ROG Special Features
1) Extreme Engine Digi+: Considering this being an ROG board, overclocking the processor to its limits is a given. This requires the board to have a very strong power management system. Extreme Engine Digi+ is a mixture of hardware and software design elements which enable quicker heat dissipation, better electronic conduction to keep the system stable while under load. In the BIOS under Extreme Tweaker there is a menu for Extreme Engine Digi+ to tweak PWM voltage and CPU PWM frequency among other things.
2) ROG Connect: This is a feature that was seen in older ROG boards which allows you to tweak parameters with the help of an ROG Connect utility. You basically connect your notebook to the main system with a USB cable and you can check the POST code as your system is booting up, monitor temperatures, voltages and fan speeds, and even tweak settings on the fly. In short you can overclock in real time, using a Windows Utility.
3) ROG iDirect: Dont want to use wires to tweak or monitor the system performance? Thanks to Bluetooth v3.0 support, you can use tweak parameters using your iPhone or iPad. Honestly we feel hardcore enthusiasts won't bother with these functions, it is still an innovative feature which allows you to wirelessly overclock your system!
4) ASUS Thunderbolt Combo card: This is a first we are seeing on any high end board. The ASUS Thunderbolt is a combo card which houses a 2.1 channel XONAR sound card along with the Killer E2100 Network Processing Unit (NPU). The E2100 NPU claims to reduce the lag experienced while playing games over a LAN network.
Performance
Considering this is an extreme high end feature rich board, we did not have any comparable board to test this against. We did run through our gamut of tests and also indulged in some basic overclocking, as not overclocking the board would have been blasphemous.
We tested the board with an Intel Core i7 980X processor and an AMD HD6850 card. As expected it aced the tests. On stock settings (Memory - 1333MHz and CPU - 3.3 GHz) PC Mark Vantage gave an overall score of 10300, Cinebench R10 rendering gave a multi-core score of 22842 marks, Video encoding (100 MB VOB to DIVX) took 22 secs whereas Crysis Warhead (1680x1050, med) gave 63 FPS. We overclocked the memory using the XMP profile 1 (Memory - 2000MHz) and the processor to 4.1 GHz - on air. The system ran fine without any blue screens, giving a 15 percent increase in benchmarks.
Verdict
This is the most feature-rich board we have seen to date. It comes with all the bells, whistles and fog horns and much more to satisfy overclockers. The build quality is top notch, on-board troubleshooting options are great, the add-on Thunderbolt combo card is a good addition and serving the dual purpose, the ROG Connect takes overclocking to a different level, etc. At Rs. 39,500 it comes at a price which is enough to configure a decent multimedia rig. But then, this board is meant for a select niche audience.
Specifications
CPU Socket: LGA1366
CPU Supported: Core i7 Extreme Edition / Core i7 Processor
Chipset: Intel X58 / ICH10R
System Bus: Upto 6400MT/s
Memory: 6 DIMM slots, support upto 48GB of DDR3 RAM
Expansion Slots: 4 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (support x16; x16/x16; x16/x8/x8 and x8/x8/x8/x8 configurations); 2 x PCIe x1
Thunderbolt LAN/Audio card
Audio Chipset: SupremeFX X-Fi 2 Built-in 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC
Form Factor: Extended ATX Form Factor
Back Panel I/O Ports:
1 x PS/2 Keyboard
2 x External SATA ports
1 x LAN(RJ45) port(s)
2 x USB 3.0/2.0 (Blue)
7 x USB 2.0/1.1 (1 port also for ROG Connect)
8 -Channel Audio I/O
1 x Clr CMOS switch
2 x Wi-Fi antenna jacks
1 x ROG Connect On/Off switch
Ratings
Features: 9.0
Performance:8.5
Build Quality:9.0
Value for money:6.5
Overall:8.5
Performance:8.5
Build Quality:9.0
Value for money:6.5
Overall:8.5
Price: Rs. 39,500
Test Scores Log Sheet
| Brand | ASUS | |
| Model No. | Rampage III Extreme Black Edition | |
| Processor Frequency | 3.3 GHz (stock) | 4.1 GHz (OC) |
| Memory Frequency | 1333 MHz (stock) | 2000 MHz (OC) |
| Performance | ||
| PC Mark Vantage (Overall) | 10300 | 11624 |
| CINEBENCH R10 | ||
| CPU (All cores) | 22194 | 26624 |
| WinRAR 3.9 (Multi threaded) | 3503 | 3615 |
| 100 MB file Video Encoding (VOB-DivX 7) (sec) | 22.1 | 21.85 |
| File Transfer (MB/s) 4GB file | ||
| Sequential | 56.01 | 60.41 |
| Assorted | 54.61 | 54.21 |
| USB 3.0 | ||
| Sequential Write | 67.14 | 68.14 |
| Sequential Read | 69.54 | 70.11 |
| Assorted Write | 29.35 | 29.53 |
| Assorted Read | 32.14 | 33.21 |
| Game | ||
| Crysis Warhead (1280x1024, med) | 66 | 67 |
| Crysis warhead (1680x1050, med) | 63 | 68 |
| Resident Evil 5 (1280x1024, med) | 138 | 148 |
| Resident Evil 5 (1680x1050, med) | 115 | 120 |
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