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Asus Rampage Extreme – Niche New Features
Author: Richard SwinburnePublished: 4th June 2008
The bottom switches on the Asus Rampage are even more elaborate than before.
On the bottom we now have toggle, confirm and a select lever for some on-the-fly overclocking action, apparently even when in Windows and in-game. However reaching into your case while you frag isn’t the easiest thing, but it’s a cool idea that no one else has even remotely come up with yet.
Instead of a line of capacitors or Hi-C caps like MSI use, Asus is now using just one huge Fujitsu low profile 3V-1000uF “bling” capacitor above the memory, under the CPU socket on the back of the board and (we think) for the north bridge under its heatsink too.
The Fusion waterblock is now removable and rocket red in colour, and the PWM heatsink between CPU and rear I/O is heatpiped on its own and is super huge – it’s almost the height of my fist. Again, that’s removable too if you find a cooler incompatibility. The board features the usual EPU and 16-phase CPU power design and even DriveXpert (although we’re not sure why a mainstream solution features on a core enthusiast board), but no ExpressGate.
The bottom heatsink above the south bridge also has space so you can sign your name too. We were told some of the king-pin overclockers out there wanted their name splashed about a little more when people took pics of them reaching records. If there could be whipped cream and a cherry to top off the e-peen, this would be it.
Also on display were a couple of new RoG branded graphics products too - Asus is keen to push this brand ever further across its product ranges.
We ask you – at what point does it all start to get a little too ridiculous, or is it simply a matter of Asus doing something awesome by pushing more and more unique features? Let us know your thoughts, in the forums.
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What a ridiculous piece of kit. Just looking at this thing reminds me of Richard's comment towards the end of his last Asus mobo review ("Why not build boards with features and (low) prices that customers want, not just to have engineering e-peen swinging contests across Taipei?") and makes me wonder about the future of "enthusiast users" wallets.
the semi passive ones? (matrix was it?)
I lost the picture that told me >_< I will go back and check if I have time. I think it maybe 3870/8800 range, but maybe also a technical demonstration of its new cooler style in line with its RoG series.
Yeah, I would like to know as well. Those are cool looking graphics cards...
Amen to that. I mean who needs extreme overclocking anyway with all those quadcores getting used for less then 40% in realworld applications. We just want a cheap (not getting to hot on the chipset) very stable motherboard with good feature set and a good layout for around 100 euros. For example like the Abit IP35 Pro, that was/is a great board, nice layout and for a reasonable price and great features too.
I want one.
Please steal me one, please!
I can do a mean stir-fry when you get back?
mmm, you've been able to do that for years with an abit uGuru mobo used with an uGuru clock or panel & you don't have to reach into your case ...
Also, something that seems a little odd with the graphics cards there, the in-take for the blower seems to be really small? Surey they don't need to close over the area quite as much as that?
Yep, I found out yesterday they are just RoG branded with new heatsinks and offer some auto-overclocking/green features.
Roto - true, but the booth was crowded and I didnt have enough space to take *good* pictures of it all :(
Now wouldnt that be extreme, i mean Intel have done that on their Skulltrial so why not ASUS on this motherboard.
It could however just be a "design" feature and the large heatsink doesnt mean anything. Also we didnt see in those pictures whether the motherboard was actually running those cards in SLI. You could put 2 cards in the Maximus Extreme and out the SLI bridge on, turn it on and it would work but both cards would still be working in SLI disabled mode.
People will need to do their homework before buying this board and not just base their purchase off these pictures as this could just be a ploy by ASUS (or a geniune mistake, they just wanted to show both products off at same time or didnt have any ATI cards handy) to get extra buzz/advertisement about this board by creating speculation on wether this X48 will be able to run SLI, without them actually falsely saying it can.
Look at the on and reset switch. And then look for a picture of the Rampage Extreme's buttons. (right upper corner)
It's a shame though :(
why doesn't all MOSFET cooler look like that? that's a great design! will cool very well comparing to all other short MOSFET coolers that don't get any airflow