The Verdict
Well then my fellow hardware gurus, there's no doubt that ASUS has released a brilliant motherboard with the Rampage III Extreme. It's is diverse, it is flexible and when it comes to overclocking it is supreme. Huge plusses are the added USB 3.0 and SATA 6G controllers which both deliver extremely good performance as they have been properly implemented and get the bandwidth to work with that they deserve.
So the implementation and design of the Rampage III Extreme from A to Z is done really well. Now being a Rampage II user ever since the beginning myself I do have to admit that I see a lot of stuff being very similar. Sure we get the new nifty features like ROG connect and the BlueTooth overclocking ... but really who's gonna use that anyway? Certainly not me. So if you already have a X58 motherboard, you need to weigh out really strongly is this motherboard is a worthy upgrade for you. I mean with the Rampage II we got the 980X processor to 4.4 GHz quite easily as well.
Now things are obviously much different if you are new in the market for an X58 motherboard, and if you start from scratch then this motherboard definitely is something to be on the lookout for. Though expensive you'll have everything that your wish list requires and that is a brilliant, feature rich motherboard.
There is one more genre and user group for whom this motherboard will be very attractive, and thet's the professional overclockers. For them the Rampage III extreme is Pandora's box on steroids. I mean, everything from disabling PCIe slots by switch up-to diverting the processor cold-bug when using sub-zero cooling is well thought through. The more advanced overclockers can of course use the niche Bluetooth or ROG Connect feature, but I am still in doubt whether or not these gimps will actually use it either. The OC dashboard that MSI for example offers on their high end Big Bang motherboards does seems to be more convincing and handy as you have something dedicated and guaranteed working without the need for additional hardware. Ah well, that's for you to decide of course.
There are only a few ODMs in the industry that tend to think about everything and with the Rampage III extreme ASUS simply cover mainstream to the über high-end.
This motherboard will come at an astounding (high) price, we expect it to replace the Rampage II at roughly 369 EUR / 400 USD. For the more regular users that price is just hard to justify as it's way overpriced. But for the enthusiast crowd where money does not matter that much .. that's exactly where ASUS brings the best of the best to the table. And for such users this motherboard is a dream come true.
Any dislikes about the motherboard? Well one quirk only; we completely fail to see as to why ASUS continuously only implements one Gigabit LAN port. Seriously, that baffles us. This is the high-end segment, we have an Internet line and then another gateway open to other boxes. Hopefully that will be reconsidered in future revisions as it just does not fit the profile of a motherboard that is the best of the best. But that's all we have to bitch about really ...
The design is beautiful, the options grand, the features even better and rest assured you'll be future proof for a while with SATA6G and USB 3.0. The baseline performance overall was faster compared to the Intel reference board and once you start to overclock .. well the sky is the limit really. What a truly magnificent motherboard this is. If you can and are willing to afford it, we surely like to recommend it.
The Rampage III motherboard has balls of steel, are you man enough to handle it?
Update -- looks like prices are already settling a bit and the board is currently available for 325 EUR here in the EU. Still expensive, but much better.
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