Asus Rampage Iii Gene Lga 1366

Asus Rampage III Cistron Motherboard Review

Manufacturer: Asus
UK MSRP (every bit Reviewed): £199 (inc. VAT)
US MSRP (every bit Reviewed): Unknown

The Democracy of Gamers range from Asus reminds us just a lilliputian bit of Diego Maradonna. Information technology started out young and sprightly, doing things no other boards could practice. Before long however, the pressure and the success became too much and the boards became bloated, embarrassingly expensive and unfocused. Fortunately the Rampage Two Factor proved to be a renaissance for the RoG brand, with its first-class performance and overclocking potential in a tight, tidy micro-ATX format and price.

As a issue, we've been waiting with baited jiff for the follow upwards, and after months of pestering, we finally got our hands on the Asus Rampage Three Gene (R3G). Information technology's built around the same X58 chipset and LGA1366 as the previous Rampage Gene board, so we hoped it'd bear witness to be every bit desirable.

We like the aggressively styled heatsinks. Click to Enlarge

As with its predecessor, the R3G comes in a fairly diminutive box with a functional if slightly limited bundle of goodies. Included are eight SATA cables, a USB extension cablevision, the RoG Q-Shield and an SLI bridge. Also thrown in are some cablevision ties, Asus' useful Q-Connectors (for wiring up the front console) and some RoG sticker sheets. Interestingly, two of the SATA cables are marked as specifically for utilise with the SATA 6Gbps ports, but we're dubious as to whether these are anything but a gimmick.

And then what'southward different with the new R3G then? The start and nearly noticeable difference is the colour scheme. The Rampage Ii Cistron wasn't an unattractive lath, only its white, blackness, ruby-red and blue colours did look a lilliputian schizophrenic. Asus has bought the R3G in line with other RoG boards, and its dressed in red and black throughout.

The heatpipe-linked heatsinks that embrace the VRMs and chipset expect particularly expert, and their matt blackness cease and angular styling gives an impression of quietly understated aggression. They are clamped down firmly too, which gives the lath an instant feel of quality - nosotros tin't tell you how many boards we've tested that accept had heatsinks that stone in their mounts when prodded.

The two red sockets are SATA 6Gbps, while the grey ones are boring old SATA 3Gbps, boo. Click to Enlarge

The other headline specification changes are the addition of 2 USB iii and two SATA 6Gbps ports. These additions are slowly becoming standard on all new boards, despite the fact nosotros've not seen many peripherals or SSDs that tin actually take advantage of the new connections. We are seeing a number of USB 3-gear up cases come through our labs at the moment, and so we'd like to see a USB three header to let these front panel ports to exist wired upward without an untidy laissez passer-through cable. There are reports of boards with USB 3 headers coming soon.

The on-board sound of the board has seen an upgrade likewise, with the new SupremeFX X-Fi two audio built in. This offers EAX 5.0 back up and the X-Fi Crystallizer, and comes with THX-certified eight-channel Hard disk drive sound connections. The new codec is unlikely to dramatically modify the way you music or games audio, but is an improvement over standard Intel HD audio nonetheless.

Specifications

• Chipset Intel X58
  
• CPU Support LGA 1366 Core i7, Core i7 Extreme Edition
  
• Memory Support 6 slots: max 24GB DDR3 (ii,200MHz)
  
• Expansion Slots Two 16x PCI-East 2.0 slots, one 4x PCI-E ii.0 slot, ane PCI slot
  
• Audio Intel HD audio via SupremeFX X-Fi 2 with viii-aqueduct support
  
• Networking Intel Gigabit LAN
  
• Overclocking Base Clock 100-500MHz. Max voltages: CPU 2.5V, CPU PLL two.05V, QPI/VTT 2.5V RAM 2.5V.
  
• Ports 6 10 SATA 3Gbps, 2 x SATA 6Gbps, 1 ten PS/ii, 10 ten USB ii, 2 x USB 3, two ten FireWire, 4 10 surround sound out, line in, mic, LAN, optical S/PDIF out.
  
• Dimensions (mm) 244 10 244 (micro-ATX)

Source: https://bit-tech.net/reviews/tech/motherboards/asus-rampage-3-gene-motherboard-review/1/

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