Legit Motherboard Reviews
ASUS Rampage III Extreme Intel X58 Motherboard Review
| Manufacturer: | ASUS |
| Product: | ASUS Rampage III Extreme |
| Date: | Wed, Sep 08, 2010 - 12:00 AM |
| Written By: | Chris Morrell - |
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Bashful BIOS
I could show you the dozens of BIOS screens but, frankly, that's a bit monotonous and boring. So, instead I'll ignore the vast majority of BIOS options that are present in every board and focus solely on what's unique and important on the Rampage III Extreme.
The first screen that pops up on the BIOS is the extreme tweaker tab. A few interesting things to note are the Sync Mode and the 2D Performance Booster. Sync mode will lock in any settings you set with ROG Connect so that the settings are saved upon reboot. Typically it is best to disable this when you are overclocking excessively as it can result in settings that may run a benchmark but won't POST. 2D Performance Booster tightens up a lot of the timings on the board, increasing 2D efficiency while sacrificing stability a little. This is a very useful setting to test when benchmarking some things like Super Pi and PiFast.
Continuing on the Extreme Tweaker tab we see the start of the voltage options along with a lot of the options to configure the various power circuits on the board. DRAM timings are up at the top and let you set all the memory channels. Most of the PWM settings I leave on auto but load-line calibration and Digi+ PWR Mode I set to 100% calibration and X-power. This will decrease the efficiency of the PWM but I've found it yields more stable voltages under heavy loads.
Just more voltages. Make sure to enable Extreme OV if you intend on pushing heavy voltages. Otherwise, the board will limit you to 1.8vcore and I believe 1.6vtt. Extreme OC is a setting that supposedly assists with temperature stability at very low temperatures with very high voltages.
OC Profiles can be immensely helpful, especially if you tend to crash and burn frequently when benching. Saving profiles has made it possible for me to quickly get back up to speed when I'm benching over multiple days.
Nothing too special here except for one unique feature under Onboard Devices Configuration.
Woohoo! I am sure I've spent hours over the last few years disabling onboard devices on motherboards. ASUS went out of their way to make it easy for overclockers to disable all the devices with a simple press of the button.
Next Page - Air Aerated Assembly
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Page 1 - Rampaging Red REX Runs Rampant
Page 2 - Alluring Accessories Page 3 - Bloody Beautiful Board Bitmaps Page 4 - Bashful BIOS Page 5 - Air Aerated Assembly Page 6 - Air Aerated Aftermath Page 7 - Cryogenically Cooled Creature Page 8 - Cryogenically Cooled Conquest Page 9 - Maximizing Memory Page 10 - Supplementary Software Page 11 - Creative R3E Conclusion |
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