14 DAY TRIAL // Notebooks may be the main focus of PC makers and hardware suppliers, now that AMD has finally decided to challenge Intel in this field, but this hardly means that there is a shortage of activity on other segments. In fact, with Computex coming, any and all companies are preparing their collections and even holding pre-Computex events to offer sneak peeks at some of them. The one ASUS recently held even has a team from Trusted Reviews as guests, and the result was a report on a certain, very intriguing motherboard.
What ASUS has in store for those attending Computex is a platform that, despite coming in the micro-ATX form factor, is still more than worthy of bearing the ROG (Republic of Gamers) logo. This is possible because the Rampage III Gene, as it is called, boasts the full set of features that currently define an enthusiast platform.
Being based on the X58 chipset, the board supports Intel LGA 1366 CPUs. The Gene uses an eight-phase power design, has six DDR3 memory slots, two SATA 6.0Gbps connectors and six SATA 3.0Gbps ports.
There are even two USB 3.0 ports and just as many PCI Express x16 slots, fully prepared for SLI or CrossFireX multi-GPU setups. As for connectivity and I/O, ASUS' product provides FireWire, 7.1 channel audio and Gigabit Ethernet, among other things.
Obviously, being a ROG device, this mainboard has its own overclocking-friendly features, such as on-board Power, Reset and Clear CMOS buttons. Unfortunately, the folks at Trusted Reviews were not able to get any sort of info on when and where this small beast will show up for order, or how much it will drain from one's finances. It is possible that shipments will start sometime in June, like for so many other recent arrivals, at around $250, but this is just speculation.