Asus Rampage II Gene Review

Can't finish reading right now, but I quickly noticed this on the first page:

"Six1.5V DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 24GB of memory"

I thought X58 mobos had 1.8V slots?

DDR = 2.5v JEDEC std.
DDR2 = 1.8v JEDEC std.
DDR3 = 1.5v JEDEC std.

Doesn't look a bad board overall.

I had the chance to play with this board few weeks ago, nice but the northbridge chipset runs a little hot.

I bought this board for a build in April - still sitting on my shelf ;)

If you want a reasonably small, bleeding edge system, thats what this board is for.

I'd like to see a graph of "enthusiast" motherboard price vs release date along with BiT value score vs release date.

It seems boards are getting much much more expensive. I remember when an enthusiast board would be ~£100 and no they're pushing nearly double that.

Some of the 'more enthusiast' enthusiast boards are pushing triple that. (EVGA Classified...) :(

Dang that's a looker. I'm starting to feel like my next mobo will be a mATX sized one. What really is the point of full sized ATX anymore? It's not like most would ever go even SLI, let alone three-way-thing.

I don't see the point in a full-sized mobo now, never use all the pci slots and don't see myself with an sli system. And the huge cases are a bit much

I like a big case, but mainly for airflow, so a mATX would still go in my full-tower. It looks like a nice board, but asus refuses to use NB coolers. I'm recommend finding a quiet fan and mounting it to any asus board. I LOVED my ASUS P5ND2-SLI, but the NB ran hot enough to give me a hefty first degree burn. When i called ASUS about the temps they said it was normal. For that reason I pretty much stopped buying ASUS boards. temps are too high for my tastes. My EVGA 780i FTW runs 37C board / 38C cpu / 60C NB and that's where I like to keep it. the 60C took me modding the heatsink and putting a bigger fan on it than EVGA ships, but it's ice cold now.

Looks like a nice board, I've always had rock solid stability with ASUS boards, and they're not nearly as finicky as other brands. I regard ASUS as a slap-and-go board maker. Not sure where i got off topic here, A.D.D. must've kicked in, but yeah - add a fan to that heatsink and it should be a sexy board.

Originally Posted by Paradigm Shifter
DDR = 2.5v JEDEC std.
DDR2 = 1.8v JEDEC std.
DDR3 = 1.5v JEDEC std.

Doesn't look a bad board overall.

Thanks for clearing that up, but something about DDR3 and 1.8V clicks together IIRC.. Read the rest, and I still prefer the DFI... Great job for ASUS though, as usual. If only X58 would show up in a smaller form factor (somehow) :-|

(I know about the Shuttle X58, but that thing is freaking $640! Case + mobo + PSU + HSF are included, but still, ~4x more than my Shuttle?!?)

For a cheaper alternative, there is also the MSI X58M priced at around £130/$180. Reviews on tech sites have been very favourable.

"cheap" "MSI"

Yeah what ever. Personal favors and experiences, I suppose, but I ain't getting another MSI for as long as there are other options.

I own this board as the first batch in France , march
It is used with i7 920-C0 + Noctua C12P + 3 x Corsair 2GB 5-5-4 or 1600Mhz 8-8-8
+ HD4850 fanless GPU etc all enclosed into a Lian Li PC-V351B mATX only case

Every things runs fine but hot !!!
CPU from 41 to 83•C / IOH 66 to 77•C / ICH 53 to 65•C

Has been stable OCed up more than 133x200 Mhz