News Asus Announces Rampage III Extreme Black Edition

Asus looks to raise the LGA1366 stakes by revising its top-end offering.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/01/19/asus-announces-rampage-ii-extreme-black-edi/1

 

People are rather waiting for a µATX Rampage-board for the new 1155-socket.

 

By the time it's released, won't the X58 be getting replaced shortly after? I prefer the present heatsinks to these new ones too.

 

Yeah, tbh from what I've seen of X58 boards they're all much of a muchness with very similar performance. As long as you avoid the red herrings 99% of people (excluding extreme overclockers) should just be looking at the features they want at the lowest price.

Or they could just do the smart thing and go for Sandybridge (now) or socket 2011 (by the end of the year).

As an aside, have we got a more interesting codename for 'socket 2011' yet? Nehalem sounded awesome, s2011 just sounds pathetic. Maybe they should've gone retro and called it the 1186?

 

2011 will still be "sandy bridge", the same way "nehalem" applied to 1366 and 1156. I believe it's called "Sandy Bridge E" to designate it from regular mainstream "Sandy Bridge"

 

This is correct.

Not very inventive eh

 

They need to move the Thunderbolt Daughtercard to the START of the PCI-E lanes

(i.e Thunderbolt slot, PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot 1, PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot 2, PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot 3, PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot 4)

This would mean that the daughtercard doesnt get in the way of all the x16 lanes rather than sticking it slap bang in the middle. Either that, or just embed the NPU and Xonar into the board itself >.>

Other than that, it's looks good

 

dead end platform, sadly

 

The daughter card, unless I'm mistaken, is just a standard PCIe x1 card, so can go anywhere you want it to be. Look at the thumbnail pic location and the trade-show photo and see how they're in different places?

 

And correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Socket-2011 also Socket-R? Or am I mixing my products up again.

Borrowing "Black" as an extreme title from Mercedes?

And it isn't all black, or even very much more black, there's still about the same amount of red on there as before...

Or am I just being insensitive?

 

I read "big 'ol gun" as "we have nothing but contempt for our customers".

 

1 - Kinda old platform (LGA1366), but hey, you need ways to revive it... no matter what, since LGA2011 will still take some time.

2 - Yes, definitely I will love to also see Asus Thunderbolt (Xonar + Bigfoot) on sale... by itself... (without the mobo.... ). If thunderbolt needs a 4 pin power connector from the psu, please, include in the box a long sleeved black 4 pin extension cable.... hate to have to drive psu connectors in the middle of the motherboard... does not look so clean on many cases.

3 - Would love to see leds on the back of the motherboard... for some nice good looking illuminated view from an acrylic case... (yes, you can turn the leds off on bios, right? yes....)

3 - Dear Asus, please make a Rampage-I Deluxe (Mini ITX with P67) with Thunderbolt onboard (don't forget the WiFi and Bluetooth from P8H67-I Deluxe)....... this will KICK ASS for sure, chuck style (yes, it's going to be hard to do... but hey, you guys are Asus, right? It's going to be expensive... but hey, there are people that will buy it.... just DO IT.

 

Looks like the "Thunderbolt" is a Xonar DG with a networking chip. I'd actually quite like that sort of thing to be available as a separate product, but I've just bought a DG and I haven't seen any evidence that the Bigfoot chip is actually useful so the main draw would be the PCI-e interface rather than anything else. Luckily I'm using an older motherboard which still has a 3 PCI slots but I've filled them out now. When I upgrade to 1155 I'll have to either buy a PCI-e WiFi card or drill some holes in the walls.

On that note I'm surprised Asus is even bothering with new 1366 boards. You'd have to be a complete sucker to buy this now. 1155 is kicking all kinds of ass unless you want benchmarking performance and 2011 isn't so far away that it won't factor into buying decisions.

 

whats the point? As the above poster said you'd have to be pretty stupid to buy a 1366 board now

 

What I find irritating about boards now is the fact that EVERY company is focusing on larger. Larger larger.

Which is totally out of line with the current desire of small but punchy. With that said, where's the integrated wifi boards? There aren't too many ATX boards with integrated wifi, the last I recall being that P35 board Asus released.

Whatever happened to innovative and random desgins rather than giant **** measuring contests in the mobo sector?

 

elton, ASUS also make a micro atx rampage board

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus...(x16)-ddr3-2200(oc)-sata-6gb-s-sata-raid-matx

so if "the currect desire is small but punchy" then this board would have sold thousands and ASUS will keep updating them too.

 

Why are they using 2x SLI Bridges on a single SLI setup? Is this some new trick I missed?

 

just for every bodies reference as i have seen it discussed, the thunderbolt card is indeed pci=e x1 and its only in the middle slot so you can see see the socket area of the motherboard better.

 

I agree, however the number of people who seem to think they need a big 4x4 to ferry about London would suggest human nature is not that logical.

 

ROG matx please Asus!