Tuesday, September 10th 2013
ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition: The Ultimate LGA2011 Motherboard
Dear Oxford English Dictionary, instead of wasting time adding 'twerking', once you see this you'll want to redefine epic instead! Check the spec and engineering pride below and you'll understand that the new Rampage IV Black Edition is the ultimate LGA2011 motherboard, and the ideal companion for a new Ivy Bridge-E (4th Generation LGA2011) CPU.
Though not to be confused with the previous (non-real product) Rampage IV Extreme in black, the official Rampage IV Black Edition is a whole new product you can buy with a full stack of 2013 ROG innovations. The ROG team went through 5 full layout designs to find the best possible 8 DIMM memory layout topology, and where the ROG team was working on the five new Z87 boards in the first half on this year, that whole team has focused efforts on just the Black Edition this time around!General features:
Though not to be confused with the previous (non-real product) Rampage IV Extreme in black, the official Rampage IV Black Edition is a whole new product you can buy with a full stack of 2013 ROG innovations. The ROG team went through 5 full layout designs to find the best possible 8 DIMM memory layout topology, and where the ROG team was working on the five new Z87 boards in the first half on this year, that whole team has focused efforts on just the Black Edition this time around!General features:
- Ivy Bridge-E optimized design
- The only ROG with an all-black color-scheme.
- SupremeFX Formula [2013] 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 (see more on our innovations page)
20 Comments on ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition: The Ultimate LGA2011 Motherboard
It’s the ultimate in tech exclusivity as they will never go on sale.
While it’s NOT an official Black Edition, we’ve affectionately dubbed it the Rampage IV Extreme – Black."
Wish it was something they actually sold, but that would be asking too much from the socket 2011 line. Sigh.
Edit:
WTF? Linked to a magic board that is rarer than unicorn horns? I stand corrected. I want the one that actually exists. I feel a $600 street price coming on though... Especially digging that passively cooled PCH.
BTW when did black on block on black become sexy, expecially on a piece of PC hardware? It's a mobo ferchrissakes. :wtf:
this would look somn' sweet with an Aries II sitt'n up in one of those pcie slots...
:rockout:
that would be nice if Asus went back to their own creation and in house manufacturing Pegatron.
the other Deluxe board Asus announced looks like an ASRock too.
I don't like the idea of ECS (you know that company? who sells $29.95 motherboards) making Asus boards.
I own a Rampage IV Gene none the less... and didn't learn of the separation from Taiwanese Pegatron in the name of the almighty dollar until after purchase.
ASRock has become Asus' main competitor in such a short time... I am curious where they will be at by Skylake.
I prefer a component's aesthetic to be eye-catching (albeit tastefully) rather than monochrome. I own an ASRock Z87 motherboard which is black with some gold and while I like the features I don't like the color scheme. I liked ASUS's previous blue/aqua/white combination because it was eye-catching it was still tasteful, but that got abandoned in order to make newer products look different from the previous generation (not better, just different). They don't use "extreme" in the model name for nothing, but I'd bet the price is even higher than that. However, I doubt the PCH is passively cooled. Look at the pictures more closely and it looks like there is an integrated fan with a removable cover over it.