ASUS Rampage II Extreme - First Look
by Gary Key on October 9, 2008 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
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The CPU socket area is crowded but manageable for most cooling setups. ASUS utilizes their "16-phase" power delivery system along with a 3-phase system for the Northbridge. The EPU2 design allows switching between four or sixteen phase to save energy, although we think anyone planning to use this board probably isn't concerned with that feature. The board utilizes a combination of Fujitsu ML and Solid Aluminum capacitors; whether that is a good or bad thing will depend upon how much you push the board.
Speaking of cooling, the new LGA 1366 requires new mounting points, and this is going to be good news for the cooling companies as it opens up a new market. After speaking with companies ranging from Cooler Master to Thermalright, the majority of LGA 1366 cooling designs will be based on current LGA 775/AM2 products with the inclusion of new mounting kits. There will be new designs of course as the IHS is larger, but it appears that the cooling companies will release a new mounting kit for current favorite coolers and that the current designs are capable of keeping the i7 cool under most conditions.
Our first revised cooler in the labs is from Vigor Gaming. The Monsoon III LT features support for LGA 775, LGA 1366, LGA 771 Skulltrail, S754, S939, and AM2/AM2+ formats. The unit features two 120x120x25mm fans rated at 20 dBA idle with PWM control. Fan speed is adjustable from 800RPM~2000RPM. The unit measures 131x120.9x160mm with a weight of 855g. We cannot mention results yet, but they are certainly promising with the i7-965 overclocked.
That concludes our first look at the ASUS Rampage II Extreme board. We will be back later with previews of boards from a variety of manufacturers.
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piroroadkill - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
As much as I agree that Firewire 800 is really really awesome (it is); it's so seldom used that it may as well barely exist compared to USB. At least Firewire 400 had some initial exposure when that's all DV Cams supported.takumsawsherman - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
Ah, but they still have the firewire port, don't they? So giving you the port, they give you the old one. Also, eSATA is pretty much storage only, and the connectors still leave something to be desired, vs. the very durable Firewire 800 cable.When you are paying $300 for a board, would it also not bother you if they had a USB 1.1 port for use with the Keyboard and Mouse, because you don't *need* 480Mbps for a keyboard and mouse. Unless, of course, you had other plans for your USB ports.
Speaking of USB being slow, the speed of hard drives, scanners and the like over USB is horrible. If you are copying large files, or ghosting/acronising a machine, firewire is where it's at. While I have a couple of enclosures that have eSATA, most customers don't have eSATA, and the Macs all have FW800. This makes cloning faster, and I can service more systems in a day when I am not waiting extra time for patches to copy over, etc.
Every Mac besides the Mini has FW800. That includes the $1200 iMac. When we are talking $300/board, they can be gracious and give you the best there is, not cutting corners at every opportunity.
3DoubleD - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
Honestly, who cares about Firewire? USB offers 60 MB/s, which is more than enough for anything (flash drives, devices) except hard drives. In the case of hard drives, use an eSATA port for 300 MB/s. If you care about Firewire that much, buy a firewire card, you are in the small minority of users who actually use it. USB is the standard and when USB 3.0 is released Firewire800 will be completely forgotten (if that hasn't happened already).bigboxes - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
Thank you. I remember some years back when I was building a pc that would do everything. I just had to have all the peripherals so naturally I had to install a four-port firewire card. You guessed it. I never used it. When it came time to upgrade my box I never put the thing back in. USB is definitely the standard and between eSATA and USB 3.0 you are never gonna need Firewire800 again.CEO Ballmer - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
Works best when running Vista Ultimate though!http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com">http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
Mclendo06 - Thursday, October 9, 2008 - link
So, the release date is under NDA, huh?Let me put it to you this way...
When might you be able to tell us the release date?
Or, if that doesn't work...
When could you tell us about being able to tell us about the release date?
Feel free to take as many steps as is necessary to throw Intel's lawyers off your tail.
Clockw0rk - Thursday, October 9, 2008 - link
The original Rampage Extreme seemed like it was designed with water cooling in mind -first- and air cooling after. Maybe this falls into NDA territory, but can we confirm that water blocks will come with the board?AmberClad - Thursday, October 9, 2008 - link
The heatsink is under NDA too?Why are you guys not permitted to say anything as far as the cooling results with that Vigor Monsoon heatsink? Or does that fall under i7 itself, and its TDP and thermal characteristics?
Nfarce - Thursday, October 9, 2008 - link
A minimum entry fee of $250 to join the i7 Club starting with the chipset? Not too bad for a high end rig, especially considering what high end X48 and 790i chipsets are going for now. AT, can you give us an idea of when we'll see a full test? If, as you hint, it's between tomorrow and next month before retail release on all this hardware, It's obvious people out there waiting for a new build decision, myself included, would consider the performance increase over the current platform as what would make their buying decisions, irrespective of when they know it would actually be available.Nfarce - Thursday, October 9, 2008 - link
Oops, I forgot to add that I'm also using a two year old rig, a P965/E6600 set up. If i7 real world (gaming) performance over a very affordable P45/E8xxx current build is only about 10-15% difference yet has a 25-35% cost increase, I'll pull the NewEgg trigger for the former. This waiting is torture I tell ya!