14 DAY TRIAL // When thinking of desktop systems meant for gaming and overclocking, one's mind usually drifts to those very large, spacious cases and equally large motherboards. Granted, this stereotype has its justifications, since the ATX form factor is, after all, the one that offers the greatest performance potential. Still, ASUS seems more than bent on proving that even a micro-ATX board can make ripples on this market segment, and the Rampage II Gene is the means it intends to use to do it.
The rampage II GENE is, practically, one of, if not the strongest micro-ATX board that ASUS has ever made. The ROG (Republic of gamers) logo, by itself, is enough to hint at the overall capabilities of the product. The platform was even already tested and, predictably, found to be quite worthy of its title.
First off, ASUS' offspring supports Intel X58 central processing units, which already says a lot about the top performance limit, if it even exists. There are also six DDR3-2200 memory slots and a pair of PCI Express x16 slots, with full support for CrossFireX and SLI multi-GPU configurations.
ASUS also provided six SATA 3.0Gbps connectors. What is more interesting, however, is the presence of not just a pair of SATA 6.0Gbps, but also of the same number of USB 3.0 ports. Basically, the platform will keep up with new technology for quite a while.
Naturally, the Rampage III GENE's maker provided all the necessary I/O and connectivity options, such as Gigabit Ethernet, integrated 7.1 channel audio, FireWire and on-board Power, Reset and Clear CMOS buttons. Furthermore, for overclocking purposes, ASUS threw in a host of more or less unique parts, such as the ROG Connect technology (overclocking via Bluetooth), iROG, Probelt, CPU Level Up, Loadline Calibration and voltage read points, among other things. Finally, online retailers are already listing this motherboard with a price tag of 250 Euro.