During CES, Tim Smalley from bit-tech was kind enough to interview our friend Hans Wolfram Tismer from EVGA Europe regarding the specs, pricing and availability of the company's upcoming EVGA X58 SLI Classified 141-BL-E759-A1 motherboard.

In his video interview, Wolfram suggested the board would be available in the US and Europe after Chinese New Year, but not until the end of February or beginning of March. According to Wikipedia, the Year of the Ox will begin on January 26, 2009 which leaves us wondering why a late Q1 release was suggested.

On another note, the original EVGA X58 SLI was launched on November 17, 2008 and according to EVGA will be qualified for Step-Up to the upcoming Classified model.  However, a release date past mid-February would suggest that early adopters looking to upgrade will be left out in the cold, as the company's Step-Up program is only valid up to 90 days upon original purchase.

The expected pricing on the X58 SLI Classified will be $450 in the US and €450 incl. VAT in Europe.  Let us emphasize the fact that the current board is only $299.99 to assert that there will definitely be a price premium to be paid.  Besides, the new board does in fact contain three times more gold in the motherboard CPU socket than Intel's standard reference design, allowing for improved conductivity.

Nonetheless, with a team of six world class engineers under the instruction of legendary overclocking champion Shamino, this board is destined to set new world records in the first half of this year.

Tim Smalley's interview with EVGA Europe can be found here.