14 DAY TRIAL // The ASUS Rampage II Extreme has already made a name for itself as one of the highest performing and most overclocking-friendly enthusiasts platforms. However, for all its might, there was one limitation that prevented it from truly becoming the king of the hill, namely the fact that it did not support 4-way SLI multi-GPU configurations. Fortunately, there is a solution to every problem, and ASUS will soon deliver one for this particular issue, in the form of a daughterboard.
The Rampage II Extreme already has four PCI Express slots, but they only work in x8 mode when they are all populated and cannot handle 4-way SLI. The new component, known as ROG Xpander, can take advantage of the four existing x16 links, provided by a pair of NVIDIA nForce 200 chips. The catch is that the power supply will need to have a spare 6-pin PCI-E power input and up to three 4-pin Molex inputs.
The other drawback that this daughterboard brings is that, by its very nature, it cannot fit into traditional cases and, as such, it is only meant for test-benches. This means that regular users won't find much use for this new product. On the other hand, those regular users aren't likely to afford four high-end graphics cards either, and those that do aren't interested in such a scenario unless they are hard-core overclockers.
ASUS tested four GeForce GTX 480 cards in 4-way SLI under 3DMark Vantage, on a system running an Intel Core i7 980X overclocked all the way up to 6 GHz. The score was of P52422, more than enough to get enthusiasts riled up and eager to beat it. As for pricing, the ROG Xpander should require about $200, though there is no official word as of yet. As a reminder, the Rampage II Extreme itself is priced at $380, whereas a platform with built-in 4-way SLI, such as Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD9, demands roughly $700.
