NVIDIA's color is green and the PCB for the new board is based on that same color as have been most of their boards recently, and is actually a bit dated PCB color considering all the various colored PCBs that are currently available. PCB color however has no relevance on performance it's the amount of layers on the PCB that determine its quality and stability. The EVGA board is based off a 12 layer design that is the maximum allowed for this
The board is designed a bit differently than the traditional layout due to the placement of the SATA slots that are located between the memory and the primary IDE connection. They are also located at the end of where any long VGA card would most likely pass over as well. The location of the SATA ports is ideal if the VGA card is not one of the older and longer series cards. Other than using an extra long VGA card the location will work well for setup and keep your cables from crossing the motherboard before connecting to the hard drives. This will prove to be a blessing or a curse depending on your system configuration.
The memory slots are where memory slots have been located for the last five or so years and this board supports of 8GB of memory via its four slots. I am very happy about how much space there is around the ZIF Socket, this will be a very good thing when using many aftermarket liquid or air cooling systems that require plenty of space for installation. The entire board is very open spaced compared with most motherboards, which although may look Spartan, actually shows a much more integral and well thought out design. The two PCI slots are spaced on each side of the secondary PCI Express slot, but one of them will be covered using most of NVIDIA's latest 7950 or 8800 series VGA cards.
Both the S/B and N/B are actively cooled with NVIDIA logoed fans so this should help to keep the board running more stable. Using an ASUS motherboard I found out just how important cooling these components is, as the CrossHair board actually warped from the heat of the NB from inadequate cooling. After I replaced the board I used the cooling apparatus provided in the box and this eliminated that problem. Having both of them actively cooled is a very positive thing that is often looked over or not really thought about unless problems occur. The on-board sound connections are all handled at the rear I/O and no add-in cards are necessary for 5.1 surround. The board is silkscreened well so you can clearly see with your eye where all the system wires and cables get connected. All in all the layout and design are very well, the SATA ports are in an odd place, but beyond that everything is done right.
