First pics of Asus Rampage 2 Extreme (X58)

[T_Flight]

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

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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.

[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...

[Mezzro]

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?

Sure, but you have all your data intact. I think most people have more HDD space occupied by data than OS and app's. Takes much longer to restore all that data -- or do comprehensive backups, as opposed to incremental, etc.