ASUS Rampage II Extreme Is Ready for Action

We have been covering extensively the upcoming Intel X58-enabled motherboards, given that all of us have noticed that almost every mobo maker out there is almost ready, if not finished yet, with the design of their first Core i7 motherboards.

As we reported in several previous articles, the leaked pictures we’ve had so far indicate that we will be dealing with a motherboard that will provide an extensive number of features to enable a high performance level. However, up until now, one of the most promising boards we have come across is undoubtedly the new Rampage II Extreme Motherboard from ASUS, which will be part of the company's ROG (Republic of Gamers) lineup.

 

The Taiwanese manufacturer has already finished work on its upcoming board, and has even spread around some working samples for testing and benchmarking. Unfortunately, although the company allows editors to benchmark the upcoming Intel platform, a specific NDA (non-disclosure agreement) forbids them to publish the performance results before both the Core i7 processors and the X58 chipset are officially introduced. That could actually be translated into a marketing plan to further increase the anticipation created around the launch of Intel's next-generation, Nehalem-supporting desktop platform.

 

The guys over at anadtech were among the lucky ones to receive ASUS' upcoming high-end Rampage II Extreme motherboard, along with a Core i7 processor. As mentioned above, they were allowed to test out the new platform but, unfortunately, they could not publish the results. However, they did offer a few hints as to what we should be expecting from ASUS' next-generation Intel platform. Apparently, this board is one of the fastest Core i7 boards to be launched, as it fully takes advantage of the benefits delivered by Intel's upcoming high-end desktop platform.

 

In addition, one of the most interesting things is that they could break the 1.65V memory guideline, using high-performance memory modules without causing permanent damage to the CPU. They even overclocked a 3.2GHz Core i7 processor, but they could not specify the speed they reached.