Live MB OC Report :: ASUS Rampage Extreme

[Mezzro]

Is this with a PCI-E raid card? The problem I had with bios 403 was that if Intel Raid (onboard) was enabled it will not work with my PCI-E card.
I had to use either but not both (If I wanted to use PCI-E raid card intel onboard had to be set as IDE otherwise there were major issues).
I havent tried the raid card with 501 but I will do so tonight and see what the result is.

I am running a QX9770 with no isues at all on this board. Currently running 10x400 with 1.325v in bios. This is wiht 8GB of DDR3. It seems I can not increase the FSB past 400 or the memory past 1600MHz (most probably I could if I were to run 2Gb or 4Gb isntead of 8GB - but I am happy with the overall speed and the amount of memory).

PCIe RAID hardware solutions are possible on this motherboard. I've successfully run both the Areca 1220 and 1200 cards with no issue. In fact, I'm now running the Areca 1200 (PCIe 1x card, allowing me to run 4-Way 4870 X2 Crossfire) and both integrated controllers -- Silicon Image and Intel ICH9R software RAID solutions. This takes some patience and trial and error, but it is possible to get the three controllers to coexist peacefully.

There is definitely an FSB wall with the RE and quad core processors -- any quad core. I'm experiencing this on my personal rig, as well as seeing it from members on my Asus tech forum running the QX9770 with LN2 (www.asusindependent.com), so it's not a matter of temperature.

Frankly, I think the board is so over automated that even when the auto settings are (supposedly) overridden by manual settings, some are reverting resulting in instability. I can not think of any other explanation why manually setting NB/SB/vcore voltages and FSB consistent with voltages & FSB employed by the board in 'auto' OC mode do not yield stable overclocks above 4.20 GHz.

I've been able to boot into the OS at 4.30GHz using the CellShock Blue RAM, but only using auto settings -- with the exception of manually setting vcore to 1.475v. That voltage is high compared to overclocks on this same processor -- QX9650 -- obtained with the Maximus Extreme up to and beyond 460MHz FSB on water.

Until Asus gets its act together and comes out with a decent BIOS (that ain't 501 and it's not 403 or 401), the Maximus Extreme is hands down the superior motherboard for running quad core processors in competitive benchmarks (hwbot, etc). The RE is great for overclocking dual core processors, but that's where the party ends for now.