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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marsbound2024 - Thursday, October 9, 2008 - link
Depends on the apps for your real world performance. I think if you are someone like me who will be making use of some very multi-threaded applications, then you may certainly wish to invest to i7. But alas, I am waiting to see on some full performance reviews. :)marsbound2024 - Thursday, October 9, 2008 - link
I am anxious for a full review of the processors along with this motherboard--and competitor motherboards as well. I've been waiting to replace my mid-2006 build computer and have nearly given in to the temptation to just build a PC with a Q6600, but I am really waiting out for i7. I made the mistake of building a socket 939 based system in mid-2006 when AM2 was in its infancy. By the time mid to late 2007 came around, processor upgrades just weren't easy to find. "High-end" dual core 939 processors weren't available and I didn't think a 3800X2 or 4200X2 would really have been worth the upgrade. So alas, my single core 3800+ gets me by on what I use my PC for at the moment, including WoW on medium settings, but I plan on doing much more with my PC. I want to get back using Vue Esprit for 3D rendering, Photoshop CS4 if I decide to cough up the money for it, Magix MovieEdit Pro for animations and movies, finally play Crysis (yeah I can't believe I haven't played it yet either), and maybe dabble in some FruityLoops or Reason. I am a big fan of digital media and hope to be able to have an upgradeable PC that I can comfortably get two years out of. Now that I am twenty and have a better job than previously, I will happily shell out the two thousand dollars for a relatively high-end desktop PC that I've been wanting to for several months now. The performance difference is going to be HUGE from my current PC (2.4GHz 3800+, 7600GT, 1GB DDR--never got around to upgrading that, 250GB WD SATA3.0). Shooting for Vista 64-bit Ultimate. Sorry about the rant, but I am quite excited about the i7 as it is the point I've really decided to upgrade on. I once thought about Penryn (and would've already upgraded had my use been mostly single-threaded apps), but given "Nehalem" or i7's multicore performance boosts, I decided to wait it out.ABurns - Thursday, October 9, 2008 - link
I assume then thatWe cannot mention results yet, but they are certainly promising with the i7-965 overclocked.
is the name of the 3.2ghz Core i7 mentioned earlier in the article (Actually, that has more to do with the 3.2GHz i7 overclocked)
mmp121 - Friday, October 10, 2008 - link
How can we use the two nuggets of info and gleen what the MAX OC was?[quote]Actually, that has more to do with the 3.2GHz i7 overclocked to a healthy X.XGHz (Ed: Sorry, not yet!) with a few gigabytes of Qimonda's finest running at a leisurely 2200MHz.[/quote]
I know there's no FSB anymore on the new core. One can assume that 1333 MHz / 4? = 333 MHz
2200 MHz / 4? = 550 MHz
so if the clock is locked on the CPU (guessing here)
3.2 GHz / (1333 MHz / 4) = ~9.5 divisor ?
so if we use the 550 MHz * 9.5 = ~ 5.2 GHz ?
That just can NOT be right. I'm sure I'm missing something
marsbound2024 - Thursday, October 9, 2008 - link
Go to Wikipedia and you'll find that the names of the processors have been released:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_i7">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_i7