Z97 Classy.  
I have tested pushed and clocked this platform and personally I am really liking it.  I have heard some state our BIOS is a little sparse, but really, it has all it needs there, I set everything up I needed easily and I got a descent clock off of it in short order, racecars tend to be a bit sparse as well, but as all of you who have read any number of my posts here or in X79, X58 or OC/Benching sections all know I am a function over form guy.  The board works great from my testing and is intuitive.  Is it perfect, is there no room for improvement, etc, no of course not, but it is a solid product.

dwoodward
I am not questioning the integrity of the product EVGA offers. I already know it's a solid board. But the last few years I have been bouncing around with different brands, I am currently running an Asrock motherboard and am holding a very impressive overclock of 4.7ghz 24/7 and have had it up to 4.9ghz and was benchmark stable. This is a motherboard that ran me a mere 120 bucks on Newegg. The quality is there, and the price is great. Before that it was a Asus board, a little less performance, I switched to Asrock after finding out they had the BIOS options that I was interested in controlling that Asus did not. Again a cheap board tho.
 
Years ago, EVGA had cheaper boards as well, this was before the days of the "Classified". EVGA used to have boards like the 630i, 650i, 680i, 680i SLI, then the 750i, 750i FTW, 780i, 780i FTW... Lots of different boards to choose from, all at their own price points, all of them great overclockers, it was all a matter of features, do you need 8 SATA ports, or can you make by with 6 or 4... This board can run memory at this speed, this one at this speed... ect...
 
Why does EVGA not do this anymore? It seems there is a theme in recent years that you only make the best with full features and charge a huge premium. Yes the best should cost money, but what about us guys that want to spend just what we need to get the performance we need? There is a market for this, I don't understand why EVGA is not in it any longer.
 
I'd like to get a EVGA board for my next system overhaul, but with the current prices, I see myself getting a different companies board. I am just curious to know if there will be future X99 boards, not just the classified or FTW models.

 
I think EVGA just doesn't heave the resources to make a lot of different board, or that they found that only 3 or 4 mobo's sale for them. The x58's you had the micro, ftw, SLI, classified3, and classified4. But it just ended up people buying the micro, classified3 and classified4, from what we were told. So the micro stayed, the classified3 become ftw and classified4 become the simply the classified. Asus and such can offer those other boards for cheaper as they have a bigger industry/corporation to do so. EVGA simply stayed focus on 3 mobo's at a time as they didn't have the backing to make 8 variants ofthe x99 like other companies.

I feel like the EVGA boards have always had the highest price. I dont think I ever paid under 300 for a board. My last few boards were in the 400-600 area ( 4-way classified).
I also think motherboards got more expensive with the release of x58.

Evga uses 300% more gold in there CPU socket and I'm sure they use better copper in there circuits too VS other leading companies. They also carry the industry's best warranty and customer support.
 
I think if you want the best bang for your buck right now MSI is what you should be looking at. Easy to OC and packed full of extras like HiFi build in audio, built in wireless, fast Enet adapters, fast usb charging and solid usb3 performance. Also MSI has a crazy nice build quality. They use thick boards and overbuilt caps. 

dwoodward
...with Haswell-E here I am looking to swap my most trusty i5-2500k for a newer and better i7-5930K this time around.
...
Is there any hope of a decently priced X99 motherboard in the future here? Or will I have to just throw my dimes at a competitor for yet another release?

Many pardons, but to me, these two lines conflict.  
 
 
Why are you willing to spend up to $600 on a processor but not the minimum $250 for EVGA's microATX X99 offering?  For one, if you went for the other 6-core, you save enough cash for a $350 motherboard, or just save money.  But for another, your ModsRigs profile doesn't indicating using an SLI setup now after all these years.  Unless you plan to someday, then the EVGA microboard will be your most affordable option since it at least offer 2-way SLI.  For its specs, it is competitively priced; there are cheaper X99 boards by other brands, I've seen a $220 board on Newegg.  
 
I too remember a time when Intel high-end boards were cheaper, but then back then at least nVidia had their nForce line to keep them busy; and now they don't.  So of course Intel ramps up the premium due to their monopoly of high-end, albeit slowly enough that most people just accept it.  I also remember EVGA's X58 Micro that appeared in spring 2009 some few months after X58 came, for just $199.  Inflation certainly didn't add $50 over six years to high-end mATX; but then the price changes would only seem like sticker shock if not upgrading often.   The base X58 (E758) which I got was $299 and the first version Classifed (E759) was $449, and that was from memory.
 
I know this thread is solely aimed at EVGA, but I'm just trying to understand what you mean by "decently priced X99".  It seems relative in this case.

lehpron

dwoodward
...with Haswell-E here I am looking to swap my most trusty i5-2500k for a newer and better i7-5930K this time around.
...
Is there any hope of a decently priced X99 motherboard in the future here? Or will I have to just throw my dimes at a competitor for yet another release?

Many pardons, but to me, these two lines conflict.  
 
 
Why are you willing to spend up to $600 on a processor but not the minimum $250 for EVGA's microATX X99 offering?  For one, if you went for the other 6-core, you save enough cash for a $350 motherboard, or just save money.  But for another, your ModsRigs profile doesn't indicating using an SLI setup now after all these years.  Unless you plan to someday, then the EVGA microboard will be your most affordable option since it at least offer 2-way SLI.  For its specs, it is competitively priced; there are cheaper X99 boards by other brands, I've seen a $220 board on Newegg.  
 
I too remember a time when Intel high-end boards were cheaper, but then back then at least nVidia had their nForce line to keep them busy; and now they don't.  So of course Intel ramps up the premium due to their monopoly of high-end, albeit slowly enough that most people just accept it.  I also remember EVGA's X58 Micro that appeared in spring 2009 some few months after X58 came, for just $199.  Inflation certainly didn't add $50 over six years to high-end mATX; but then the price changes would only seem like sticker shock if not upgrading often.   The base X58 (E758) which I got was $299 and the first version Classifed (E759) was $449, and that was from memory.
 
I know this thread is solely aimed at EVGA, but I'm just trying to understand what you mean by "decently priced X99".  It seems relative in this case.

Sorry if I caused confusion, but you seem to have caused confusion in me... I am only aware of the 5960, 5930, and 5820... are there other chips? Or are they all 6 core or better? In one of the Intel slides I saw a month ago it showed the cores for each at 8, 6, and 4... Maybe this was incorrect? I'll have to take a look, and if so, you certainly did save me some money here.
 
My Mods Rig wont update to my current system, I can't figure out why and am not really bothered too much I guess. The current linked to modsrig was my older setup on an ASUS board.
 
As for SLI, it's always in the cards for me, however, I also run a dedicated sound card, and there aren't any Micro boards that support SLI and still have room for a sound card that I am aware of.

No need for four cores.  The price of the 5820 is extremely competitive with the 4790K.  Given a choice, why wouldn't you want the 5820 with six cores vs. the latter with 4?