ASUS Rampage III Black Edition review - Page 1

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 04/07/2011 01:00 PM [ ] 0 comment(s)

ASUS Rampage III Black Edition

If one thing is a fact then it's that the X58 chipset is technology that keeps on living on the edge. Quick match tells me that the X58 chipset is now roughly two and a half years old. And it is still alive and very much kicks ass big-time! While P67 for Sandy Bridge is the equivalent kickass product, the X58 based motherboards give you some advantages, and that would be the Core i7 socket 1366 processor, including the 6-core Nehalem based processors of course.

What surprises me is that X58 is like a Duracell battery, you know the commercial with the bunny that keeps on going? That's X58 and that's also the reason why we still see new motherboard designs based on X58.

Some add USB 3.0 and SATA 6G while others take it even further. Such a manufacturer is ASUS, they are launching the ASUS Rampage III Black Edition and it just has to be one of the most exclusive X58 motherboards we have ever had our hands on.

I'm not joking here, this motherboard is ridiculous (in the good sense of the word). My first hint was when I took the product out of the packaging, the motherboard is seriously heavy, and then you start checking the features and tick them off your wish list, it's all there man.

Specifications
Socket	Socket 1366
Chipset	Intel X58
FSB/QPI	6.4 GT/s
Memory	DDR3
Slots	6
Audio	7.1
LAN	10/100/1000 Mbps
NICS	2
FireWire	-
USB	11 x USB 2.0
Form factor	ATX
Special	3x SLI / 4x CrossFire Support
Serial ATA	6 x Serial ATA II 300
PCI-E x1	2 x
PCI-E x16	4 x
USB 3.0	4 x USB 3.0
Serial ATA III	2 x Serial ATA III
Maximum memory	48 GB

Improved overclockability, black design (including a black colored BIOS). The spec-sheet might read pretty similar to last year's Rampage III Extreme, but there have been a few tweaks alright. The board now sports a quartet of PCIe x16 slots capable of supporting three-way SLI or four-way CrossFireX, support for 24GB DDR3 at speeds of up to 2,200MHz and then the fun begins, USB 3.0, SATA 6G, a ThunderBolt add-on card that integrates Xonar sound as well as BigFoot's Killer NPU.

According to Asus, the audio provided by Xonar gives sound quality that is four times better than a regular sound card. The design of the heatsinks and VRMs are also redesigned and yeah, in addition to that more tweaks are to be found under the hood.

Boom boom POW everybody, let's go check 'r out... next page please.

ASUS Rampage III Black Edition

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