EVGA SR-3 Dark Goes Up For Pre-Order At $1,800

EVGA SR-3 Dark

EVGA SR-3 Dark (Image credit: EVGA)

EVGA's SR-3 Dark motherboard, which is engineered specifically for the Intel Xeon W-3175X, is available for pre-order at $1,799.99, $200 off its normal retail price of $1,999.99.

The EVGA SR-3 Dark officially conforms to the E-ATX form factor. The motherboard is carved from a 16-layer PCB with gold-plated edges that supposedly improves overclocking and durability. On top of that, EVGA has equipped the SR-3 Dark with a 24-phase power delivery subsystem. A total of four 8-pin EPS connectors provides the Xeon W-3175X with all the juice that the 28-core chip requires. 

The SR-3 Dark comes with a pre-installed waterblock that cools both the motherboard's C622 chipset and power delivery subsystem. However, watercooling isn't mandatory as the waterblock delivers decent passive cooling, according to EVGA.

The massive LGA3647 socket is surrounded by three DDR4 memory slots on each side. As a result, the SR-3 Dark can house up to 192GB of memory and supports memory speeds over 4,000 MHz. You can pair the motherboard with ECC (error-correcting code) memory like RDIMMs (Registered DIMMs) and LRDIMMs (Load-Reduced DIMMs).

EVGA SR-3 Dark

EVGA SR-3 Dark (Image credit: EVGA)

The motherboard has a generous amount of storage options. It offers six SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports and four sSATA mini-SAS 6.0 Gb/s ports. The controller's featureset includes support for NCQ, TRIM, hot-swap capability, and RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 arrays. There are also two M.2 Key-M 110mm slots, and you even get two U.2 NVMe ports.

In terms of expansion, the EVGA SR-3 Dark flaunts six metal-reinforced PCIe slots. Four are wired x16 electrically, and the remaining two run at x8. The motherboard officially supports up to four Nvidia GeForce graphics cards in a SLI configuration.

Internet connectivity is available through two 10 Gigabit and one Gigabit Ethernet ports. The first two are based of Intel's X557-AT2 controller while the later originates from the I219-LM controller. While we're on the rear panel, the EVGA SR-3 Dark supplies you with eight USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports and two USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports (one Type-A and one Type-C).

The EVGA SR-3 Dark's other notable attributes include eight 4-pin PWM fan headers, PCIe disable switches, triple BIOS, Slow Mode Switch, ProbeIT connectors, Safeboot button, USB BIOS Flash feature, Post indicator and PCIe/DIMM status LEDs.

EVGA backs the SR-3 Dark with a limited three-year warranty.

Zhiye Liu
News Editor and Memory Reviewer

Zhiye Liu is a news editor and memory reviewer at Tom’s Hardware. Although he loves everything that’s hardware, he has a soft spot for CPUs, GPUs, and RAM.

  • Math Geek
    when i grow up i want to be in a position to consider buying such a motherboard.
    Reply
  • hotaru251
    EVGA's Dark series motherboards are some of the best looking imho...sadly with a price to match the beauty.

    someday I also hope they will make an AMD dark series.
    Reply
  • TJ Hooker
    For that price tag you'd think you'd get the full 12 DIMM slots :P
    Reply
  • MoxNix
    "gold-plated edges " ... for that price I'd expect every bit of metal on it to be solid gold, even the screws!
    Reply
  • COLGeek
    As much as I can appreciate "bleeding edge" tech. Wait 6 months after release and get it for a more reasonable price (or snatch a competitors offering once available). That price is ludicrous.
    Reply
  • nofanneeded
    lol $1999 for a motherboard ? for what exactly ? 2% more performance over others ? not justified at all.
    Reply
  • Exploding PSU
    hotaru251 said:
    EVGA's Dark series motherboards are some of the best looking imho...sadly with a price to match the beauty.

    someday I also hope they will make an AMD dark series.

    MSI's Unify seems to be AMD's equivalent of the Dark, at least somewhat...
    Reply
  • D33r
    nofanneeded said:
    lol $1999 for a motherboard ? for what exactly ? 2% more performance over others ? not justified at all.
    You do realize this isn't for normal users that play games right? Big boards like these are perfect for servers and considering its for xeon you should probably know its a server board anyways.
    Reply
  • Math Geek
    D33r said:
    You do realize this isn't for normal users that play games right? Big boards like these are perfect for servers and considering its for xeon you should probably know its a server board anyways.

    not just server board but for a $2000 server cpu as well with a 255w TDP!!! clearly not a "gamer" motherboard
    Reply
  • COLGeek
    Math Geek said:
    not just server board but for a $2000 server cpu as well with a 255w TDP!!! clearly not a "gamer" motherboard
    True, but someone with too much money and too little sense will do it and proclaim PC supremacy. :vomi:
    Reply