ASUS Rampage III Black Edition: High-resolution HWBOX photos

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03-03-2011, 06:10 PM
George_o/c

ASUS Rampage III Black Edition: High-resolution HWBOX photos

First of all, special thanks to ASUS for the photos :up:

Rampage III Black Edition is basically an improved Rampage III Extreme. ASUS obviously took into consideration various comments and constructive criticism from the gaming community and put them all together in an exciting package. Main differences from R3E are the following:

1) ROG Thunderbolt Expansion card. Comes with Xonar Audio chip, Gigabit Ethernet port and Bigfoot Networks Killer 2100 NIC. ASUS claims that the Xonar Audio chip offers four times better crystal clear audio, compared to regular audio cards, what I find perferctly rational due to the existence of a dedicated headphone amplifier. Using Thunderbolt, gamers will have the ability to create their own audio profiles and choose what's best for them depending on the game.

2) Re-designed separate heatsinks for Northbridge, Southbridge and PWMs.

3) Tweaked hardware layout in order to achieve higher BCLK frequencies. 250MHz bclk with six-core extreme Intel processor won't be that difficult :yepp:

Source: http://www.hwbox.gr/news-motherboard...ve-photos.html

(click photos for larger resolution)
http://www.hwbox.gr/images/imagehost...04370a1325.jpg

http://www.hwbox.gr/images/imagehost...04371ce50b.jpg

http://www.hwbox.gr/images/imagehost...043726e954.jpg

http://www.hwbox.gr/images/imagehost...0437378715.jpg

http://www.hwbox.gr/images/imagehost...0437426fb0.jpg
03-03-2011, 06:18 PM
saaya

very nice!
i dont like the red of the heatsink though, it looks a bit purple/pinkish weird...
and so much black and almost no other color... so boring...
but hey, lots of people seem to like this all black and black and grey theme... dont get why but i guess people will love this design :D
nice n clean layout, and i love the silky black pcb, sexy!

im curious about thunderbolt though...
asus clearly had access to intel nda docs and knew they would call lightpeak thunderbolt...
so they named their expansion card thunderbolt on purpose?
wont they get in trouble with intel and apple over this trademark?
03-03-2011, 06:29 PM
George_o/c

I personally really like that weird dark red on the heatsink and all-black PCB :D Regarding Thunderbolt, do you think Intel and Apple are so uptight that they are going to make a fuss about it? I never thought it was a big deal until now :D
03-03-2011, 06:30 PM
lowfat

Hopefully Asus decides to sell the Thunerbolt separately.
03-03-2011, 10:32 PM
George_o/c

I can ask but to be honest, I don't think they will be sold separately.
03-03-2011, 11:10 PM
geobot24

She is beauty.
Could challange Giga X58A-OC...? :p:
03-03-2011, 11:22 PM
Johnny87au

Wonder how this board performs no reviews as of yet, thunderbolt I doubt will be used, so far only apple products are in the picture of advertising thunderbolt..
03-03-2011, 11:39 PM
MrToad

Quote:

Originally Posted by saaya

im curious about thunderbolt though...
asus clearly had access to intel nda docs and knew they would call lightpeak thunderbolt...
so they named their expansion card thunderbolt on purpose?
wont they get in trouble with intel and apple over this trademark?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny87au

Wonder how this board performs no reviews as of yet, thunderbolt I doubt will be used, so far only apple products are in the picture of advertising thunderbolt..

First point for saaya :D :D Don't know how bothered Intel will be about this but you're right, it leads to confusion...
03-04-2011, 12:55 AM
Leeghoofd

Quote:

Originally Posted by geobot24

She is beauty.
Could challange Giga X58A-OC...? :p:

Never on price performance ratio :down: We already asked to do a sort of LE edition ( so just without the Thunderbolt card ) to lower the price significantly... a lot will prolly depend on how popular the Giga Dinos OC board will be...
03-04-2011, 01:04 AM
Hondacity

that soundcard will definitely turn away some potential overclocking buyers...

also exposed 3+3 phases ummm ....
03-04-2011, 01:26 AM
George_o/c

Quote:

Originally Posted by geobot24

She is beauty.
Could challange Giga X58A-OC...? :p:

No. Gigabyte X58A-OC targets extreme overclockers, while Rampage III Black Edition aims the gaming community. The main difference from R3E is the addition of Thunderbolt card... You lose that, you just got a better looking R3E that can hit kinda higher bclks.
03-04-2011, 03:41 AM
saaya

Quote:

Originally Posted by George_o/c

I personally really like that weird dark red on the heatsink and all-black PCB :D Regarding Thunderbolt, do you think Intel and Apple are so uptight that they are going to make a fuss about it? I never thought it was a big deal until now :D

I don't think Intel would sue them since they work together and Intel is always trying to avoid lawsuits. But Apple? Hah! They copy others and steal their tech and then sue them before those companies sue them to make it look like its their tech and put pressure on their competitors! Apple LOVES to sue! And with asus being an indirect and soon (asus tablets and smartphone) direct competitor... I'm sure Apple is licking their fingers in anticipation to sue asus :D

Seriously, if is be asus is be more careful with this... in Taiwan this stuff flies, in the us and Europe you can't just use somebody else's trademark even if its for a different product type...
03-04-2011, 04:03 AM
SubZero.it

That weird dark red looks fantastic!!!!!! But doubt it can performs like X58A-OC...what about the price????:eek:
03-04-2011, 11:59 AM
lowfat

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny87au

Wonder how this board performs no reviews as of yet, thunderbolt I doubt will be used, so far only apple products are in the picture of advertising thunderbolt..

:D

No the Thunderbolt is what they call the Soundcard/Killer NIC combo card.
03-07-2011, 02:28 PM
dupcengier24

Did Rampage III Black Edition contains efi bios ????
03-08-2011, 05:43 PM
Johnny87au

Quote:

Originally Posted by dupcengier24

Did Rampage III Black Edition contains efi bios ????

afaik nope ;)
03-08-2011, 06:31 PM
killerxp100

The heatsink looks like it has a PCIe in it.
03-09-2011, 05:49 PM
George_o/c

Quote:

Originally Posted by dupcengier24

Did Rampage III Black Edition contains efi bios ????

Nope :)
03-10-2011, 06:21 AM
PatRaceTin

8phase cpu pwm?
04-04-2011, 04:46 AM
recta

Omg need
04-04-2011, 05:26 AM
BulldogPO

Atleast photos have nice bokeh :)
That is also reason why some of them are out of focus, too large aperture.
04-04-2011, 06:03 AM
PatRaceTin

does pwm work well ?
04-05-2011, 07:32 PM
AmTGMan

And it's on Newegg. Asking price...

$590...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131726
04-05-2011, 09:31 PM
Mungri

I must be the only one that finds this board ugly compared to all the red on black boards Asus have recently been making.
04-05-2011, 09:52 PM
lowfat

Quote:

Originally Posted by AmTGMan

And it's on Newegg. Asking price...

$590...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131726

And what makes the Black Edition worth $200 more than the R3E? That is outrageous.
04-05-2011, 11:17 PM
Kondik

Our friend ORB did a long fat review of the board today. It performs well althrough X58 Classified ate it in the max BCLK department.
The VRM's are 8 * 2 digital, VERY solid and are considered one of the most advanced on the market , only the Gigabyte solution is more overkill than this.
The heatsinks temps are little bit higher in a non ventilated enviroment.
The Thunderbolt is a little bit useless for where this board wants to be but it performs well.

Thats the summary basically.
04-05-2011, 11:43 PM
generics_user

Quote:

Originally Posted by lowfat

And what makes the Black Edition worth $200 more than the R3E? That is outrageous.

the thunderbolt card (Killer NIC and Xonar essence on one board by the looks of it, they could sell it alone for 200$), 2 more USB3.0 ports (front); better PWM; wlan; intel gbe chip

but i don't see the point in the thunderbolt card; why put an X-Fi unlocked chip + more expensive Intel gigabit ethernet chips onboard and add in another card which is better than the onboard stuff? they could save 50$ by removing X-Fi support and the intel gigabit ethernet chip...
04-05-2011, 11:56 PM
Nikolasz

Still missing heat sinks on other chips. And you dont whant to know why... OK
04-05-2011, 11:56 PM
Hondacity

1 Attachment(s)

Quote:

Originally Posted by PatRaceTin

8phase cpu pwm?

tell me how many you see
04-05-2011, 11:57 PM
Hondacity

nice review here

http://lab501.ro/placi-de-baza/asus-...acelasi-pachet

question:

is the is the cpu vrm frequency adjustable in 1mhz steps like the new p67a series from asus?
04-06-2011, 12:13 AM
Kondik

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hondacity

tell me how many you see

17

8 for CPU
3 for QPI
3 for NB
3 for Memory

Did I won a cookie ?
04-06-2011, 12:13 AM
quake6

It would be great that you can buy it without thunderbolt card :/ but nice looking mbo :)
04-06-2011, 12:30 AM
Alex-Ro

Quote:

Originally Posted by kondik

the vrm's are 8 * 2 digital, very solid and are considered one of the most advanced on the market , the gigabyte solution is far behind this ;)

thats the summary basically.

fixed
04-06-2011, 12:53 AM
Kondik

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex-Ro

fixed

But that's bending the truth based on nothing.
The Killer series from GB has even more Overkill VRM setup than this ASUS board.

Gigabyte solution is the most complex and most extreme , even more than this which is considered therefore the 2nd best on the market from a simplified point of view.