ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition X79 review - Introduction

ASUS ROG Rampage IV - Once you go black ..

ASUS recently released an update to their Rampage IV series motherboards with a black edition. It's big, fast, black and has tweaking written all over it. The board is just gorgeous and totally pimped out with an OC dock and even stuff like Wireless AC. Today we review the product armed with a Core i7 4960X (Ivy Bridge-E) processor onto this seriously high-end LGA2011 infrastructure. Can we overclock it? Yes we can! The motherboard is of course powered by the X79 chipset, which received a new boost once Ivy Bridge-E was released. We will test the Rampage IV Black Edition with an Intel Core i7-4960X (Ivy Bridge-E) which is an update to the true high-end six-core processor series aimed at consumers. A processor that is now smaller, based on 22nm technology that comes with most of the bells and whistles we have learned to like and love of the initial Ivy Bridge processor generation.

The Rampage IV Black Edition is an E-ATX form factor motherboard based on the Intel LGA 2011 Core i7 infrastructure (Ivy Bridge-E) processors. Armed with eight DIMM sockets it can hold a nice 64GB of DRAM (DDR3 2800MHz+, overclocked) and it supports up to 4-way graphics card (multi-GPU) setups.

The Rampage IV Black Edition is a whole new product, so do not compare it with the previous model really. 

General features:

• Ivy Bridge-E optimized design
• The only ROG with an all-black color-scheme.
• SupremeFX with WIMA and ELNA capacitors, OpAmp headphone amplifier and 120dB SNR.
• Sonic Radar software
• Extreme Engine DIGI+ III (VRM design)
• 802.11ac Wi-Fi
• 12 SATA [8 SATA 6Gbps]
• 8 USB 3.0
• USB BIOS Flashback
• 2013 UEFI updates, including Secure Erase, Last Modified Log, Quick Note and ROG Pulse

Obviously being an ASUS motherboard the product comes with an Extreme Engine DIGI+ III voltage-regulator module (VRM) for stable power delivery and benefits from SupremeFX Black, for audio that’s as great as a high-end dedicated sound card. Rampage IV Black Edition’s Extreme Engine DIGI+ III voltage-regulator module (VRM) provides highly precise and stable power delivery by employing NexFET MOSFETs, 60A (amp) chokes and high-endurance Japanese-made 10K black metallic capacitors. As well, the motherboard’s awesome black-themed heat-sink is exclusively cleverly integrated with the MOSFET area and extends to the input/output (I/O) cover for even better cooling and stability.

Next page please, oh and please do enjoy the mobo sweetness...