Early Look: Asus Rampage II Extreme

First off, there's the Extreme OC section that features the same "TweatIT" toggle switches as the original Rampage Extreme

uhm , should that say Tweak?

Now you guys really seem to like this board...

Originally Posted by Gremlin
uhm , should that say Tweak?

Yes, thank you for the spot/heads up. ;)

Greetings!

Maybe I missed it, but you should say its an EATX MB.

Originally Posted by Tim S
Yes, thank you for the spot/heads up. ;)

no worries mate , i had a good laugh at it anyway, i first read it as 'teat it'

you guys should throw random errors like that in articles just to see who's paying attention it'd be a great laugh

Originally Posted by impar
Greetings!

Maybe I missed it, but you should say its an EATX MB.

By the looks of it, it's not true e-ATX but more ATX that hangs over by a centimetre (correct me if I'm wrong Tim!)

Originally Posted by Aterius Gmork
Now you guys really seem to like this board...

Personally it's not for me, but I do accept there are those who will find their pants somewhat tighter looking at it.

Looks cool lol.

I am really confused:

A) I see two different boards with article text focused on one board
B) I see one board with two different hardware setups with article text focused on one board
C) I See one board with two different hardware setups with two articles focused on the two different hardware setups

I think it is C but I am so confuses right now, I don't know whats what anymore...

The board is not a true E-ATX but its larger than ATX. About the pictures, its not different motherboards but one has, what i assume, is the final cooling solution and the other is the prototype.

All this talk about the memory voltage being linked/bound to the cpu with nehalemn... Can you guys confirm why it says QPI/DRAM on one measure point? From the picture it almost seems like the QPI is on the same plane as DRAM.

Originally Posted by SuperNova

All this talk about the memory voltage being linked/bound to the cpu with nehalemn... Can you guys confirm why it says QPI/DRAM on one measure point? From the picture it almost seems like the QPI is on the same plane as DRAM.

bit worrying isn't it. I really can't see many people wanting to shell out £300+ on a motherboard that simply CANNOT take the most expensive and fastest DDR3 out there. I read somewhere yesterday that Asus have said 1.65V is the most they will reccommend anyone using, yet the 2000Mhz DDR3 tri-channel kits (which are only for X58 mobos i believe) have rated voltages at 2.0V and above. How can this be... something to do with the now on-board memory controller in the Nahelem CPUs??

So what is that CPU Power Card next to the northbridge heatsink?

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aterius Gmork
Now you guys really seem to like this board...

Personally it's not for me, but I do accept there are those who will find their pants somewhat tighter looking at it.

Yep pants are some what tighter just now after reading this article ... :D

Originally Posted by djDEATH
bit worrying isn't it. I really can't see many people wanting to shell out £300+ on a motherboard that simply CANNOT take the most expensive and fastest DDR3 out there. I read somewhere yesterday that Asus have said 1.65V is the most they will reccommend anyone using, yet the 2000Mhz DDR3 tri-channel kits (which are only for X58 mobos i believe) have rated voltages at 2.0V and above. How can this be... something to do with the now on-board memory controller in the Nahelem CPUs??

You won't be able to use 2.0V memory, you'll have to buy specific lower voltage DDR3.

But, just, wait for the final product reviews to explain :)

Oooooooo. Looks very nice. How much though? £350+ I'm betting.

nice looking board but i'm sceptical about the new intel chips and linkages with slower memory, i'll be waiting for bt's review before i go looking for the cheapest vesion of this board or the x48 equivalent!

peace

fatman

Hmmm, RoG? $500 USD would be my guess when it first emerges. Nifty motherboard though, still curious for a write-up on the MSI X58 Eclipse though.

There's one here: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/08/26/early-look-msi-x58-eclipse/1

;)

Originally Posted by Tim S
There's one here: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/08/26/early-look-msi-x58-eclipse/1

;)

PAH! Preview my behind (see what I did there?) ... I'd like a full in-depth review w/ benchmarks with those new Nehalem CPU's. Comon' Bindi, comon' Tim! Break the NDA! Release the beast within!

if only we could :-)

You'll hear about it all as soon as we can release info

Originally Posted by Jasio
Release the beast within!

You want a review of an immature BIOS that won't represent the final product? :-/ That's why any "performance numbers" posted to date is likely to be heavily inaccurate once everyone tunes the nuts off their BIOS' in time for the real launch.

So what is the differences between the P6T Deluxe and the Rampage II Extreme
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/08/21/asus-p6t-deluxe-next-generation-x58-motherb/1
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/10/07/early-look-asus-rampage-ii-extreme/2

It looks like the Rampage II Extreme is basically the same thing but without SAS but with a crappier version of the external pda thing and some instant multimeter slots for noobs like me that would not know otherwise where to get the reading without asking the internets for help.

Also, there has got to be a way to remove those other heatsinks, those of us that want to do crazy cooling have got to be able to do it some how. The bad thing is that if they are really hard to remove other companies might not make aftermarket heat sinks forcing us to custom fab.

Originally Posted by djDEATH

bit worrying isn't it. I really can't see many people wanting to shell out £300+ on a motherboard that simply CANNOT take the most expensive and fastest DDR3 out there. I read somewhere yesterday that Asus have said 1.65V is the most they will reccommend anyone using, yet the 2000Mhz DDR3 tri-channel kits (which are only for X58 mobos i believe) have rated voltages at 2.0V and above. How can this be... something to do with the now on-board memory controller in the Nahelem CPUs??

The reason for the lower voltage is that otherwise you blow up the i7 processor.

"Overclockers looking to bolster their new Nehalem CPUs with overclocked memory may be disappointed. Intel is telling motherboard manufacturers not to encourage people to push the voltage of their DIMMs beyond 1.65V, as anything higher could damage the CPU. This will come as a blow to owners of enthusiast memory, such as Corsair's 2.133MHz DDR3 Dominator RAM, which needs 2V to run at its full speed with 9-9-9-24 timings."

Is it me that thinks the pricing of the x58 motherboards is way beyond anything that was before. The MSI Eclipse costs 343 euro, the Asus even more.

According to Intel the core i7 is 52% faster then the core2 quad. Yeah right! probably in 640x480 with all eye candy off, or a synthetic benchmark tool like 3dmark vantage cpu only with quadcore hypert. support.

Well, we see if this is all true when the trustworthy boys at BT do some core i7 benching ;)

The DFI board and gigabyte board looks nice though:
http://images.tweaktown.com/imagebank/news_dfi-x58ut-exclusive-01l.png
http://www.overclock3d.net/gfx/articles/2008/10/07111920272l.jpg

cinebench:
http://images.hardware.info/extcontent/messages_normal/00339723.jpg

pifast:
http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/8884/pi8bf85b7fdm7.jpg

Gibo benches @ overclockers form:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17916507
So you got a very expensive motherboard, very expensive memory times 3 (triple ddr3) and a expensive processor. It is a win win win situation for all hardware parties. Except the consumer whom, with the current bank/credit crisis, is wisely holding money in the pocket for times to come.

I have actually been saving up for the release of these parts for a few years. The collapse of our economy is not going to stop me now :(

On the bright side, at least I will be sure to have one of the best pc's out there b/c no one else can buy them.


I wonder when the memory manufactures will start coming out with super low latency ram for this thing...

what is the max ram speed available then? It says max. ram 1800(OC) I assume stands for overclocked, but does that mean a 1333 or a 1066 overclocked to 1800 OR does it simply mean 1800 and that 1800 is overclockable...?