Asus Rampage III Extreme Motherboard review

To test this motherboard we had to build a suitably high end system to push it to the limits. On a software level we are using a mixture of synthetic and real world applications to give a solid cross view of system performance.

Test System:
Asus Rampage III Extreme
Asus Rampage II Gene
1.5TB Western Digital x2 Raid 0 External USB/eSATA/Firewire unit
Corsair H50
CoolIT ECO A.L.C.
Intel Core i7 980x
Intel Core i7 975
Intel Core i7 920
Intel Core i5 750
Radeon HD5870 1GB
6GB Corsair Dominator GT
ATI 5870 1GB Graphics Card
Enermax 1250w Revolution PSU
160Gb Intel SSD
LaCie 730 30 inch Display

Thermal Diodes
Digital Sound Level Noise Decibel Meter Style 2
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp

Windows 7 64bit Ultimate Edition
Maya 2011
SiSoft Sandra Professional
Queen CPU Test
Mandel FPU Test
3dMark06
3DMark Vantage Professional
HDTach
Crysis Warhead
Far Cry 2
Cinema 4D
KitGuru Photoshop Benchmark V1(4)
Adobe Suite CS5
Prime 95
Super Pi

Overclocking (max levels)
Nothing wants to me make kill myself quicker than reading some reviewer ranting on about randomly adjusting 150 bios settings so I'll cut straight to the chase. Using both the Corsair H50 and the Coolit ECO A.L.C to keep temperatures under control, we were able to crank the system up to 4617.7mhz. CPUz is misreading the voltage in the screenshot below – we settled on 1.425V in the bios.

We stress tested the system with various programs and found that pushing the system further than this resulted with instability in both Super Pi and Prime 95. Regardless, a 1.3ghz overclock on Intel's top of the line processor is surely an impressive result. Using the Corsair H50 the CPU hit around 79C with the CoolIT hitting 81c. At KitGuru labs we don't like to record processor temperatures hitting 78-82c long term, technically it is not dangerous but we don't like to see it. More powerful methods of watercooling (or phase) would be required for complete peace of mind.

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