First pics of Asus Rampage 2 Extreme (X58)

[Zytek_Fan]

I'm expecting it to be near $400, but I still want it

[GripS]

The voltage measuring points are a very good idea. Looks WAY too expensive for me though.

[saaya]

TRIPPLE SLI boioioioioioioioioioioioioing!!!!!!!

lol

[mikeyakame]

P6T already has SAS on board, and it's SLI ready. No problems at all using both on the P6T.

Like to show me how exactly you would fit 2 double height cards in SLI and a pci-e 8x sas controller on the P6T? You could always use the 4x the slot at the top but that kind of takes the point out of it. This board has much better slot spacing.

[saaya]

VTT card look interesting cant wait to see how it works.

It would be cool to see mobo makers creat base boards with several add in cards... like you get a base board for $100 then for better power delivery you buy additional circuits... or more features lol...

gigabyte did that, remember?
it worked pretty bad tho, so they stopped it :/

[T_Flight]

Like to show me how exactly you would fit 2 double height cards in SLI and a pci-e 8x sas controller on the P6T? You could always use the 4x the slot at the top but that kind of takes the point out of it. This board has much better slot spacing.

Again, the SAS is ***ON BOARD*** on the P6T. You don't need an SAS card on the P6T. The board alrewady has a controller chip. The ports are on the back. You've got all the room in the world for 2 double wide cards on the P6T as you wouldn't have anything else in there.

[mikeyakame]

Again, the SAS is ***ON BOARD*** on the P6T. You don't need an SAS card on the P6T. The board alrewady has a controller chip. The ports are on the back. You've got all the room in the world for 2 double wide cards on the P6T as you wouldn't have anything else in there.

Well the onboard is fine if you don't plan to use more than 2 SAS drives! I wouldn't imagine the Marvell SAS controller would be any good for more than running 2 10k SAS drives. The current generation Seagate Cheetah 15K.6 drives push nearly 170mb/sec each. This is why the need for a seperate SAS controller card for some. Also even if we wanted to run the likes of a hardware raid controller for SATA2 on the P6T it still wouldn't work with SLI. Unfortunately Asus screwed the PCI-E slot arrangement up on the P6T deluxe. I guess some of us will have to either wait for this board or the workstation version of the P6T with a more widely spaced PCI-E slot arrangement. It's a shame too since the P6T deluxe was looking like a really nice board.

[Mezzro]

Well the onboard is fine if you don't plan to use more than 2 SAS drives! I wouldn't imagine the Marvell SAS controller would be any good for more than running 2 10k SAS drives. The current generation Seagate Cheetah 15K.6 drives push nearly 170mb/sec each. This is why the need for a seperate SAS controller card for some. Also even if we wanted to run the likes of a hardware raid controller for SATA2 on the P6T it still wouldn't work with SLI. Unfortunately Asus screwed the PCI-E slot arrangement up on the P6T deluxe.

Precisely. Onboard RAID controllers don't offer near the performance level of hardware RAID cards; moreover, you're unnecessarily taxing system resources using integrated controllers. If you swap out mobo's, you lose your RAID array along with it. That's not the case with a hardware solution where the array follows the card to the new mainboard.

I would like to think there is more to high end computing than 30" monitors and playing Crysis "maxed out." I love a good game too, but come on! $400 bucks for a mobo with only two 16 lane PCIe slots?! It didn't stop me from buying the Rampage Extreme, but it almost did. I'm glad Asus has chosen to broaden the appeal of its successor with a more versatile board layout.

[DFI pit bull]

Nice, but I think the socket area is way too cluttered for a $600 overclocking board.
Can anybody explain why board makers keep placing stuff near the socket area, if placed further away will this cause a loss in signal from the phase,caps etc perhaps?

[Anemone]

Agreed the pci-e slots are messed up on the P6T (colors are cruddy too compared to the rampage extreme 2). #2 and #7 are better sli slots, imo. Leaving #1 pci-e for sound and #6 pci-e for "other" down the road. The overhang of the 2nd GPU in slot 7 over the connectors and over the edge of the mobo is "manageable". The slot arrangement on the Extreme 2 is good enough because using FC coolers on the SLI I can keep things slim enough to get the pci-e on either end, which is a workable alternative.

But that's my $.02. Can't believe the Rampage 2 gets a perfect blue and white color scheme and the P6T gets that color mess... Hard to believe they come from the same company.

[Harshal]

Thanks for the preview Sampsa.. looking @ current state of their pace.. I hope ASUS India can give this board to me by next June

[Astratuner]

So if i see this right you still can use a soundcard on the upper pci-e slot?

the vga card's cooler only goes down and takes up the 2nd pci slot right?

[T_Flight]

Nice, but I think the socket area is way too cluttered for a $600 overclocking board.
Can anybody explain why board makers keep placing stuff near the socket area, if placed further away will this cause a loss in signal from the phase,caps etc perhaps?

Actually they don't. There is an Intel spec called the "keepout zone" that mobo makers adhere to. There is a huge rectangle around these CPU's.

[tajoh111]

The layout is just perfect and it has everything to be a crazy mb. All that can really be improved is the PCB possibly. That copper technology in new GB sounds very promising.

[JumpingJack]

The layout is just perfect and it has everything to be a crazy mb. All that can really be improved is the PCB possibly. That copper technology in new GB sounds very promising.

Yep... the layout is about as clean as it can get, the PCIe slots are nicely spaced to handle 3 double wide video cards if so desired, and I really like the location of the on board pwr/reset switches and voltage pots. Another nice touch are actual voltage test points in the same location.... very very nice.

This is definitely gonna be my next board.

[T_Flight]

The question is will it make it to market in time? This is awful late in the game. Will this be ready in November?

[Astratuner]

So if i see this right you still can use a soundcard on the upper pci-e slot?

the vga card's cooler only goes down and takes up the 2nd pci slot right?

ahum cough

[saaya]

Precisely. Onboard RAID controllers don't offer near the performance level of hardware RAID cards; moreover, you're unnecessarily taxing system resources using integrated controllers. If you swap out mobo's, you lose your RAID array along with it. That's not the case with a hardware solution where the array follows the card to the new mainboard

good point, but when you switch to a different board, dont you need to reinstall windows anyways and install different sound, chipset and whatnot drivers?

Can't believe the Rampage 2 gets a perfect blue and white color scheme and the P6T gets that color mess... Hard to believe they come from the same company.

well its 2 different departments in the same company...

[MomijiTMO]

AU dollar is pretty solid at the moment

Lol wat D=

All the foreign backers are running away. Currently at 0.75USD. I remember when it was 0.98USD. Nehalem is going to be expensive now.

[pmp]

Some pics for handjob boys



We will bundle 3D Mark Vantage with this MB :-)

[Slovnaft]

ooOOooo
too bad no digital pwm? i don't like vdroop....

[Slovnaft]

Nice, but I think the socket area is way too cluttered for a $600 overclocking board.
Can anybody explain why board makers keep placing stuff near the socket area, if placed further away will this cause a loss in signal from the phase,caps etc perhaps?

Actually I'm more concerned abot all the transistors etc that aren't on the top-side socket area of the mobo, because if they're not on the topside then there are probably a bunch on the bottom side, like my EVGA 790i FTW, which has transistors and resistors galore right in the way of my backplate. THat means if i tighten the HS retention too hard, it will pinch a resistor and cause board to FF.

[mikeyakame]

Lol wat D=

All the foreign backers are running away. Currently at 0.75USD. I remember when it was 0.98USD. Nehalem is going to be expensive now.

yeah appears i spoke too soon! stupid world economy!

good point, but when you switch to a different board, dont you need to reinstall windows anyways and install different sound, chipset and whatnot drivers?

well its 2 different departments in the same company...

believe it or not Vista completely does away with this! I've gone through a handful of boards and what not and all I've had to do was uninstall sound software and video drivers after booting with new board. Then simply just reinstall Intel motherboard drivers, video and sound. Works like magic! I've even gone from ICH7R to ICH9R and Vista still booted fine off my raid array with the ICH raid drivers! XP's reinstalling the OS is a thing of the past for new hardware.

Some pics for handjob boys

We will bundle 3D Mark Vantage with this MB :-)

pmp,

Any chance we'll be seeing this board ready for primetime at official i7 release? By the looks of the revision on the board, looks like a 1.00! So perhaps it will be ready once NDA is lifted! Great news if so! No doubt it'll hurt the wallet but will be worth it!

[Astratuner]

So if i see this right you still can use a soundcard on the upper pci-e slot?

the vga card's cooler only goes down and takes up the 2nd pci slot right?

Anyone got an answer please

[Slovnaft]

believe it or not Vista completely does away with this! I've gone through a handful of boards and what not and all I've had to do was uninstall sound software and video drivers after booting with new board. Then simply just reinstall Intel motherboard drivers, video and sound. Works like magic! I've even gone from ICH7R to ICH9R and Vista still booted fine off my raid array with the ICH raid drivers! XP's reinstalling the OS is a thing of the past for new hardware.

Vista can work between multiple chipsets, but you will not see the best performance until you do a "repair" or fresh install to get it to properly do away with the old chipset drivers and use the correct ones.