Showcased for the first time in mid-November, Asus’ Rampage IV Gene micro-ATX motherboard for Intel LGA 2011 processors is set to arrive next week.
This information was disclosed by Asus US in a meeting with the
Slashgear website, but sadly no information regarding the MSRP of the board was provided.
Despite its small size, the
Asus board includes pretty much all the features that one would expect from a top of the line ATX, or even much larger board, such as SLI/CrossFireX compatibility, a high-end VRM, Intel Gigabit LAN, SupremeFX III sound and out of the box DDR3-2400 support.
Furthermore, all the three PCI Express x16 slots included are PCIe 3.0 compliant, while the fourth black slot supports x4 speeds using the PCIe Gen 2 standard.
The expansion possibilities of the Rampage IV Gene are completed by three SATA 3Gbps connectors and by another four SATA 6Gbps ports, two of the latter being driven by a third-party ASMedia controller.
One more SATA 3Gbps port was routed to the back of the
motherboard as an eSATA connector, where users will also find two USB 3.0 ports, the now usual ROG connect and CMOS Clear switches, a BIOS flashback button, and a series of gold-plated jacks for 8-channel audio with S/PDIF out.
These are driven by a new Asus SupremeFX III audio solution that promises to deliver audiophile-grade sound thanks to a high-fidelity HD Audio CODEC built by Realtek featuring some Creative EAX enhancements.
Outside of Asus, MSI and ASrock have also designed, and sell, micro-ATX
LGA 2011 motherboards, but the Gene is without any shadow of doubt the most feature-rich model to be developed. This is why we expect it to carry an important price premium over its competitors.
Find us on Google+
No user comments yet.
Be the first to express your opinion!
