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ASUS Rampage II Extreme (Intel X58)

Author: Date: 25.01.2009

Another motherboard based on the Intel X58 chipset has appeared in the Moscow retail: this is the model Rampage II Extreme made by ASUS. This motherboard is an uncompromised high-end product of the Republic of Gamers series and stands out with its powerful expansion options, a wide selection of overclocking tools, and supports most of the ASUS technologies. This board stands out among all the competitors with two more parameters: it offers extraordinarily large dimensions in its class as well as the record-high price (which on the moment of tests amounted to $270-$300). Within this material, we'll try to find out how justified the price is.

ASUS Rampage II Extreme Specifications

Package

The box with the ASUS Rampage Extreme board is pretty massive and has a handle to carry it around:

The upper "page" of the box tips up, and the board itself is visible through a transparent window:

Inside the box, the buyer will find two more boxes: one with the board, the other one with additional items:

Package bundle

The package bundle includes the following items:

• motherboard;
• User's Manual in English;
• 1x software & drivers DVD;
• one ATA133 cable;
• 6x SerialATA cables + a power supply adapter (2 connectors);
• a bracket for 2 additional USB 2.0 ports and a Firewire port;
• a sticker with the ASUS Republic of Gamers logo;
• kit of additional connectors;
• a cap for the rear panel of the housing;
• SLI/3-Way SLI bridges;
• additional fan;
• LCD Poster module;
• kit of clamps;
• three external thermal sensors;
• Probelt cables;
• SupremeFX sound card.

On the whole, the board's package bundle produces a nice impression. Especially pleased will be enthusiasts for whom ASUS has prepared a lot of useful things. Among them are three thermocouples with which one can keep track of the temperature in the remote parts of the PC housing. The board also comes bundled with a pair of Probelt cables which facilitate monitoring of voltages with a multimeter, and an additional fan.

For the convenience of assembly, there are clamps as well as Q-Connectors. As regards the standard items, they are of a regular kit: six SerialATA cables (with one power supply adapter), a PATA cable, a cap to the rear panel, and a bracket for two additional USB2.0 and one FireWire ports. Certainly, one would have to buy some extra items, but in general the kit is good enough.

The user's manual has nothing to complain about. We also note that the bundled DVD contains a complete kit of all the required drivers and ASUS' proprietary utilities (including the drivers for 32- and 64-bit Windows versions, drivers for Linux). Besides, the disk contains Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0, Ulead Burn.Now 4.5, Corel MediaOne Starter, Ulead PhotoImpact 12 SE, CyberLink PowerBackup, and WinZip 11. We note it separately that the disk contains the licensed version of Futuremark 3DMark Vantage.

The package bundle is complete with an external LCD Poster module, as well as an external sound card.

ASUS Rampage II Extreme: Layout and Features

In the review of ASUS P6T-Deluxe, we talked that the LGA 1366 PCB design is rich in contents. In particular, the CPU socket starts taking up more space, and more space is required for a powerful voltage converter. At the same time, all LGA1366 boards are high-end products and thus they are supposed to support all the modern technologies and offer powerful expansion options. Of course, all the additional controllers require space on the board, as is the case with varied ports and connectors. Lastly, almost all motherboards based on the X58 chipset are equipped with six slots for memory modules. In the end, the struggle is increasingly fierce. In particular, on P6T-Deluxe the engineers have installed a vertical battery (an old trick), and on the ECS X58B-A they fully removed support for the ParallelATA and FDD.

As regards the Rampage II Extreme, engineers at ASUS while developing it have increased the board's dimension by an inch, which not only did not help resolve the problem, but also helped install a number of interesting components.

The system assembly is fast and trouble-free. In particular, there is no blocking of DIMM slots latches by the PCI Express video card, with the power connectors positioned conveniently over the board's edges: 24-pin - on the bottom edge, with a 8-pin on the right-hand.

We note that the board has retained a backward compatibility to the "old" PSUs and allows using them with 20+4 cables. At the same time, the unused pins of the additional connector are closed with a plastic lid.

Near the CPU socket, there is a 4-pin CPU_FAN connector for a matching cooler.

Besides it, there are seven more 3-pin connectors: OPT_FAN1 and OPT_FAN3 - near the rear panel, CHA_FAN3 - in the upper right-hand corner of the board, CHA_FAN1 and PWR_FAN - near the DIMM slots, with CHA_FAN2 and OPT_FAN2 on the left-hand edge of the board.

On the north bridge, there is a massive radiator connected to the radiators on the power supply module with a heat pipe. The base of the radiator on the north bridge is integral with the radiator of the south bridge.

Note that the radiator on the north bridge is detachable, which allows installing a water-block in its stead:

Moreover, the cooling efficiency can be improved through installation of an additional fan on one of the PWM radiators, which is available in the package bundle.

Another point to note: if we remove the decorative module with the Republic of Gamers logo, under it we can find a small board with power components to apply voltage to the memory controller.

Under the north bridge, there are six 240-pin DIMM slots for DDR3 memory modules. They are partitioned into groups of two slots, with the alternating colors. In the end, to enable the triple-channel mode, you've got to install modules into slots of the same color (an option with three modules).

The board supports DDR3-1066/1333/1600 memory, and the maximum memory capacity makes 12 GB. Once voltage is applied to the board, illumination of the buttons as well as the logo on the radiator of the north bridge lights up.

There are three PCI Express Graphic slots (all with latches) onboard, which are meant for video cards.

Installation of video cards should be started from the first slot. With one video card installed, 16 lanes of the PCI Express v2.0 bus are allocated to it, and eight lanes - to the second and third slots. Expansion cards can be also installed into them. In installing two video cards, 16 bus lanes are allocated to them, and only one - to the third PEG slot. Therefore, the 16+16+1 scheme has been implemented. With the installation of three video cards the 16+16+1 scheme is also possible, but the most optimum mode in terms of performance is the 16+8+8 scheme of lanes distribution.

Expansion options

ASUS Rampage II Extreme uses the ICH10R south bridge with a radiator. In the end, the board supports 6 SerialATA II ports and allows merging disks into RAID arrays of levels 0,1,5 and 10. The ports are painted blue and orientated in parallel to the board's plane.

Besides, the motherboard supports one Parallel ATA link with an additional JMB363 controller made by JMicron. This chip also supports two SerialATA II links, one of which is brought over to the rear panel, with the other one positioned in the left-hand corner of the board. Therefore, as many as 10 hard disks (8 SATA + 2 PATA) altogether can be plugged in to ASUS Rampage II Extreme.

Then, the board uses 12 USB 2.0 ports - six on the rear panel, with 6 more plugged in with brackets (the board comes bundled with only 1 bracket for 2 ports). Besides, the motherboard supports the IEEE1394 ("Firewire"). For that, there is an additional onboard VT6308P controller made by VIA. Therefore, the board offers support for 2 Firewire ports: one mounted on the rear panel, with the other one connected with a plate (available in the package bundle).

ASUS Rampage II Extreme offers 8-channel integrated Intel High Definition Audio, with AD2000B chip used as the codec. Remember that the audio subsystem is implemented on a separate board (available in the package bundle). A few words on the network support: the board uses two high-speed Marvell 88E8056 (Gigabit Ethernet) network controllers connected to the PCI Express (x1) bus.

Both the RJ-45 connectors are brought over to the rear panel which has the following configuration:

Engineers at ASUS have completely given up support for the LPT and COM ports. On the other hand, there is an abundance of USB2.0 ports, a FireWire port, a SerialATA II, as well as a button to clear the CMOS settings, and a connector to plug in the LCD Poster. As regards the PS/2 port, there is only one, but it allows plugging in a keyboard only. Besides that, the board uses buttons to power-on and reboot the system, as well as a joystick and a pair of buttons for the LCD Poster.

Under the buttons, there are contacts to keep track of voltages with a voltmeter.

Traditionally, here is the diagram of components:

The are two jumpers on ASUS Rampage II Extreme: the CLRTC is used to clear the CMOS settings, as well as a jumper to select the BIOS chip forcedly. The thing is, the board uses two BIOS chips, so the user can specify the active if necessary.

Now on to the BIOS settings.

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	Content:
	Page 1 - Specifications. Expansion options Page 2 - BIOS, monitoring. Overclocking Page 3 - Performance. Final Words Top Stories: MoBo: ECS X58B-A (Intel X58) ASUS Rampage II Extreme (Intel X58) MSI DKA790GX and ECS A780GM-A Ultra MSI P7NGM (NVIDIA GeForce 9300) Intel X58 and ASUS P6T Deluxe MSI P45 Neo2 (Intel P45) Foxconn A7GMX-K (AMD 780G) VGA Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 – a new leader in 3D graphics! ECS HYDRA GeForce 9800GTX+. Water-cooled and SLI "all-in-one" Radeon HD 4830 CrossFire - better than Radeon HD 4870! XFX GeForce GTX 260 Black Edition in the SLI mode Leadtek WinFast PX9500 GT DDR2 – better than GeForce 9500GT DDR-3 Palit Radeon HD 4870 Sonic: exclusive, with unusual features Palit HD 4850 Sonic: almost Radeon HD 4870, priced as HD 4850 CPU & Memory: GSkill high-capacity memory modules CPU Intel Core i7-920 (Bloomfield) DDR3 memory: late 2008 CPU AMD Phenom X3 8750 (Toliman) AMD Phenom X4 9850 – a top-end CPU at affordable price CPU Intel Atom 230 (Diamondville) Chaintech Apogee GT DDR3 1600