Next Asus ROG board dubbed ‘Sauternes’

Author: Tim Smalley
Published: 15th March 2007
Comments (13) Stumble
Next Asus ROG board dubbed ‘Sauternes’

The next Asus Republic Of Gamers board will be based on Bearlake and is codenamed 'Sauternes'.

Today, we managed to get some information on the next two additions to Asus’ Republic Of Gamers motherboard line-up.

The next two boards added to the company’s high-end motherboard line-up will be based on Intel’s upcoming Bearlake chipset and will follow one another in quick succession.

Bearlake supports both DDR2 and DDR3 memory modules, and that could potentially pose problems for many enthusiasts if motherboard manufacturers only opt to support DDR3 on their new boards. We have witnessed the problems before with the transition from DDR to DDR2, where most Intel motherboards only supported DDR2 modules. This was a problem for enthusiasts, as it meant spending more money in order to get hold of the latest kit.

Thankfully, Asus is going to address this problem with its next Republic Of Gamers board(s) that is currently codenamed ‘Sauternes’. There will be two iterations of the board: one with DDR2 memory slots, and one with DDR3 memory slots. As far as we’re aware, the board is in the early stages of development and the layout isn’t quite finalised yet.

It will support CrossFire with two dual PCI-Express x16 slots and four PCI slots (at the moment). In addition, there will also be some interesting heatpipe technology used on the board. From what we can see in the rather confined spaces where we saw the board, the heatpipe cooling the PWMs along the top of the board actually wrap underneath the PCB and attach to a metal plate on the underside. It looks like an interesting idea, and we can’t wait to see how this works in practice.

Given that Bearlake isn’t due until later this year, don’t expect to see Sauternes anytime soon. It’s good to see that Asus is working on the next board already though, and we’ll bring you more information as and when we get it.

We'll leave you with some pictures and you can discuss the board(s) in our forums.



Quote Fatboy 15th March 2007, 18:35
Is that heatpipe cooler attached onto the pcb?
Quote Techno-Dann 15th March 2007, 18:47
Looks like it goes to the underside of the CPU socket.

A very interesting motherboard... Not to mention the LN cooler setup attached to it. Think ASUS is trying to pitch this one to overclockers?
Quote JazX101 15th March 2007, 20:15
Cooling setup for LN2, very sweet. I wonder if they would be so kind as to ship the board with that! Whole new meaning to the goodies that come alongside
Quote Mankz 15th March 2007, 20:26
We don't need Heatpipe coolers for the underside of the CPU socket!
Quote rowin4kicks 15th March 2007, 20:38
looks like there is goning to be some interesting cooling solutions coming out of these guys soon!
cant wait
Quote 1e8o 15th March 2007, 21:02
this mobo with 2 r600 gpu :P

I want...
Quote Duste 15th March 2007, 22:09
Why couldn't they just do exactly what ECS did with their latest motherboard for Bearlake, where they have both DDR2 and DDR3 on the same board?
Quote Spaceraver 15th March 2007, 22:46
They have support for both DDR2 and DDR3 Duste.
Quote Tim S 15th March 2007, 23:18
There's two separate boards (one with DDR2 and one with DDR3) - I see where you're coming from, but I think Asus is going down the route of people potentially wanting to install 4 DIMMs.

As for the cooling tubes, I think they were there to try and hide the board, as I'm fairly sure it wasn't supposed to be shown. It's as if Asus had a spare space on the stand but didn't have anything to go there. The label above the display was very vague "Intel Chipset, Quad Core CPU, etc" but I dug deeper and got more that confirmed my initial thoughts. ;)
Quote Duste 16th March 2007, 04:13
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spaceraver
They have support for both DDR2 and DDR3 Duste.

In the article, it said one motherboard will support DDR2 and the other will support DDR3.
Quote ralph.pickering 16th March 2007, 14:04
What's up with those copper tube heatsinks on the CPU and GPU? The CPU one appears to have some kind of electrical coil thing going on, which suggests thermo-electric cooling, but it's hard to tell where the heat is dissipated.
Quote 1e8o 16th March 2007, 14:18
Thats liquid nitrogen cooling, there just cilinders where you put the liquid in :D
very very cold about -180 degrees Celcius
Quote Kipman725 16th March 2007, 20:24
I imagain the LN2 is there for testing as the initial test cpu's need cool tempretures to aproch anywhere near stability and have huge power outputs.
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