Asus - Rampage III Extreme review
almost perfect enthusiasts' motherboard
Review date: 20 May, 2010. Review by: IT Reviews Staff
And in the case of the latest flagship board for the Intel ROG family, the Rampage III Extreme, it's not only the box that's stuffed with goodies: the board is, too, so much so that there's no PCB real estate left to add anything else.
Mind you, a quick glance at the specifications would leave you wondering exactly what else Asus could have added besides the proverbial kitchen sink, as the Rampage III Extreme is one of the most feature-rich motherboards we have seen. With its £329 price tag, this is a board for a niche market, namely people who enjoy torturing CPUs to within an inch of their lives by overclocking, or those who want to build extreme PCs regardless of cost. Both categories are brilliantly served by the Rampage III Extreme.
The build quality of the board is superb, and it looks the part too in its red and black ROG colour scheme. There are some neat design touches all over the board, one of which is the use of single-sided DIMM slots which have a locking latch on just one end, which means the six memory slots (supporting up to 24GB RAM) can be placed closer to the PCI-E graphics card slots than normal. This is handy as the Rampage III Extreme has four, yes you read that right, four PCI-E graphics card slots. The four slots support both CrossFireX and SLI technologies, ideal for ultra gaming or workstation use.
Built around Intel's Socket 1366 and X58/ICH10 chipset combo, the board uses passive cooling throughout, the heatsinks themselves look like something out of the Tate Modern, and should you want to overclock the Northbridge far beyond the call of duty, there is a separate heatsink complete with a 40mm cooling fan bundled in the box.
For any serious overclocking, a motherboard needs stable power and Asus has looked after this area very carefully, with high end components used throughout the power design of the board including solid capacitors and all-ferrite core chokes. These not only help keep the board running stably, they also help in keeping the thermals of the board under control.
Overclockers also need a highly tweakable BIOS, and once again Asus has provided not only that but also a dual chip switchable BIOS. By using the small red button on the board you can switch between the BIOSes so you can have a normal rock-steady system for everyday use and another separate one for when you want to have fun. By pressing another tiny red button on the board you can get it to boot even if there are compatibility problems between the board and any memory you are using: pressing the button gets the board to automatically sort out the memory timings to allow it to boot. A nice touch.
Bundled in the box is a Bluetooth module which is for perhaps the coolest thing about the board: ROG Connect. Using either Bluetooth or a cable (supplied in the box) you can connect the board to a laptop, another PC or even a PDA and from the comfort of your favourite comfy chair dynamically control (apart from the CPU multiplier) all the board settings.
Future proofing is helped by a pair of SATA 6GB/s ports which, together with the six SATA 3GB/s ports, should provide enough storage possibilities for most, while on the back I/O panel sits a pair of USB 3.0 ports together with another six USB 2.0 ports.
With its very high price tag, this board is aimed fairly and squarely at professional enthusiasts and overclockers, who can get the best out of the myriad of overclocking features provided for them, and for them it's very nearly the perfect motherboard.
Verdict
It's difficult to recommend a motherboard that costs the almost same as a complete value end system, but for the small niche of users that the Asus Rampage III Extreme is aimed at, it is very nearly the perfect motherboard, so for them it's highly recommended. For the rest of us, it's an excellent example of what can be done with motherboard design these days.
Company: Asus
Contact: 01442 202 700
