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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Cryogenically Cooled Conquest

Finally, a good bit of fun. Without further ado, real runs!

Rampage III Extreme and EVGA GTX 480 3DMark 2003 LN2 cooled CPU Stock GPU 100127 3DMarks   Rampage III Extreme and EVGA GTX 480 3DMark 2005 LN2 cooled CPU Stock GPU 48027 3DMarks

Click the images to see the full-sized screenshot.

Err. 3DMark 2003 is clearly still GPU bound and that GTX 480 is in dire need of LN2 pot and a dousing in juice. Sadly, I couldn't make this happen nor could I or would I run 3DMark Vantage and 2006 as I was limited to 9 liters of liquid nitrogen on this run. To top it all off running 3DMark 2006 and Vantage is like signing a death warrant for your CPU and frankly I like this CPU. So, ignoring 3DMark 2003 I'd say 3DMark 2005 is looking mighty fine. Jumping from 38997 3DMarks at 4.4GHz to 48027 3DMarks at 5.8GHz it would appear 3DMark 2005 rather enjoyed the LN2 treatment.

Rampage III Extreme and EVGA GTX 480 3DMark 2003 LN2 cooled CPU OC GPU 105835 3DMarks    Rampage III Extreme and EVGA GTX 480 3DMark 2005 LN2 cooled CPU OC GPU 48211 3DMarks

Click the images to see the full-sized screenshot.

Depressing. These benchmarks are just screaming at me to mount my Tek9 to the GTX 480 and wail away. I couldn't even pass the air-cooled run as the OS gradually degraded and the runs became more and more inconsistent. The increase in 3DMark 2005 was marginal at best showing how the benchmark is mainly CPU bound even at 5.8GHz. The 3DMark 2003 run scaled modestly with the GPU overclock but it definitely needs a GTX 480 at 1200MHz core or higher.

In the end this was quite a bit of fun. Unfortunately I was limited to scraping the bottom of my dewar for LN2 and haven't got any more available till long after this review will be posted. So, for now this will have to do. Or will it?

Next Page - Maximizing Memory


Review Index
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