Tuesday, July 8th 2008
Pictures Emerge of the ASUS Rampage Extreme
This motherboard board looks a work of art, simply put. The ASUS Rampage Extreme is the upscale version of ASUS' ROG line Intel X48 chipset based motherboard, the Rampage Formula. Although Rampage Formula resembled the X38 based Maximus Forumla in many ways, to an extant that you could use the Rampage Formula BIOS with Maximus Formula, don't expect the same with Rampage Extreme and its predecessor. This board features the X48 chipset, supports DDR3 memory, features a total of 16 CPU-power phases, water-cooling ready, out of the box. Apart from the plethora of features the ROG series products come with, this board bundles the SupremeFX X-Fi sound module which supports PCI-Express X-Fi Audio. It supports ATI Crossfire at full x16, x16 PCI-Express 2.0 mode.
Here's the most interesting feature: You can tweak system parameters on the board using a feature called TweakIt. This makes you adjust your overclock using special controls located on the board, keep track of the settings you're making using the LCD poster. The board is rich in heatsinks, ample cooling is provided to the MOSFETs surrounding the CPU area and above the memory area. Expect this to be priced anything above US $250.
Here's the most interesting feature: You can tweak system parameters on the board using a feature called TweakIt. This makes you adjust your overclock using special controls located on the board, keep track of the settings you're making using the LCD poster. The board is rich in heatsinks, ample cooling is provided to the MOSFETs surrounding the CPU area and above the memory area. Expect this to be priced anything above US $250.
51 Comments on Pictures Emerge of the ASUS Rampage Extreme
Asides, though, I don't think ASUS have a xonar style riser card available yet, whereas Creative does, and ADI does as well with the SoundMax riser, and seeing as how Creative still hold the title for audio gaming performance, they're a perfect shoe-in in the eyes of consumers.
They only support 2 PCI-E 2.0 x16 slots. Another PCI-E Grapics port can be added using the left over PCI-E lanes provided by the chipset. The x38/X48 chipset provides 38 PCI-E lanes. 32 of those are used up by the 2 x16 graphics ports, that leaves just 6 for the rest of the components. Another lane is used up by the audio card on this board, that leaves 5. Another is used up by the IDE controller, that leave 4. Chances are ASUS also using another lane for the Mavell Gigabit LAN controller, that leaves 3. So with this board, best case, is that you get a third PCI-E Graphics slot that is physically x16, but electrically only x1(because you can only have x1, x4, x8, or x16). Not a good thing, and performance would be terrible with any graphics card plugged into that port. ASUS has already done this with the P5E3 Premium, the third slots works as an x4 if you have nothing plugged into the white PCI-E x1 slot, and x1 if you do. You are already taking a performance hit dropping down to x4, the hit taken dropping down to x1 is horrible.
They also could have split the two graphics ports up and added a third, so that when the third card is plugged in, two of the slots share the x16 and it gives you triple CrossfireX at x16/x8/x8, however then people would complain that it does give true x16/x16 CrossfireX and it make the board design a lot more complicated, which translates to even higher prices on a board that is already extremely highly prices.
You should email newegg and let them know they should reword some stuff.
Also, don't get mad at someone because they didn't know what you MEANT to say.clearly all I was saying is it DOES support 3 pci e lanes so lighten up.
you LOSE! good DAY sir! (j/k :P)
What I meant to say was pretty easy to figure out. I was responding to DOM, I even quoted him in my post to make that clear, he was referring to the board only having 2 PCI-E Graphics Ports, therefor I was talking about the chipset only supporting 2 PCI-E graphics ports. How is that hard to follow?
Let it go and stop trolling. Also, keep it in the thread relavent to the discussion. Stop posting this in a ps3 update thread lmfao.
You simply didn't word what you meant to say completely, and i corrected it.
That is all.
But I thought since there was 4x CF whats the point if there not all full x16 lanes :ohwell:
It lists it as 3 x16 slots, but what I think that means is, alone or paired they are x16, but if all 3 are used at once, only 2 can be x16 while one remains x4.
lololol
What I don't get is why ASUS didn't give the board 4 PCI-E x16 slots, and just have them all run at x8 when bore than 2 cards are used. The market on the Intel side for a good CrossfireX board that can take 4 cards is all but dead.
Edit: The third slot on the Foxconn BlackOps x48 is an actually an x4 slot. The only place they confirm this is on page 14 of the manual. I couldn't find it anywhere on their site, which is not a good thing.
I dont know when you'd use the third slot without first using the first 2, but what I think is, each slot is simply CAPABLE of x16 on it's own. Technically they haven't written anything false, but it's kind of misleading.
It was the most expensive board i have ever bought.
This board comes off as nothing but a gimmick platform.
Damn I remember when I payd $220 for my A8NSLI Deluxe board when it was just about to come on the market, lol. Thats the last time I think I'll be "bleeding edge" for a while. It was expensive and had several bugs to fix.
I'll probably stick with a 780i or somewhat older 790i for now.
The ports over the NSB, though, allow you to hookup liquid cooling for extreme OCing, or simply improved mobo cooling, without the need to have to find an aftermarket NSB cooler, SSB cooler and having to jimmy-rig something for the mosfets and VRMs
Also, on a full-liquid setup, ASUS boards come with mini-fans that typically attach over the mosfets coolers to help keep all that cool as well. Those fans, though, will typically interfere with an air-powered CPU cooler.