ASUS ROG Xpander enables 4-way SLI on Rampage III Extreme

Quote:

---

ASUS ROG Xpander is simply a PCI-Express daughter card for the ASUS Rampage III Extreme. The circuit board comes with four PCI Express x16 slots and two Nvidia NF200 PCI-Express bridges. These circuits take the 32 available PCIe 2.0 lanes of the Intel X58 chipset and expand them to 64 lanes, divided across the four PCI Express x16 slots on the daughter board. In the end this enables you to connect four graphics cards with maximal PCIe x16 bandwidth.

ASUS ROG Xpander only has one real use, to enable 4-way SLI on ASUS Rampage III Extreme. Quad-SLI with dual GTX 295 or the coming NVIDIA D12U-15 works without ROG Expander. They already have an integrated NF200 chip (also known as BR04).

The reason ASUS has designed a separate daughter board for Rampage III Extreme is that Nvidia demands that motherboards supporting 4-way SLI has to use two NF200 bridge chips, and an official 4-way license key. According to our sources this adds about $100 to an already expensive motherboard.
With Nvidia's flagship GeForce GTX 480 we have seen the ways of 4-way SLI and how it can break records like no other in the right hands. This is the reason ASUS developed ROG Xpander. The number of consumers that are interested in 4-way SLI isn't big enough to justify the added cost, but the extreme users should not have turn any other way but just upgrade to get 4-way SLI support with their ASUS Rampage III Extreme motherboard.

Judging from the information we have the reason for Rampage III Extreme not getting 4-way SLI from the start wasn't just the cost. The two bridge chips does enable higher bandwidth, but also higher latencies that most non-4-way SLI systems would be crippled by. Second generation PCIe x8 offers enough bandwidth to keep most users happy.

One of few Intel X58 motherboards that support 4-way SLI from factory is Gigabyte GA-X58-UD9 and if you compare the price with ASUS Rampage III Extreme you see the extra costs we're talking about. Gigabyte's motherboard is listed for $700 at Newegg.com, while Rampage III Extreme is listed at $380.

At the same time the Nvidia NF200 bridge chips adds 12W power consumption, each, which is actually more than some low-end graphics cards consume. On a positive note, no power will be taken from the motherboard, but all power comes through three 4-pins molex power connectors and one 6-pin PCIe connector.

Even if ASUS didn't see the point of supporting 4-way SLI from factory with Rampage III Extreme it is aware of the customers that do want 4-way SLI, and that is why ROG Xpander is expected to appear in stores in the near future.

Considering just the chips and license cost near $100 it won't be cheap, but if you can afford four GeForce GTX 480 graphics cards it's a minor problem.

---

Source and pictures

Pictures tricky to hotlink here.

Cheers!

//Andreas

The daughter board is quite a bit above the motherboard. Won't you have major issues securing your cards to your case's PCI(-E) brackets? :shrug:

Ok, but how do you allign graphic cards to the back of the case since they are raised for like 2cm from the mobo? Or is it meant to just run it on a desk without any case?

EDIT:
Musho beat me to it :)

I would imagine this is meant for benchers in which case the whole setup would probably be open air. It's a neat idea, especially if you have to insulate the add on card for LN2 runs, it should be easier to do.

Good God. This is the mother of all band aid solutions. Seriously, this isn't a "PCI-Express daughter card", it's a whole darn board that will likely carry the price of a brand new motherboard.


ASUS: We have the highest-end X58 motherboard with every feature you can think of!

Customer: But EVGA has 4-way SLI!

ASUS: Uh oh. *runs to parts bin and cobbles something together*

ASUS: Now we have 4-way SLI!!!**


**ASUS Disclaimer: But it won't allow you to actually INSTALL the 4 graphics cards inside a case.


;)

i guess that NV is really being an ass about those nf200, i dont get why when they make no difference in sli (sicne NV made their cards work in 8x) and hurt xfire performance. i would think that asus would have enough sales that they could get away with no nf200, i thought that gigabyte could also but the then the ud9 got 2 nf200 also

How much that riser will cost?

Well compared to this :D http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128446
$2700 total with 4X GTX 480s :)......Wonder how much Gigabyte's Stock @ Taiwan S Exchange, if it listed

This is so lame.

Wow, this thing is huge and even has an active cooler! :eek:
Surely there are more simple solutions...
And people who need 4 way SLI will just buy a different board to start with...

ouch going to heat up the sink it covers even more.

Djeez, this is just a very complicated solution for a very simple problem. I don't even want to begin insulating that PCB. Another board it is.

So that is why I didn't manage to do 4WAY SLI on this one...Asus held back on the NF200....arghhhhhh

I'm confused, why is that needed if this is possible ?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...10#post4393710

Nvidia must have been very persuasive if they talked ASUS into doing... this :shakes:

Certainly going to be fun attaching that to your case.

maybe quad sli will work on other boards :shrug:

maybe on asus Crosshair IV extreme :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Utnorris

I would imagine this is meant for benchers in which case the whole setup would probably be open air. It's a neat idea, especially if you have to insulate the add on card for LN2 runs, it should be easier to do.

---

You are correct. It is only to give the option of 4 pcs GTX 480 for the truly extreme 3D overclockers. It is NOT for a ATX chassis based system. It makes little sense to build a gaming system with 4 480.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Loque

I'm confused, why is that needed if this is possible ?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...10#post4393710

---

Making $$$, press / hype, etc.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Loque

I'm confused, why is that needed if this is possible ?

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...10#post4393710

---

That is not possible, there have been some kind of missunderstanding. NF200 are needed for Forceware to enable Quad-SLI. There is no work-around. Only thing would be for Nvidia to simply allow it without pciex extension ics. Like they decided to do with X58. Remove need for NF200 and only have the license.

this thing brought up some memories about ASUS CT-479 Adapter :up:
however, this thingy it is not practical at all, and probably will never gain any popularity except few labs and bench sessions.
like was said above - Asus got jealous and couldn't stand evga being the only one with 4-way sli.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kinc

Remove need for NF200 and only have the license.

---

they force users to have nvidia only gpus for physx.
they force nf200 on mb makers for sli.
the way its meant to be played :down:

smart idea, since most of the R3E are going to be a normal gaming PC anyways.

but I can imagine the pain in the butt to insulation another PCB just to bench with four GTX480.

and that daughter board need to hold up at least a few pounds of GTX480 with pots. hmm..

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by G.Foyle

Nvidia must have been very persuasive if they talked ASUS into doing... this :shakes:

---

Naw man. It's about not letting EVGA and now Gigabyte grab all the top bench results at ORB. Gotta show some numbers to move the merch and make some figures, the $$$ kind of figures. IMO this way is better than going all out crazy and offer a new integrated solution, for both asus and the end users. ASUS doesn't have to drop heavy mullah into R&Ding a new board, the rare few who need this kind of capability don't need to spend mullah on yet another new board (for just this one feature). Looks conceptually ugly but then again if it works more power to them.

You don't need this for GPU computing (for example) so the regular board still keeps relevance in any other scenario, not to mention remains the best laid out tylerburg solution out there (save for P6T7 maybe). Trifire, plus hacked PhsyX, plus a choice of either PCIe or PCI sound card (of any length:p:). They need to bring out an SLI bridge that skips one of the middle two x16 slots to be able to say the same about tree way SLI, but the potential is still there...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kinc

You are correct. It is only to give the option of 4 pcs GTX 480 for the truly extreme 3D overclockers. It is NOT for a ATX chassis based system. It makes little sense to build a gaming system with 4 480.

---

Wouldn't it be easier to just have two separate products just like Evga has? A non-NF200 for those who are not going to use the 4-Way SLI and one with the NF200's for the extreme benchers/overclockers? Possible with an upgrade-path from non-NF200 to NF200.

How thick is the PCB exactly? How is the cold moving from the PCIe lanes on top of the PCB to the ones under the PCB? Will it be necessary to insulate both the mainboard and the Expander completely to ensure condensation free benching?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by massman

Wouldn't it be easier to just have two separate products just like Evga has? A non-NF200 for those who are not going to use the 4-Way SLI and one with the NF200's for the extreme benchers/overclockers? Possible with an upgrade-path from non-NF200 to NF200.

How thick is the PCB exactly? How is the cold moving from the PCIe lanes on top of the PCB to the ones under the PCB? Will it be necessary to insulate both the mainboard and the Expander completely to ensure condensation free benching?

---

you nailed it!!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by massman

Wouldn't it be easier to just have two separate products just like Evga has? A non-NF200 for those who are not going to use the 4-Way SLI and one with the NF200's for the extreme benchers/overclockers? Possible with an upgrade-path from non-NF200 to NF200.

How thick is the PCB exactly? How is the cold moving from the PCIe lanes on top of the PCB to the ones under the PCB? Will it be necessary to insulate both the mainboard and the Expander completely to ensure condensation free benching?

---

This way extreme benchers can choose to go NF200 for 4-way 480, that has very limited need for an alround extreme (ln2) bencher. For 4-way AMD you do not want the extra latency and 1-3% degraded performance. Also when using less than 4 graphics cards for older 3d benchmarks, NV or AMD, I still would prefer not to have NF200 there to get every last bit of 3D peroformance. Since the add-on-board solution works and performs flawlessly, I see no need in going any other direction to enable 4-way 480.

The PCB is very robust and will keep the cards in perfect alignment. The PCI-slot on it will have exact touch to the 4th 16C slot on R3E and offload the weight perfectly.

I would put some dielectric grease like vaseline in all MIO connectors directly linked with with grahpics cards. Add some tissue paper like usual. More than that I do not see needed.

I think my curiosity is getting the upper-hand of the skepticism ... :D

Just a few more questions:

- Did you run performance checks on the daughterboard (well, yes) - did you see anything good/bad? Any performance gain/loss over the NF200-on-mainboard solutions? I suppose that the daughterboard interconnects introduce some kind of latency as well. Negligable?
- More importantly, can this device be hooked up ANY motherboard? At first sight, I don't see any ROG cables going to or coming from the daughterboard.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by massman

I think my curiosity is getting the upper-hand of the skepticism ... :D

Just a few more questions:

- Did you run performance checks on the daughterboard (well, yes) - did you see anything good/bad? Any performance gain/loss over the NF200-on-mainboard solutions? I suppose that the daughterboard interconnects introduce some kind of latency as well. Negligable?
- More importantly, can this device be hooked up ANY motherboard? At first sight, I don't see any ROG cables going to or coming from the daughterboard.

---

The performance is the same as other MBs with dual nf200 integrated (e.g. P6T7).

In theory yes.

very innovative, tbh that is awesome. i hate NF200 just as much as anybody, but that is smart thinking there. i likey! :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by massman

- More importantly, can this device be hooked up ANY motherboard? At first sight, I don't see any ROG cables going to or coming from the daughterboard.

---

Technically, it seems like it would work for other boards. It just plugs into the other PCI-express slots to work.
http://www.nordichardware.com/images...s/Xpander4.jpg

So this product is basically targeting Rampage III extreme owners who suddenly want to ditch their cases and run 4X480 GTXs. WHOOO! All five people will be very happy! How 'bout selling your Rampage and just buying a Classified or P6T7 (and being able to keep your case in the process)?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SamHughe

So this product is basically targeting Rampage III extreme owners who suddenly want to ditch their cases and run 4X480 GTXs. WHOOO! All five people will be very happy! How 'bout selling your Rampage and just buying a Classified or P6T7 (and being able to keep your case in the process)?

---

Gotta look out for those 5 people though. They get you all the good press and reviews. ;)

I still wondering what justifies the $699 gigabyte is asking for their UD9. EVGA 4 -way includes two NF200 chips and doesn't cost $699 and does the same stuff,

EVGA SR-2 includes DUAL-SOCKET <-- emphasis and has two NF200 as well and still does not reach the $699, even ASUS P6T7 has two NF200 chips and its

cheap, although I haven't seen any P6T7 doing 4-SLI and I bet even RE3 with this add on card doesn't reach that price tag. So please can someone explain to

me, what the UD9 have that adds almost $100-200 value over the products mentioned, because for me doesn't make sense at all...

I have an R3E and what I love about this product is it kept the R3E as pure as I need it and kept the NF crap off it.

Never in a million years will I run quad SLI and dont need to pay for the ability to do it and add latency to boot.

Like it has been said this will keep the five people that need it happy and the thousands that dont glad there is no NF200 on the mainboard.

I guess this is something of a niche product for those who really really want 4 way, but to me it looks like the dumbest idea conceived.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jumpingjack

to me it looks like the dumbest idea conceived.

---

qft +1 :(

Stupid add on is stupid :down:

Quote:

---

Gigabyte's motherboard is listed for $700 at Newegg.com, while Rampage III Extreme is listed at $380.

---

oh please...

R3E+daughter board = 380$+150$(?)= 530$
530$ vs 700$ is still much cheaper, but its not like it costs half of the gigabyte solution as the quote above suggests :P

sounds very nice... dfi was working on this a while ago but nvidia didnt allow them to sell it iirc... anyhow, this is going to be a HUGE pain to insulate i think...

Who's gonna bench 4-way sli guys? Only 5-6 guys ! Most of the overclockers will bench single gpu so the daughter board is not necessary .
I would prefer the oc panel instead of this ...

P.S : I know this new feature is not only for ocers but the same is with the power users ( most of them would prefer 2 or 3 gpus ) .

wicked wonderland :).

Cmon guys, is the first thing we think of now, how hard it is to insulate?. For that matter, we have grease, paper and knetgummi.

Beside, it looks so bad a$$

KEEP PUSHING IT

i think asus rog branded gold plated flexible pciE risers would have been a lot more useful and cool... and much much cheaper too :shrug:
marcus, if you read this, please push for it! :D its so hard to find pciE risers!

there arnt many people who will run 4 card sli, and there are alot more that dont want a hindered board, this dose seam like a cheap way out but hopefully the low sales on it (as it will be for benching only) will show NV that they do not need to force the nf200 on people. it would be nice if gigabyte had also stood up to NV and went NF200 less since i cant see NV taking on the 2 largest enthusiast board makers on something that lowers performance.

oh theyd do that... trust me... they would...
and numbers sold are really low on this kind of board or expander card... i dont think nvidia really makes a lot of money with this... a few thousand us$, maybe 20K max... thats nothing for nvidia...
and if it werent for their perf situation right now, they wouldnt have allowed quad sli at all, even with 4 nf200 chips and a 200$ license, trust me ;)

AFAIK, Asus tested NF200 versions of RE3 and non-NF200 versions of RE3, and the non-NF200 version got into mass production. The reasons behind this are pretty simple, this way you can get a cooler, cheaper board, that does the job for 99% of the people. Also there is no NF200 induced latency. Which is good. The only two weird things about this board are the 4th PCI-E x16 lane, which shouldn't be there, and the fact that there is no OC Panel in the package, so if you want external control you have to use Rog Connect (which is ok, but you should still have the option of using a simple oc panel if you want).

Ok, now, for marketing purposes, technology show-off, those 5 people, and so on, wouldn't it be a better ideea to have the 4Way SLI version of RE3? Let's be serious, there are MANY people out there that have Classified 4Way SLI simply because it is the most expensive and exclusive motherboard ever, not because they would ever come close to a 4Way SLI system. So...the same thing would happen with a 4Way version of RE3. Unlike this adapter thingy which will literally only be used by those 5 people who want to test 4Way GTX 480 on Asus.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sofos1990

Who's gonna bench 4-way sli guys? Only 5-6 guys ! Most of the overclockers will bench single gpu so the daughter board is not necessary .
I would prefer the oc panel instead of this ...

P.S : I know this new feature is not only for ocers but the same is with the power users ( most of them would prefer 2 or 3 gpus ) .

---

You are spot on, there are only a very few number of people that are actually going to go for 4-way 480. There is little point in 4-way 480 other than all out Vantage benching :)

It is only for overclockers. It will be used on open benchplatforms only and not sold to be put in to a case.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kinc

It is only for overclockers. It will be used on open benchplatforms only and not sold to be put in to a case.

---

So it won't hit the retail market ?
What about the oc panel ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sofos1990

So it won't hit the retail market ?
What about the oc panel ?

---

Based on the market situation (maybe 5 customers?). My personal guess is that it cant be sold in retail since there is no demand for 4-way 480.

Personally I am not quite fond of things that are all over the forums but will never be found in retail... OC Panel, OC Station, ROG Xpander... allready too many accesories that are shown off but not available.:shakes:

Monstru is right .
Too many things that are not available . So there is no reason to be made cause we can't have/buy them . There are only 5-10 samples and that's all .

hmmmm not sold in retail at all? thats sucks though, so what if theres a guy who wants to actually use 4way sli, i mean really, for tri 27" 3d gaming with 470s for example...
he wont be able to buy this daughter board? cant you guys sell it through the asus.com website directly?
if you cant, then at least sell 2 or 3 dozen pieces to a shop that ships worldwide...

its def a low number of people who will go for this, but it should def be available in retail imo...
if this is a gadget you will only get if you have good relations with asus somehow, that would suck :/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by saaya

hmmmm not sold in retail at all? thats sucks though, so what if theres a guy who wants to actually use 4way sli, i mean really, for tri 27" 3d gaming with 470s for example...
he wont be able to buy this daughter board? cant you guys sell it through the asus.com website directly?
if you cant, then at least sell 2 or 3 dozen pieces to a shop that ships worldwide...

its def a low number of people who will go for this, but it should def be available in retail imo...
if this is a gadget you will only get if you have good relations with asus somehow, that would suck :/

---

It is my personal guess, only based on previous products like OC Station. When the demand is so low it is verticly not existing the local teams will have a very hard time selling it in to distis.

Your idea to sell via a WW dealer is a good idea in my oppinion.

useless for normal people(99.9%)

good for bencher without a case.....

yeah no point in showing it off if nobody can get it. A lot of companies could post up their prototypes and concept designs just to get some good press. Hope Asus makes this available to the public.

SOURCE:http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.php...g-xpander.html

ROG Dude?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by massman

ROG Dude?

---

it's old name.

They call it the "ROG DUDE" because when you first see it your like, "Dude, wtf is that?"

so this can do what which the P6T7 cant?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by TRICHEESE

so this can do what which the P6T7 cant?

---

Comes in red and has blinking light on base mobo :shrug:

ROG DUDE?!? Oh this keeps getting better and better. :clap:

I want one just because it'll look cool as hell running 4 480s on LN2 with this thing :p: Definitely a gigantic plastic bandaid.

What's that for?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lkiller123

What's that for?

---

i would guess that it was designed for extra support, or for a test card

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by lkiller123

What's that for?

---

Looks like there are 3 PCI-E slots on the backside of the daughterboard, with 2 of them having the actual pins inserted which go into the PCI-E slots on the motherboard. You can probably remove those pins and move them to that black slot, so it fits on a different motherboard.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Good God. This is the mother of all band aid solutions. Seriously, this isn't a "PCI-Express daughter card", it's a whole darn board that will likely carry the price of a brand new motherboard.


ASUS: We have the highest-end X58 motherboard with every feature you can think of!

Customer: But EVGA has 4-way SLI!

ASUS: Uh oh. *runs to parts bin and cobbles something together*

ASUS: Now we have 4-way SLI!!!**


**ASUS Disclaimer: But it won't allow you to actually INSTALL the 4 graphics cards inside a case.


;)

---

ok, that is just HILARIOUS!! :ROTF:

NF200 why not on R3E

MORE：http://www.xfastest.com/viewthread.p...extra=page%3D1

best slide ever
http://i48.tinypic.com/35b5xk9.jpg

whats funny about that ^^ is that the UD9 costs about twice as much as the R3E and the R3E is @ X8 and UD9 is @ x16 but still the R3E wins

the id9 isnt really 16x is 16 with 2x nf200

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dumo

How much that riser will cost?

Well compared to this :D http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128446
$2700 total with 4X GTX 480s :)......Wonder how much Gigabyte's Stock @ Taiwan S Exchange, if it listed

---

cheaper method


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...r+card&x=0&y=0 riser cards .... and they cost less then that mobo

those arnt 8x or 16x pci-e

NF200 is a little slower; don't think the Risers will help to get you 4X 480... That solution would be just too simple; there's more to that Snow...

Nice to see Xfastest and hardwareluxx violate NDA again :p I ever wonder why we sign them papers anyway sigh...

The solution is good (if it retails at the price we heard) But we discussed a bit about it's cooling, possibility to use on other boards/brands,... and why not a REX III with NF200 onboard ?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

Nice to see Xfastest and hardwareluxx violate NDA again :p I ever wonder why we sign them papers anyway sigh...

---

Why so bothered? People that signs NDAs normally want to tell the world what they know, but are bounded by the NDA. Now someone else does that for you, why aren't you happy for the rest of us that got the news earlier then we otherwise would? :D

Oh and they let you sign the paper to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside knowing you guys are a special bunch. :rofl:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zanzabar

best slide ever
http://i48.tinypic.com/35b5xk9.jpg

---

:ROTF: best thing is that RE3 got even cheaper! is around $359 now :D!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuroimaho

This is so lame.

---

:yepp:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by zanzabar

those arnt 8x or 16x pci-e

---

yeah i know .. but it was a link to hightlight the cheaper method to do it and x8 or x16 exist ... yet newegg dont sell them ...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by eternal_fantasy

Why so bothered? People that signs NDAs normally want to tell the world what they know, but are bounded by the NDA. Now someone else does that for you, why aren't you happy for the rest of us that got the news earlier then we otherwise would? :D

Oh and they let you sign the paper to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside knowing you guys are a special bunch. :rofl:

---

No we have to sign NDA or we won't get any more products to review... it's that simple here... nothing to do with being or feeling special... Think you got a bit of a romantic view of being a hardware reviewer... sometimes it' sdarn hard work, travelling for hours to be at a conference that takes jus tone hour, with zero news sometimes... plus in my country hardware is almost never for keeps... we do it mainly for you lot, to debug and co... not to show off...

Thing is some of them sites get away with it , while others are obliged to remove it and get on the blacklist... and get zilch zero hardware... I rather not sign anything and post anyhting I want...yet still get reviewing material...

not suitable for in case rig????

I just dont understand the fuzz about the case "issue".. how many is using 4 x 480GTX in a case with the Classified board atm?

Why on earth would you even want to use 4 card Quad-SLI in a case? I mean really, its only useful for benching use.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by dpa

I just dont understand the fuzz about the case "issue".. how many is using 4 x 480GTX in a case with the Classified board atm?

---

good point. P6T7 supercomputer already support quad 480 SLI in a case. That's no point to waste too much time to design new 2*nf200 R3E.

Updated Results from this weekend with the ROG Expander.

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4375/rogexpandera.jpg

Uploaded with ImageShack.us