ASUS Rampage IV Extreme review -
Product Showcase
Alright, packaging first. The ROG colored box is easy to recognize. In this review we'll use a new 16 GB Quad-channel memory kit from Corsair, this is the red colored (suits the motherboard) Vengeance kit rated at 1866 MHz.
So we can show you the final motherboard, this is the Rampage IV Extreme (R4E) with eight DIMM slots. That would allow you to install a maximum of 64GB of memory actually. The motherboard is has that typical red black ROG style. Outrageous looking hardware really.
Let me first state clearly that this is a large size motherboard as it has the Extended ATX form factor (30.5 x 27.2cm / 12" x 10.7"). So make sure that it firs inside your chassis.
Included in the box next to the motherboards you'll find the defaults like SATA cables, an extra small fan to help you cool down the chipset, IO plate manuals and driver CD. Also 2,3 and 4 way SLI bridges are included as well as that OC Key.
Here you can see the OC key, it's placed in-between your graphics card DVI connector and the monitor. Lovely stuff, but a rather long dongle as we'll show you later on.
ASUS recently released an update to their Rampage IV series motherboards with a black edition. It's big, fast and black and has tweaking written all over it. The board is just gorgeous and totally ...
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme review
The ROG team this time went wild, releasing a motherboard with all the features that last-gen motherboards should have such as USB 3.0 connectivity, Bluetooth, eSATA connectors, SATA 6.0Gbps, and 7.1 channel audio, but the real x-factor of the Rampage IV Extreme can only be found when we look at its overclocking features. Head on over to the next page where we'll discuss the X79 chipset, the respective ASUS model. Then will throw a decent photo-shoot and a benchmark suite at the products and get an indication what performance is like with the Intel Core i7-3960X (Sandy Bridge-E) and X79 Platform.
ASUS Rampage III Black Edition review
ASUS are launching the ASUS Rampage III Black Edition and it just has to be the most exclusive X58 motherboard we have ever had our hands on. 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.
ASUS Rampage III Gene review
Within that motto ASUS has it's own Gene series within the motherboard line up. Now if you put that on the X58 platform, it's called Rampage by ASUS. And then when this apocalyptic group of minions and demons called 'Republic of Gamers' aka ROG gets their hands on a product like this, you can expect improvements and extra overclock features.