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ASUS Striker II Extreme Intel Motherboards
Customer Reviews for ASUS Striker II Extreme LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
Newegg.com's Product Ratings and Reviews feature enables Newegg.com customers to help each other make informed buying decisions. Learn More

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Review Summary (156 Reviews): Rating + 3
OverallLast 2 WeeksLast 6 Months
Excellent Rating + 5 61ReviewsExcellent
newegg
39%
Good Rating + 4 26ReviewsGood
newegg
17%
Average Rating + 3 19ReviewsAverage
newegg
12%
Poor Rating + 2 16ReviewsPoor
newegg
10%
Very Poor Rating + 1 34ReviewsVery Poor
newegg
22%
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Reviewer Product Review
Piaggio
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
9/16/2009 11:05:57 AM

Rating + 5 It's ASUS :)


Pros: I have been using ASUS mobos for about 7 years now and I have never had a serious issue. ASUS is great quality and performance in my book and this card is no different. It comes with a 790i nvidia chipset, very nice layout, GREAT performance, SLI works nicely (easy setup, I only used for a short time to test it with a friend's card) and it has an internal on/off button which is very useful when you are testing things or adding new hardware. And yes, it looks pretty with all the lights :)

Cons: Haven't found any problems yet

Other Thoughts: ASUS = Win

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N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/14/2009 9:46:26 PM

Rating + 1 Don't buy


Pros: Features looked good.. Board looks pretty

Cons: Well I decided to buy this board because of the features and it had a lot that I liked. I didn't really research the board and wish I did, I have yet to find many places where anything good is said about it.

It worked properly for about the first 4 hours. Tried SLI and it would freeze going straight into windows. Out of no where the voltages where all extremely high verified in the bios and with many other programs. No matter what was tried in the bios the voltages where unchangeable. I also got the lovely cpu init error, clearing the cmos allowed it to boot again but it was just a glitchy piece of junk. I wouldn't recommend this board to anyone and because of my experience I ended up straying away from asus all together on the new build. Thankfully newegg refunded my money on this heap! Newegg = awesome, this board = horrible

Other Thoughts: Don't buy unless you want something that looks pretty and won't function
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We are sorry for this inconvenience. If you still have the motherboard, we would like to assist you in getting a working replacement. Please contact our Technical Support Department at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx and reference case number "NE500913" so that we may get more details about your system configuration and assist you in resolving these issues you are experiencing.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/10/2009 11:19:17 PM

Rating + 1 Freezing till hard drive gives up


Pros: It looks pretty with all the lights.

I would find another board for the price or less and not risk the trouble. When I purchased this board I read the reviews and decided to try my luck anyway... bad idea.

Cons: I really gave this board a try. I spent two months trying to get this board to stop freezing. I posted on several forums related specifically to this board to get some additional expertise. I tried so many things I lost count...tried two different sets of memory, upgraded my power supply, tried every different version of the bios, updated all my drivers...on and on and on.

I don't give up easily, so I figured I would keep trying and dig into the bios in more detail and mess with the voltages. After trying dozens of configurations and wasting hours of time, I was at my wits end. The machine kept hard-locking and I had to reset it so many times that the partition got damaged on my hard drive, forcing me to reinstall Vistax64 twice. At that point I said screw it, bought a Gigabyte board for half the price with nearly all the features, and now I'm running perfectly. I know some people have had luck with this board, but if I can save anyone the trouble... look elsewhere.

Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We are sorry for this inconvenience. Please contact our Technical Support Department at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx and reference case number "NE498208" so that we may get more details about your system configuration and assist you in resolving these issues you are experiencing.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/7/2009 5:34:51 PM

Rating + 1 I'm not impressed Asus


Pros: Lights on the board were pretty

Cons: Pure Junk, even after 4 boards, have way through installing the OS. Board die's.

Other Thoughts: Not sure why Asus would realease a board like this. If it can't post, I guess you never find out if other parts of the board is junk. Nice work Asus.
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We are sorry to hear about our situation. We would like to assist you in getting a working replacement and find out what the root cause is. Please contact us at APS_support@asus.com and reference case number NE490462 for assistance in resolving your issues.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

mustang_god
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
9/3/2009 1:15:59 PM

Rating + 5 I must be lucky?


Pros: It had the original bios, but still loaded Vista x64 no problem... In fact - I have had ZERO problems that have been the fault of this board - the board is abso-tively phenomenal.

Cons: none? Haven't found any yet...

Other Thoughts: Not sure why this board is getting such negative press... This isn't an amateur board, isn't for first or second-time builders, and shouldn't be considered as "plug and play". Know the true problem(s) before blaming the components. Sure, there are legitimate DOA cases, all boards have them, but a lot of these bad reviews look to me like lack of experience. But maybe that's just my take on it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

RUSH
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/31/2009 2:28:26 PM

Rating + 1 Mistake


Pros: Sounds good on paper

Cons: CPU INIT is all I could get out of 2 boards.I did the usual min.bench build on two boards .Asus service teck sugested I try what I already tried and if it didn't work ,RMA it.I called new egg and got RMA the two boards plus CPU and memery.after spending a lot of time researching the problem I came to the conclusion that the board is a bad design and I should opt out.Asus customer service is POOR at best if you can call it service at all.

Other Thoughts: I decided to go with a EVGA classified build
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for this inconvenience. If you still have the boards and want to get it working, please contact us at APS_support@asus.com and reference case number NE481909 for assistance in resolving your issues.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Dan_the_man4321
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
8/30/2009 4:02:33 PM

Rating + 2


Pros: Lots of overclocking features which make overclocking extremely easy.

Cons: This board is using nvidia's 790i chipset which has a ton of problems just read on all the forums search 790i freezes or lockups and there is page after page. I tried to run 2 9800gtx+ cards on this mobo and had a lot of problems freezing in games and even sometimes just running itunes. SLI does not seem to be useable on this mobo unless you dont mind restarting frequently.

Other Thoughts: This board is very easy to overclock i got a Q96650 running at 4.05ghz at 30 from max on air cooling. I also OC'd some cheap 1333mhz ram up to 1600 easily enough. The problems came in when i tried to actually use the SLi using 2 geforce 9800gtx cards i got frequent freezes as many ppl have. I wish i would have research the board a little more before buying, as asus is great the 790i is not all manufacturers of this board are having problems with no definate way to fix it. I ended up switching from my 2 9800gtx+ to 1 gtx285 and havent had it lock up yet been running it like that for 2 weeks. So if your not planning on running SLi this seems like a great board but really if your not interested in SLi you might as well not waste your money. From the forums the lockups seem to be isolated to the 790i and 790i ultra, the 780i do not have the same problem.
Maybe one day nvidia will patch the drivers and fix this error but as of yet no dice!
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We are sorry for this inconvenience. Please contact our Technical Support Department at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx and reference case number "NE481949" so that we may get more details about your system configuration and assist you in resolving these issues you are experiencing.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Chew
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/27/2009 6:03:31 AM

Rating + 5 Pretty epic board


Pros: I've only had this board for a few days now, but I've got to say... I've never owned a board with so many features. I experienced none of the problems that other people are talking about with their initial setups. I've got a formal education relating to computers as well as ~10 years of job experience, I would still only give myself 4/5 on tech knowledge though. my old motherboard died on me a week ago and I needed a replacement, after I hooked up all of my old hardware my computer fired right up and after minor driver changes I was up and running on the first attempt. I still need to check and make sure that it's getting everything it can out of my memory, but all in all this has been a very smooth experience.

Cons: I have no complaints about the board, the sound card that came with it didn't work right away and rather than messing with it I just put my old Audigy card back in there. If you don't have an extra sound card lying around though, this might be useful for you to know.

I ordered the Intel processor along with this board as part of a combo deal. he processor is great, leagues beyond my old one.. but like others have noted, the heatsink is a real junker.. I would strongly recommend buying an aftermarket cooling solution, even if it's a cheap one.

Other Thoughts: The back panel cover glows around the ports, pretty spiffy. I also like that this rig is water-cooling ready, though I am not using that feature yet, it will probably be the next thing I do to my computer. If you are going to watercool make sure to thoroughly leak test these pipes.. I read more than a couple of people complaining about them.

Ordered this equipment on Sunday night and got it in on Tuesday. Newegg is the best!

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

l4nce0
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
8/21/2009 2:06:35 AM

Rating + 1 good for a year or two..


Pros: I'm going to point out I had the First asus striker extreme, not the striker II extreme. Worked great for 2 years. Massive OC abilities, all the power I needed.

Cons: Second asus board to die in 2 years or less. Thing is a niiightmare when it came to ram timings, if I cleared CMOS I would have to get 800 mhz ram to even post. No on board speaker. 200+ is a lot, for a board that will die is 2 years. This isn't a brand if you don't like spending days troubleshooting. I swoar after the last one never to buy asus.. and here I am again.

OH AND I 100% COULD NOT INSTALL LINUX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
only solaris (unix) is compatible.. no thanks.

Other Thoughts: I'm a five year experienced PC tech, honors CS student. Just think about that. I have a hard time dealing with the cr*p this series of boards can toss. Now to buy a board I can't afford =) yay debt.
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We are sorry for this inconvenience. Please contact our Technical Support Department at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx and reference case number "NE472264" so that we may get more details about your system configuration and assist you in resolving these issues you are experiencing.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

0 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

GeneralHiBot
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/20/2009 8:44:49 PM

Rating + 5 Asus Striker II Extreme


Pros: This is the best motherboard out there value and overclocking for the next year or so this is the best board out there. I have played on alot of motherboards and this is by far the best one ive ever seen and owned.

Cons: Mine was DOA but newegg was fast and understanding and issued a RMA right away. They send the boards back to ASUS I would assume.

Other Thoughts: I have bought this motherboard before for a client and they loved it as much as I did so I bought another one. I wish there was a rebate still.

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ritchieritch
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/19/2009 8:14:25 PM

Rating + 4 Mea Cculpa


Pros: I wrote a very negative review on this board not long ago. It was running terribly the worst I ever had.
Well Asus contacted me and pointed me towards their web site and there was a new bios out (4 days old, a year in the making) and that fixed my memory problems. So far great!! I can run both my ddr3 1600 and swicth to my ddr3 1800 with very little tinkering with the 1600 timings.
I just want to say tha t I was so frustrate with that board that I was ultra negative in my review.
Jany Xiao at ASUS was a great help. I was having problems next with the sli but it turned out one of my GTS 285 went bad. I'm running 2-8800 gts now in SLI config and so far so good. I do want to apologize for letting my frustrations get the better of me.

Cons: none so far. What didn't perform before is performing now

Other Thoughts: I gave it 4 eggs because I haven't put it through it's pacees yet.I'm running a QX9650 at a modest 3.6 gigs
Patriot ddr3 1800 a
@1800mhz
fsb @ 1800 mhz. linked and synced in bios. When I get the Gtx 285 repaired or replaced I may have some more to say.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

nawty4ya
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/19/2009 12:52:55 PM

Rating + 5 Gamers Paradise!!


Pros: - Break neck fast!
- Loads of options in the bios to push your componets to the limit, but the board also incorporates protective measures to safe guard your investment.
- So many accessories, Asus had to package them in a separate box
- Nice little additions like the glowing i/o panel at the back of the PC and the backlit LCD Poster make this board a must have.
- Aesthetics on this board is great... placed in a chassis with side windows, you'll be the envy at your next LAN party.

Cons: Very advanced, so tweaking to get the right balance might take some time. Newbies... stay away!!!

Other Thoughts: Don't be swayed by all the bad rap people put on this board. It is by far the best motherboard I've ever used, and I have used a lot. Married to the Mushkin 996601 DDR3 ram kit, and with bios 1104 (l8tr upgraded to 1203) it is rock solid in the stability arena. If you are looking for a non-vanilla 790i Ultra SLI board, look no further.

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pclanguy
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/9/2009 8:21:22 PM

Rating + 2 Love the Board, Asus warranty repair not so much


Pros: Awesome board. You get what you pay for with Asus. Do your homework, make sure your components are compatible, and you will have a stable feature rich system.

Cons: As much as I love Asus and the board, their warranty repair is horrible. After close to a year of ownership I had to send the board in for repair as it slowly degraded until it wouldn't even post.

Of course after 6 weeks of waiting (I love the board so much I bought another one retail just so I didn't have to wait) the board was returned. I shipped them the board in retail box with all the cables, manuals, etc. I got back a board in bubble wrap shoved into a tight shipping box.

Since I didn't have a use for the reapired board because I bought a new one, it sat on a shelf waiting for life. About 6 months later I finally needed to build an HTPC so I had the perfect board. Unfortunately, warranty repair must mean keep the board for 6 weeks, stare at it, then ship it back and say its fixed.

Kudos to Asus for making good boards, but you're horrible when something goes wrong with your product.

Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We are sorry for this inconvenience. Please let us know if we can assist in the RMA process by contacting us at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/usa_rmaserv.aspx and reference case number "NE453870".


Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Fids
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/7/2009 1:28:06 PM

Rating + 5 Ran well once I had to correct power supply


Pros: Lightning fast, great features, plenty of USB and Firewire ports AND 2 eSata ports. My Core 2 Extreme worked right away, something I have never experienced on a motherboard until I used an older CPU to update the BIOS. The BIOS settings allow many tweaks for getting the most out of your mobo, PLUS, the ASUS Software provided allows tweaking of the BIOS setting through Windows on the fly. NO REBOOTING. Great job ASUS!

Cons: When I first received this board, I had an existing 750W power supply that worked fine on my NVIDIA 680i SLI board. It has an 8 pin CPU power cable, 4 PCI-Express video power and is rated "SLI Ready." I mounted the mobo, added all the components, connected all the cables and nothing happened. Took everything out, placed the mobo on the box, connected ONLY the main power connector and it turned on. I connected the CPU power next and nothing. I popped down to Best Buy and bought a "current" (my other power supply is only a year old) 850w "SLI Ready" power supply and it worked. Just to prove the older power supply was not bad, I tried it on another computer and it worked flawlessly. Not sure what the Striker II Extreme was expecting, but it is all good now.

Other Thoughts: I am big fan of Nvidia chipsets simply because the driver set is so easy to setup and modify.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/7/2009 8:11:18 AM

Rating + 5 Great Motherboard


Pros: Great motherboard that runs stable and overclocks VERY well. Has connections for all devices you could want.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Flash bios to version 1203 and make sure you read the manual and you shouldn't have any problems. I understand no MB ever gets 5 eggs overall but maybe people aren't reading manuals? This was my first ever build from scratch and the board has performed great for me.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

skills71
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/6/2009 12:45:00 PM

Rating + 3 so much trouble...


Pros: Fast. Feature Rich. Easy to setup.

Cons: 28Amps. That is the requirement on the +12V rail connecting to the MB/CPU.

Initially configured with Vista everything worked as advertised. Was stable for quite some time, then after an Nvidia driver update I ran into video stability issues and on reboot there was a chance there would be no network connectivity. This behavior degraded until the machine was no longer usable and I was unable to reinstall Windows.

Enter Win7 beta. Installed, everything worked swimmingly... for about a month. Then, again with an Nvidia driver update, I started getting video issues and network connectivity issues on reboot. Again the behavior degraded to the point of being unusable.

A call to Asus revealed that the motherboard requires 28 Amps (!) on the main rail. My 1000W PSU is only rated at 20A on each of 4 rails.

Other Thoughts: the 3egg rating is rather generous. while i have, obviously, gone through quite a bit with this motherboard when it has worked it has been exceptional.

PSU has been replaced with the new OCZ1000W single raid unit and things have been perfect since installation. 2days of load testing things appear to be rock solid again. Hopefully things remain this way.

Asus should really provide power requirements (I couldn't find it anywhere in the documentation, printed or online). Who would have thought that a 1000W name-brand PSU wouldn't have enough power...

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

adam
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
8/6/2009 12:54:41 AM

Rating + 5 great mobo


Pros: worked right out of the box no problems at all

Cons: could use a spot to mount the temp monitor on the mobo itsself. that would have been great for people with a side window not realy a con but just somthing i would like.

Other Thoughts: not for starters according to othere reviews was not bad at all for me.

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

ritchieritch
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/1/2009 11:54:10 PM

Rating + 1 The Absolute worst MB I ever had.


Pros: Looks good

Cons: It runs with 4 gigs of patriot ddr3 1600 (2x 2 gig sticks) with an Intel QX 9650 extreme quad processor. The Video is xfx gtx 285 wth a 300gig velosi raptor main drive and 3-150 gig raptors in a raid 5 config. Out of the box it runs @ 3.66 gigs with the 2:1 meomory to fsb of 1333 each. I haven't tried sli yet. If i increase anything it blows blows up drivers . I need more than one hand to count the number of times I have reloaded my Vista 64 ultimate OS. I have a Maximus extreme MB that finally ran great at 4 gigs at a 5:4 ratio but it wasn't SLI. Aparantley I will have to go back to it for now and throw thios thing out. I couldn't re-sell it in good conscience.

Other Thoughts: I can't recomendd this board. I WAS an ASUS peerson. I couldn't RMA it (like I see some people had to do 4 or 5 times) because I am disabled and was having some episodes with my back that I didn't get to the installation and find out what a piece of whatever you want to call it of a motherboard I had until after the 30 days had expired. So I don't see any fixes anywhere, so the next step for me is to find a sockett 775 tried and true sli ready MB and convert it to water cooled. It won't be asus and I've been an asus man up until now.

PS:the one egg rating I gave ir is too much
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We are sorry for this inconvenience. Please contact our Technical Support Department at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx and reference case number "NE444880" so that we may get more details about your system configuration and assist you in resolving these issues you are experiencing.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Andy
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/30/2009 2:58:44 PM

Rating + 4 I have no issues


Pros: I'm sorry to hear that others are having problems with this MB, but I never had a problem with this MB. I bought it to replace my old Strker in order to take advantage of quad-core. My machine acts as a server for the other machines in the house. My config:
Intel Q9650 3.0 GHz
2X Crucial Ballistix (BL2KIT25664BA1336) for 8 GB
EVGA GeForce 9600GT
4 WD 500 GB drives in RAID 1 config (2 sets of RAID)
Vista 64bit

My system runs cool - 32C at idle and may reach 46C at 3GHz and all cores fully loaded.

Cons: Every now and then, but not very frequently, I need to go in and reset when I reboot. Has to do with the amount of ram I have.

Other Thoughts: My machine runs 24x7 and is very stable. The external LCD is kinda gimmiky and gets in the way sometimes.

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

Skagnatti
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/24/2009 7:26:28 AM

Rating + 2 Be Warned


Pros: Looks good, has quick reset buttons on the board for CMOS and system reset, numerous settings available to tweek in BIOS, fast-when it runs.

Cons: Very difficult to run stable, almost not worth it for the money you spend, you are essentially playing the lotto when you buy this board. A lot of very difficult to diagnose issues you can find when you research the boards common quirks.

Other Thoughts: I have made many builds in the past 12 years for myself and others and personally had two prior ASUS boards that ran perfect, but never had the stability issues that I did with this one. After a solid month of troubleshooting on weeknights, and a few hours on Saturdays and Sundays, a lot of research on the web with numerous others having the same/similar issues getting the board to run stable, using Prime95, Perestroika, MemTest, other benchmarking software to verify stability and narrow down individual hardware components, going through the usual, time consuming swapping of hardware, I cannot see going through the motion of possibly RMA'ing upwards of 5 boards to get one that just works. Plenty of people have gone through that, Google it.
I was doing no Overclocking. Just trying to run stock. I use my personal builds for work as well as play and cannot afford the downtime involved in the RMA game. When you spend this much on a board, running it stock out the box should be easy
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We are sorry for this inconvenience. Please contact our Technical Support Department at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx and reference case number "NE434795" so that we may get more details about your system configuration and assist you in resolving these issues you are experiencing.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

kay
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
7/22/2009 2:05:00 PM

Rating + 1 Worst Buy Ever


Pros: Fast, but if it ever works....

Cons: Disappointed in the Motherboard from ASUS. Had so high hopes from it, Had problems with it the day i got it. Most major being the Memory Put in OCZ OCZ3G16004GK (2x2GB), supposed to run @ 1600, well the board always sees it @ 1333. tried various settings, spent ton's of time with OCZ. well finally gave up after trying manual settings. moved the memory from slots 1 and 3 to 2 and 4, after i came to realize that they operate differently( Note no mention in ASUS documentation) got it to a point where system would be stable for atleast 2hrs altho' not always. tried various other Mem chips as well to no avail.
Currently having problems with nvidia network controllers, evidently they will not connect to any network, the lights are red and amber meaning no connectivity. pushed that same network cable to laptop, works like a charm. In all, for all the good things about ASUS from past experience, i think i am going to stay quite a bit away from ASUS one word to put it is HORRIBLE.

Other Thoughts: Been an ASUS customer since Years, built tons of custom systems for myself and also for my buddies. but this build was the WORSE ever.
Here are my Sys Specs:

ASUS Striker II Extreme
CPU INTEL|C2Q Q9400 2.66G 775 45N
PSU SILVERSTONE|DA1000 1000W
VGA EVGA 01G-P3-N891-AR GF9800GX2
MEM 2Gx2|OCZ OCZ3G16004GK
500x2 Gb Western Digital SATA II Drives in Raid 0
1 Tb Seagate SATA II
500 gb Western Digital IDE

OS: MultiBoot
Windows 7 x64
Windows XP x32
Windows Vista x64

I guess the reviews on all other review sites were just to promote it cause no matter what you use this board will not work right.

Contemplating, should i RMA it of just trash it for all the time and effort that i have spent on it.

STAY AWAY FROM THIS MOBO, UNLESS YOU REALLY LIKE HEADACHES And NIGHTMARES.
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We are sorry for this inconvenience. Please contact our Technical Support Department at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx and reference case number "NE430568" so that we may get more details about your system configuration and assist you in resolving these issues you are experiencing.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
7/15/2009 7:57:45 PM

Rating + 1 Striker Extreme


Pros: Lots of bells and whistles

Cons: Run as fast away from this one as you can. I got mine from comp USA before it went under. First problem I had was it would only go to bios screen then nothing. There is a cute screen in the back to look at errors and got dreaded cpu ini. Checking out everything I found that my RAM was specifically listed for this board so down to store 2 gigs later, took out the corsair and stuck in this other type and nothing. Some hours later finially got it running by putting in both new rams sticks and the ones I purchased with the MB. as a very last ditched effort.and it came to life HD ran installed windows everythings fine. here I am now some moths later I get up in the morning turn in the computer windows boots and then computer locks up which it had never done. Shut off power waited couple min turned it back on all showed was Dos type screen telling me Bios not on cd rom. Restart and nothing wont even post i.e. dont even see bios screen. Computers good for holding door open now.

Other Thoughts: I chatted with Asus they sent me Bios chip I installed it no good. Got RMA from them sent board in. After a week I get a email from Asus telling me that my mother board doesnt have serial number sticker on it. I certainly never took it off I have been using the side of the box which has it on it. For $90 dollars they will make a new sticker for me and reinstate my 3 year warranty. No way I can prove that the sticker was on the board when sent adn they just took it off or it fell off while unpacking. Lesson to you all take a picture of sticker on your board and board before packaging. Will Asus give me a break let me send box, dought it they are saving money. Is it worth paying outrages $90 for new sticker and them having someone on staff update my warrenty, when I can get a better rated motherboard here on New Egg for $118. Will any of my future computers have Asus MB in them.....

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/15/2009 6:45:27 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: Very nice, it looks great, and performs great. I was a little worried with the negative reviews, but ordered it anyway. Hookup was a little difficult, some ports were in far places which made it hard to hide the cables.

Cons: Connectors a bit fragile, I broke the I/O cable connector, and the PCI-E 2.0 lock handle, but the port still works, wish the cables were a little stronger.

Other Thoughts: Installed and had a little issue with the ram, it wouldn't post, but I moved the ram to the blue slots, and it posted, and I didn't have to make but 1-2 changes in the bios, which it shipped with 1104, so if it ships with 1104, you can leave the cpu and memory settings on auto, and it'll be stable. I've had no crashes, and this was my first time I built a computer (Completely), so it'll work just fine if you read the instructions, and aren't to forceful with the cables.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/15/2009 5:36:59 PM

Rating + 1 lots of bells, whistles, and trouble


Pros: Has built in water block.
LCD poster is helpful fixing problems during POST.
Nice layout and very pretty. Back panel even lights up.

Cons: Has many problems.
Terrible memory compatibility issues and a QVL that is small and filled mostly with memory no one who would buy this board would use. Who the heck spends $300 on a MB then uses anything under 2GIG RAM modules?
The thermocouples are so inaccurate they are useless. According to one my RAM is at 5C.
Died after either months. CPU INIT error.

Other Thoughts: I've been a happy ASUS customer for over ten years. Right now my wife and I both use ASUS laptops and I've used ASUS motherboards for building both our desktops every couple years for more than a decade. Until now I've been satisfied. But from my experience with this board and what I've read about other ASUS 790i boards the whole line is a failure. I've been fighting to get this board to work right since I bought it. I've changed the graphics cards, the power supply, and the memory twice and have never gotten it to go more than a couple days without crashing even under clocked! Using water cooling on CPU, graphics cards, RAM, and motherboard. After just living with the daily lockup for months getting the CPU INIT error was the final straw. Time to give another company a chance. I should have given up on this board long ago but I was too stuck on ASUS.
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We are sorry for this inconvenience. Please let us know if we can assist in the RMA process by contacting us at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/usa_rmaserv.aspx and reference case number "NE423590".

Or, if you need further technical support, please contact our Technical Support Department at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

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N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/5/2009 9:15:08 PM

Rating + 2 Picky Board!


Pros: Would have gotten 5 eggs It has all the features I want and then some. And it's supposed to be fast.......

Cons: ...... but I'm stuck right now with the LCD poster saying CPU INIT right now so far it seems it's my memory (OCZ3 1600 Platinum) which runs at 1.9v and the board's "Auto" setting is 1.8v so I'm no boot until the KVR (Kingston Value RAM is on the QVL)I ordered gets here. then I get to find out if the evga 790i Ultra I RMA'ed fried my CPU....... this chipset is beginning to upset me.... so finicky about the memory.....

Other Thoughts: Nvidia get your act together putting out boards that are so picky is asking for trouble....... I just want my computer to work!!!!!
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We are sorry for this inconvenience. Please contact our Technical Support Department at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx and reference case number "NE385530" so that we may get more details about your system configuration and assist you in resolving these issues you are experiencing.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

1 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

computer onsite
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/11/2009 6:33:03 AM

Rating + 2 By far one of the worst boards


Pros: This board has good over clocking abilities if you can get it stable. The board looks nice.

Cons: This boards cons over power the pros by far. First off, even if your not over clocking the board compents on the board tend to fail. I have built 5 of these and all 5 have had usb issues. Some have had lockup issues and if your water cooling watch out. USE Tye straps not the included clamps. You will have leaks if you dont. Also, be carefull the plastic reducer will break over time. I had one break out of no where after 1 month. Water everywhere. Make sure you use non conductive liquid.

Other Thoughts: For the aggrivation I would never buy this board again. I was one of the orginial test dummys for this board and over 5 later I can confirm your better off with a different board. For some reason ASUS likes to put out boards too soon with out proper testing and 10 bios updates later you finally only reboot once or twice per hour instead of every 15 minutes.

3 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Brett
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/5/2009 5:34:48 PM

Rating + 4 Brett


Pros: Runs Great!
Robust features have been keeping me pretty happy.

Cons: I wish expansion audio card that fits into the PCI-Ex1 was a little smaller to accomodate using large graphics cards in the PCI-Ex16 right beside it. Its just a really tight fit.

Other Thoughts: Contrary to some of the other posts regarding this board, that were done at the initial release, I had to change hardly any settings in the bios. Yes I skimmed through the manual after seeing so may posts from people that had problems. But it worked right out of the box for me without having to tweak anything. So far has been a great board.

8 out of 8 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

raguza123
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/4/2009 6:47:34 PM

Rating + 5 Really great mobo!!!


Pros: Graphics improvement, Bios settings, easy install guide,
quality of the board, and the crazy settings for OCing

Cons: just one thing the backplate led and the LCD display
pins are small really small for my big fingers, had to use a long nose pliers

Other Thoughts: set up was easy, set the memory timings to manufacturer specs, had no problem, just had to install fresh OS, runs great, gonna run it at stock to break in then will tweak it, can't wait, love it, 5 eggs for newegg

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/28/2009 7:00:02 AM

Rating + 5 amazing


Pros: this board rocks I read alot of bad reviews but still had to have it and I am verry glad I got it. Put in 8 gig of patriot viper 1333, Q9550 processor, 2 GTX 275's, corsair 1000w psu, aquagate max water cooler, and a velo rapty 300gig hdd and everything went perfect plug and play adjusted timing and voltage for memory and did a small OC on the cpu to 3.6ghz and everything is extremely stable 100% did a 24hr stress test and all is well

Cons: none this board rocks IMO

Other Thoughts: I almost shot my self in the face over and over when installing this board with 2 large video cards make sure you mabe the vga's the last thing you install lol i am sure it is like that with every board though.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

punisher
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
4/25/2009 5:23:01 PM

Rating + 5 Suggestion


Pros: Being that I have seen the same posts regarding ram on EVGA, and XFX on this chipset I have noticed that all of them have grey and black slots. I have through testing found that the black slots are for higher spec ram where no documentation exists. I am using Patriot 2000 ddr3 epp 2.0 and have no problems with my chipset. Quite the opposite with the grey slots which seem to be okay below 1600 mhz ram. Therefore I would suggest only getting 1 set or 4gb of 2000 ram and use the black slots like I did.

Cons: To get 8 gb you must use slower ddr3 dual channel ram such 1600 or 1333. It is an Nvidia thing not the brand.

I am using an EVGA 790 Ultra, Patriot 2K 4tgb ram, WD 500 AAKS, XFXGTX285, and Vista Ultimate 64. My machine easily OCs and the ram easily reaches 2000 mhz once epp is enabled and auto selected. Using P08 bios from NVidia. My next upgrade will be either to a Caviar black 1TB, or a Velociraptor 300 and a 2nd XFX285 for SLI. Already maxed out on Crysis Warhead with 1 card due to the Q9650.

Other Thoughts: Frankly with an E8500 or a q9650 this should be more than enough to offset the I7 which costs a lot more for the boards and are at 130 TDP versus 95 TDP for the 9650 or 65 tdp for the dual core. It matters when spending on PSU and your wallet is not bottomless.

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Sonixmon
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/23/2009 9:33:40 AM

Rating + 3 Nice board for the money


Pros: Runs great at stock speeds, trying to tweak a little oc and stay stable. Hard to find the balance cant seem to isolate the issue (voltages, fsb, etc). QX9650 some have OC to 4+ ghz I am just trying to get 3.5 or so! Ran at 4ghz one night, then next day wont run at 3.3ghz??

Cons: Cant get SLI memory to work (because it wants to run at 1800mhz and I have read this board wont handle more than 1600-1700 mhz). Asus says use approved memory (guess what no SLI memory is on the list!)

Other Thoughts: I am happy with the upgrade, just dont expect to get the advertised speeds!

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

MORPO
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/16/2009 7:55:14 PM

Rating + 5 Best LGA 775 on the market.


Pros: 1-lot of Overclocking setting, Auto or manual
2-Watercooling built in, 3/8th barbs
3-Lot of voltage settings nb, sb, vll, mem, etc
4-newest bios available (1104)
5-BIOS poster
6- CMOS reset switch on back I/O
7- ton of fan headers
8- very well laied out board.
9- nice fx sound board.

Cons: 1- still with the Floopy and IDE - For what?
2- I don't think this board likes Kentsfield cores,

With my q6600 Kentsfield, I could only get to 1400 FSB 3.15ghz and the board wouldn't post anymore. I bought a q9650 Yorkfield and I have it up to 4.2Ghz with still room to go.

Other Thoughts: The price is great, 214 after rebate, I'll wait till the 32nm i7s come out before a upgrade.

- Like a few people said, this is not a board for beginners it took a ton of work to get this board running right, however its worth the work.

- This board works great with 8 gig DDR3 Im running DDR3 HPC reaper OCZ, clocked up to 1900 works without a hitch. YOU HAVE TO SET THE TIMING AND VOLTAGE FOR THE RAM

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Like the board
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/12/2009 3:02:17 PM

Rating + 4 Great MB, not for beginners (not PnP)


Pros: At first the board seemed a little complicated but after reading the manual it is quite simple.

It comes with great software, but download the chip-set drivers off the Nvidia website (up to date). I just used the sound card driver that was included on the disk.

Over clocking potential is great, the BIOS recognized my CPU right away without having to flash it.

Everything worked right out of the box.

Water cooling option is great but I heard not to use the tubing and clamps that came with the Mother board because they leak.

Love the LCD poster and I/O panel that lights up, everything looks really sturdy and well built.

Really like the off board sound-card, I hate integrated sound modules.

Cons: Nothing major, none of my games have froze. I haven't experienced any major problems yet...

Other Thoughts: PEOPLE SERIOUSLY!!!! If you have to RMA the board 3-4 times I highly doubt it is the motherboard that is malfunctioning, its you! There is something that you are not doing properly that is causing the mobo to not work, I even read one guy talk about how his computer was making a loud squealing noise. Forgot to plug in the power to your video card? Because that's what it does, the high pitched noise is a warning telling you that you will damage your equipment if you don't shut everything off.
With this board you have to set the voltages and memory timing yourself or the system will be very unstable.
I haven't had any problems with this Motherboard and if you wear a static shock bracelet when handling the board I highly doubt you will either.
P.S. Actually take the time to read the manual, I bet half of the one egg posts are 14 Y.O. kids who don't have to patience or knowledge to be building computers. I can tell cause I can't even read half of there posts.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/11/2009 9:09:32 AM

Rating + 5 Second one is a charm


Pros: This board is very fast once you get it stable. Love all the features. Unlike other I think the board is pretty well constructed. Love the pre-setup water cooling option. The lighted rear panel and LCD poster is a nice touch. The Bios is very easy to understand. Not having any crashing issues at this point.

Cons: I wrote about this board a few posts ago, my first board was DOA and I wasn't very confident when reading past posts. I had issues with ASUS support (used a friend at Intel for help). After using the information on this sight and others I got the setting correct. I thought the info on Newegg and Asus sight was deceiving on the RAM. I ordered 1600 at first and had issues then swapped for 1333 and now it works perfect. I think they should have put the memory standard as 1333 and under option included the overclocking feature. (((IF YOU ARE GOING TO PURCHASE THIS BOARD, DO YOUR RESEARCH ON THE RAM FIRST.)))) The SATA ports I think would be better facing up instead of to the side, just a detail thing but I prefer the facing up for better looking wire runs. case# NE332151 for the ASUS people. They did answer the phone this last time. And I have had several ASUS products in the past with no issues so I have never had to call before.

Other Thoughts: I am running a Zalman LQ1000 water cooled case, ASUS Striker II Extreme board, Intel Core 2 Extreme 3.0, Patriot Viper DDR3 1333 (PC 10666) RAM 8 Gig, Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 3.5" SATA, Western Digital 1 TB backup and storage, 2x Palit 9600GT 1 Gig sonic video cards in SLI. Samsung 32 LCD 1080p TV.

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Phyzik
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
4/10/2009 7:18:01 AM

Rating + 5 Get some IT education before writing reviews.


Pros: It's an Asus board. Asus is the cream of the crop when it comes to gaming. If you're buying an Asus board it's because you know what you're doing and you realize the high performance you can achieve as a result of the purchase. (EVGA and Intel also have some quality boards out there...Gigabyte too I suppose.)

Cons: None...Fact, this board works with any DDR3 Ram you purchase, same with the Rampage board. If you're listening to all these 'pros' who have to buy 'special ram' for a board, you need to know these are kids spending daddy's pocket money on a board they know nothing about. Instead of writing bad reviews on a product because you didn't have the expertise to utilize it properly, have geek squad set it up for you. Let the people that actually have degrees in Computer Networking & Electronics/Computer Sciences do the writing from now on.

Other Thoughts: I am frightened by the number of people that consider themselves "Highly Technical" status on these reviews and tell other people not to get a board because they can't figure out how to manipulate a BIOS...wow.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/8/2009 7:03:24 AM

Rating + 5 Great Board for overclocking NOT FOR NEWBIES


Pros: Overclocking setting, Watercooling built in, Great voltage settings and alot more Bios features than my old crosshair board

Cons: Not a newbie board

NB run a little hot if aircooling so cant get super high overclock unless u fan it well

Other Thoughts: PEOPLE GIVE THIS BOARD A BAD REP BUT IT A GREAT BOARD

If you built pc's before and Still dont know nothing about overclocking DO NOT BUY THIS BOARD. IF YOU THINK U HAVE A IDEA DO NOT BUY THIS BOARD

THIS BOARD IS MENT FOR PEOPLE WHO KNOW WHAT THERE DOING. IF U DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR DOING GOOD LUCK GETING IT TO WORK RIGHT, AND STABLE.

REASON WHY THE BAD REP IS BECAUSE PEOPLE DONT KNOW WHAT THERE DOING this is a board that you dont just install the cpu and ram and it will work right u gotta manual set everything in the bios

Also people complain about ram issue with this board this board work great so long as you use Corsair ram most Asus boards HATE OCZ ram I used 4 gbs of http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145183 and I have no issue

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Tom
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/5/2009 8:38:32 AM

Rating + 1


Pros: Good features, IF, you can get them to work.

Cons: Nothing but problems. 4 failed and then Asus sent a different MB (Rampage) to replace the Striker II Extreme. Avoid!

Other Thoughts: Avoid!

0 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Rshadow
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/1/2009 4:46:52 PM

Rating + 3 Not for Beginners!


Pros: Very nice flexibility for clocking options on a wide variety of memory and CPU's. Integrated liquid cooling option on board is excellent! SLI configuration works well. Nice audio with board. OPT thermal sensors and fan control make for a quiet build.

Cons: Could use better thermal bonding of heatpipe to NB and SB chipsets. Poor recovery console options for NVIDIA Raid. F6 drivers do not work for Vista OS without SP1 or XP without SP3.
Optional fan would be better if there were 2 included instead of 1.

Other Thoughts: Was unable to load XP or Vista sucessfully on system - got all sorts of BSOD's and persistant IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN errors. ASUS tech support was fast and good - Recommended RMA'ing board, but I sent back to newegg. (Should have used ASUS advanced replacement). New board had similar BSOD issues loading OS. Was able to load Windows 7 without issue and OC system and tweak to my heart's desire. Loaded Vista from an image instead of using OS loader and got system running. Had one problem where RAID lost a drive and got confused, recovered data, but could not replace drive and rebuild array.
This build took me forever to get working correctly. Most of the issues were Windows compatibility, not hardware compatibility. Better drivers should address this issue in the future.

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corpsman
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
4/1/2009 12:15:21 AM

Rating + 3 CPU support is dodgy


Pros: Fast mobo [s far as I know], runs very cool [when running at very slow speeds], and doesn't put too big of a hole in your pocket.

Cons: CPU support is dodgy. The ASUS and other forums online will reveal more CPU and RAM problems then most other "high end" boards. Some mobos are made for tweaking voltages and settings, but the BIOS for this has not been updated in forever [go look for yourself], giving dodgy support for even the Wolfdale series of CPUs, and most people who try to get the CPUs or any memory running faster then 1066 to run will find themselves having to play with every setting this board has to offer.

It is not bad mobo because it's a tweaker mobo and requires working knowledge to get things to work. It's a big one because memory and CPUs that are listed officially as "supported" should at least plug in and work at the stock/rated speeds without having to tweak settings.

Other Thoughts: It is not bad mobo because it's a tweaker mobo and requires working knowledge to get things to work. It's a big one because memory and CPUs that are listed officially as "supported" should at least plug in and work at the stock/rated speeds without having to tweak settings.

I can understand someone saying to me I won't be overclocking it without changing settings, but the newer CPUs should at least plug in and work, along with memory, without having to hunt down and use beta BIOS drivers... *sigh*

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N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/22/2009 11:21:05 PM

Rating + 4 Over Clocker


Pros: Beautiful Board, installation and setup easy enough. Overclocking options all there if you have the time, patience, and knowledge to use it.

Cons: Automated CPU and Memory Level Up wouldn't allow system to boot. Stuck with default CPU since I installed a good CPU (Q9650). Tried to manually Over Clock the memory to DDR3 1600 or above and system wouldn't boot, again stuck with default (Corsair DDR3 1333).

Other Thoughts: As others have stated it takes much knowledge and patience (many many re-boots) to overclock with this board. That video from ASUS showing the guy overclocking on the fly is way off base, unless he spent hours before hand getting all the settings just right and then saving that profile in BIOS to reload.

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N/A
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/14/2009 11:12:14 AM

Rating + 3


Pros: Don't know yet.

Cons: Board was DOA. Tried calling ASUS support three times and only got through once. And they took my nake and number and never got back to me. I'm going to try one more board and then switch do different brand. I've had a few ASUS boards in the past and have never had problems.

Other Thoughts: I hope the next board works, should work to be a nice water cooled set up if everything works as advertised. Will see, look for my next review.
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the negative experience that you had with our tech support. Please contact us at aps_support@asus.com and reference case# NE332151 so that we can assist you in resolving your issues.

Best Regards,

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

EnigmaViper
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/13/2009 4:01:20 AM

Rating + 4 Great MOBO BAD Water


Pros: Great MOBO
I was a sceptic when i first red all the bad reviews over memory and not up to most peoples standerds, however I made the choice to purchase this board and I am verry impressed.
One quick thing!!! if you are lookin at this board and your thinking about dropping this mutch muney on it.... Well you better read on it and know your stuff. you just cant put parts in it with out gathering at least a small amount of knolage... at least I think that goes for the best of us.
ALL in ALL--- KNOW WHAT YOU ARE GITTING BEFOR YOU ORDER (Its the smart thing to do)
I set it up once and havent got the BSOD or anny posting errors, I just took the time to read the manual and a whole day to put it togather.

Cons: Well its 1 egg short because I had an ID10T.ERR -------
I cannot stress this enough GO TO THE LOCAL HARDWARE STORE AND BUY NEW TUBING TO REPLACE THE ONES THAT COME WITH YOUR MOBO. It did not cost over a dollar.
If I had taken the proper steps it would have saved me MEGGA BUCKS on a video card that now suffers from watter dammage.

-1 egg due to bad factory tubing.

*****Dont give the board a bad rap due to the small problem a cheap fix makes this the best board ive ever had.*****

Other Thoughts: Realy Think about it Its a Great Board...

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
3/6/2009 10:20:54 AM

Rating + 5 Wow just wow


Pros: where do i start? comes with so many addons, supports watercooling, setup is not that hard if you know what you are doing. This is not a board you should be getting if you have no experiance, ge ta pro to help

Cons: None. stop posting negative comments because you don't know what you are doing!

Other Thoughts: Get it!

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Serge
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/2/2009 5:50:38 PM

Rating + 5 Great Gaming MoBo!


Pros: Where to start?! Great overclocking support, Great cooling system, and great bundled software for Mobo AND overclocking, etc. The DIY rubber mounts were "too little too late" in my system build since it doesn't suggest to use them until the last part of the manual, but over all lots of great features! The sound card it comes with is amazing, and the LEDs on the board itself are also a cool feature! This board would definitely be more "asthetically pleasing" if you have a case with a window! First build I've done where everything worked as planned, PLUS excellent BIOS!

Cons: I suppose the only "con" would have been the DIY rubber mounts be more in the front of the manual (I had no idea what they were for until it was too late), and also maybe a better game choice? COH: Opposing Fronts, though a cool game, wouldn't be a game I would think to really "test" this board out. All together, nothing really worth giving this board a 4 egg...

Other Thoughts: Great upgrade board, or first time overclocking board! No problems here! Ultra High Quality on Fallout 3 with this board (plus 2x Geforce GTX 260 cards, 4 gigs RAM, and C2Duo 3.16 GHz). I also love the fact I can upgrade to quad core in the future! OOOHhhh yeah!

5 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/28/2009 3:02:46 PM

Rating + 4 Nice Mbbo


Pros: Great options, room for 3 sli cards, water cooled heatsink built in.

Cons: hooking up the LCD and I/O shield to the MOBO is tricky with a large fan/heatsink on the CPU. Make sure you have some needle nose available unless you have dainty hands.

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/22/2009 7:45:56 PM

Rating + 5 WOW!!!


Pros: Incredible performance, Everything I wanted and It works!!!

Cons: Would not boot up with two different USB hubs hooked up...

Other Thoughts: I'm using this motherboard with Ubuntu 8.10 (64 bit), Windows Vista Ultimate (64 Bit) and Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit) and it works flawlessly...

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

raw2dogmeat
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/14/2009 7:40:42 PM

Rating + 5 Unfreekinbelievable


Pros: Now...everything!

Cons: Took 9 months of reading, testing, trying every conceivable pattern of voltages and settings to make this thing work. Came as close as imaginable to taking a hammer to this motherboard countless times when i found Patriot memory for the 790i chipset last month. Thought I made a break through...first time i could EVER remember going 2 whole days without a lockup or freeze...mostly within 30 seconds of boot up. But back to freezing, again! Then late one night, I found one more forum about this board. Guy said put all voltages to auto except memory (which I knew) and up the CPU volts...tried that before, just never gave enough for my o.c. At 3.8 my e8500 needs 1.38, at 4.0 it needs 1.4...hasn't froze or locked up once in the last week!!! I'm still on the 0402 bios (couldn't get flash to work) That's all it needs, enough volts for the cpu and Patriot Viper memory..saved some money not "upgrading" to I7 yet! With 2 Evga 280's I get 24,400 in Vantage clocked to 670, stable(FINALLY!!!!!!!!!)

Other Thoughts: Decided to try liquid cooling with the stock n.b. water block since I discovered my "new" computer...no leaks like others reported...Leave All volts at auto except cpu and memory, who'd a thought!? Viper memory o.c.'s perfectly linked and synced to 4ghz..NEVER thought I could give this board more than 1 egg...hope this helps anyone left out there trying to make this work, 'cause I'm truly amazed by it's speed and stability now!!! Peace

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

mike
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/11/2009 8:28:23 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: you have to know what u are doing when setting up this board!If not you will run into problems,This is not the boards fault,My system qx9650.water cooler,2 evga 295 video cards,Set all voltages to manual specs,over clocks like a dream,Asus support is awsome , i had no problem with them,All i can say is read the amnual u wont have any problems and take your time!

Cons: The only con i had was with the tubing that came in the box was no good ,caused the water block to leak,I went to lowes got 26 cents worth of tubing,problem was solved,One more thing asus boards are not junk,they stand behing there product

Other Thoughts: I have nothing bad to say about this board im happy with it

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Bad Dad
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/9/2009 6:17:58 AM

Rating + 4 Patients is the name of the game.


Pros: Looks good, lots of options, water cooling, good layout.

Cons: First board the water block leaked, so on second board didn't use it, takes some time to get it stable.

Other Thoughts: After getting it to run stable with a 20% OC I added another 4GB of memory Corsair XMS DDR3 1600 but had to drop the memory FBS to 1333 to get it to work. If your having problems make sure your NB voltage to 1.42V or a little higher if needed..

2 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/5/2009 1:57:24 PM

Rating + 5 nice mobo, lots of accessories


Pros: free game, wc system compatible, nice lights :-)

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: running it with a 2.66 Quad core, 4GB OCZ DD3 2000 only 1 EVGA 9800GTX+ card for now.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Zephiniah
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
2/3/2009 6:28:01 PM

Rating + 1 BEWARE!!!


Pros: Thanks to Newegg's great support this thing gets one egg...otherwise zero!

Cons: First one DOA...second one DOA...These things are junk. They look like they were thrown together so fast. My first one had a screw missing off of the heatsink and the others were all ready to fall out. The second looked like it had been RMAed once before...fingerprints on the battery and all of the protective stickers were missing. This is my first experience with Asus (I usually go DFI) and I must say I won't touch it again. I would recommend that you look elsewhere. Im trying my luck with Foxconn's Black Ops.

Other Thoughts: Asus could have had a hit with this mobo but it is a HUGE miss. They shouldn't sell junk mobos in the $200+ realm. You would expect that for the money you would get quality but this thing is a joke.
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We are sorry to hear about your situation. Fortunately, your board is covered under our ASUS Premium Service program, which provides an advance replacement for your defective product to minimize downtime. So if you require warranty service, please contact our customer service department at 510-739-3777 or for more information visit: livesupport.asus.com/APS.

Best Regards,
ASUS Technical Support Team

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

barefoot
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/31/2009 10:25:38 PM

Rating + 5 well, it is fast!!!


Pros: worked out of the box, came with 1104 bios, every thing works so far! loving it lol.

Cons: i am having some trouble with DET DRAM code but i am seeing a lot of compatibly with ram, real picky on that. going to get the CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) and hopes that works better...but as for now, all i have to do is reset and it shoots past it oh and im using CORSAIR XMS3 3GB (3 x 1GB) and its fast too...good stuff.

Other Thoughts: easy board for someone who knows a little about it. going to learn to over clock soon, and this is the board to learn on...

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

walkman
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/31/2009 9:31:53 PM

Rating + 1 Severely Disappointed


Pros: When it runs...its fantastic...

Cons: The included ASUS software is not only buggy, but the associated help is useless and poorly written. Had to uninstall all of it to get the board stable.
Took a ridiculous number of hours to research settings to actually get to a stable configuration. Introducing any new variable usually ends up in a reset to default bios and re-install. Best uptime so far is 8 days. Most of the time am limited to hours at best.

Other Thoughts: Gotta say...my faith in Tom's Hardware recommendations has been sorely tested by this board. Will be pursuing the RMA route with ASUS now...
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We are sorry for this inconvenience. Please contact our Technical Support Department at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx and reference case number "NE310494" so that we may get more details about your system configuration and assist you in resolving these issues you are experiencing.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Jollywombat
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/30/2009 8:49:53 PM

Rating + 1 Make the nighmare stop


Pros: Im sure it would be great if it worked.....

Cons: Have not been able to get this to work, I am highly knowledgeable with computers, Ive tried all the suggestions for manually setting all voltages, timings, etc. Board insta-crashes upon trying to install any OS, Prime95 under a boot CD shows errors the second its launched on CPU, but I have now tried two brand new CPUs on this (Q6600 and Q9550) with exact same results, swapped ram, PSU's, 3 vid cards, removed HD's, just about anything possible to get this to post, no luck. Memtest comes up perfect after over 24 hours of testing, so not a mem issue like this board is known for.

Beginning to think I have a dead board or something, but don't know. Extremely frustrated so far by this, normally ASUS is good on support but no luck this time around.

Looks like I will be out a computer for another week while I try and RMA this board.

Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We are sorry to hear about your situation. Fortunately, your board is covered under our ASUS Premium Service program, which provides an advance replacement for your defective product to minimize downtime. So if you require warranty service, please contact our customer service department at 510-739-3777 or for more information visit: livesupport.asus.com/APS.

Best Regards,
ASUS Technical Support Team

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/15/2009 7:37:07 PM

Rating + 4


Pros: Fast, Great overclocking features, the included water blocks are nice if your going the water cooling route, SLI supported, loaded with fan connectors (6 + cpu), 3 temperature readers, LCD poster is nice if you ever run into any POST problems, Runs fairly cool if you have adequate air flow through your case.

Cons: -1 egg because of the design/placement of the front usb/firewire/sound jacks. The motherboard has to be constricted to certain dimensions so that is will fit in a standard case, but you cannot access the front USB/Firewire/sound jacks on the lower part of the board if you have a video card in the lower PCI-express slot (for SLI) and that video card physically occupies 2 slots. The power button and HDD activity LED barely fit under my video card. The BIOS originally didn't detect my memory correctly, maybe its the motherboard's fault of maybe my memory, either way I got the timings right after some manual entering of settings in the CMOS and ran a MemTest and everything checked out fine.

Other Thoughts: I read a lot of negative reviews about this board and was hesitant to buy it but it was the only SLI board by Asus that fit all my minimum requirements that i had set before building this machine without breaking the bank too badly. I bought it anyways thinking my knowledge in computer repair and maintenance would eventually prevail. I'm glad I did buy. No problems what so ever. First boot POST'ed perfectly and Windows XP installed without a hitch. I have always been a fan of Asus, not one of their motherboards have let me down yet and I will continue to buy as long as they keep working.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Newcastle
Tech Level: somewhat low
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/30/2008 9:42:56 AM

Rating + 5 Great Mobo


Pros: Great design, stable out of the box, and the AI OC software is excellent for amatures such as myself.

Cons: Haven't found one yet.

Other Thoughts: I was a bit concerned purchasing this mobo due to the negative reviews. I'm an amature when it comes to OC, however, this mobo has been great. It started right up with no problems! I'm also using the AI OC software which is great. I'm using CORSAIR XMS3 DHX 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 and Q6600. Did a max OC with the AI software and it ran very smooth through COD WAW and FC2.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Inzone
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/27/2008 7:26:10 PM

Rating + 2 Third review of this board


Pros: After getting this board back from Asus for the second repair RMA it is now in my wife's computer. Being somewhat generous with two eggs because I found a home for it.

Cons: This board could be the BSOD, freezeup champion of the world.

Other Thoughts: I have moved on to the Core i7 platform now with a Gigabyte MB and the 965 extreme. The Asus board is now happy in a quiet, less stressful, non-overclock enviroment that is my wife's computer.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Superkeith
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/21/2008 11:08:09 PM

Rating + 1 CPU INIT


Pros: Looked good

Cons: Where can I start? CPU INIT NO MATTER WHAT
Threw it away, I mean IN THE TRASH!
Q9650 and Q9550 processors, did not matter, Ultra PSU (x3 1000) and a Thermaltake 1200W.
I am so amazed at all of the problems Nvidia and board makers have had!
So I am now snagging a EVGA LGA1366 with the new stuff.. I have spent WAY too much $ to be this disappointed for sure! But at least with the newer stuff, I hope to be happy, ANYONE WANNA BUY A Q9650 or a Q9550 PROCESSOR FOR CHEAP?????

Other Thoughts: NEWEGG ROCKS! If I would not have been cleaning up my ASUS MOBO with some rubbing alcohol and a paper towel, well, yeah, I bent some of the pins on the 775 socket.. OOPS, went str8 into the trash can!
Newegg is AWESOME though, I have a Synology NAS server and they have been MORE than HELPFUL with it, taking back an older one and upgrading me to a newer one!
Newegg gets the 1 Egg for that at least!
And of course living in ALASKA does not help, we have NO where to go get parts/pieces for a reasonable cost at all..
hahaha even my new Skidoo 800 Summitt RevXP is in the shop! not from a wreck tho!

8 out of 13 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

fordguy61mi
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/15/2008 4:44:22 PM

Rating + 5 ASUS Striker II Extreme-BUY IT!!


Pros: Easy to use, great looking, lots of options.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: I was scared after reading the bad reviews on here about not being a plug and play board and that you have to manually set the voltages and all that. Rubbish! I installed it and it runs stable with no problems! Think about it..all the thousands of these boards that they sell on here and only 97 reviews and a lot of them are good reviews? Most people don't come back and post good reviews but most all will come back and give bad ones. Don't listen to the few that got bad boards. They're few and far between I'm sure. If you want this board, get it! Mine came with a current bios and I never had to flash anything. I have a Q9550 Yorkfield 2.83 Ghz, zalman 9700 cooler with 8 GB Corsair of 1333 DDR3 ram and 2 nvidia 9800GTX SLI with 750 watt P.S.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

syquest15
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/3/2008 10:21:20 PM

Rating + 3 Solves ALL Questions!


Pros: DDR3 ( only beneficial when you overclock the machine )
board runs 28-30C idle / 35C load for an hour
NB/SB stock heatsyncs are fine, no water necessary.
Bios has most options available for any motherboard out now days. Boards are now coming updated bios's so using the bios update utility and a floppy is best before installing windows. Works perfect for updating to 1104.

Cons: Somehow the bios auto over-clocked my RAM. Through some searching and hard work I discovered you can use dual channel Corsair DDR3-1600 G XMS3 DHX (2 x 2GB kit) and have it work. It is not on the QVL however I have it running right now. Set your timings to 9-9-9-24 or the specific ram timings. SB runs warm, but to be expected. Still going through the random lockups and this is something that plagues this motherboard. Expect 1 per 2 days if your on it a lot and active.

Other Thoughts: Fixes: Install windows and updates with only 1 stick of RAM in, then add the rest later. Be specific to set your ram to its specific timings and voltage, always safer to buy faster ram and just underclock it. Have floppy drive, and bios 1104 or latest on floppy, use bio to update. If you are getting the Nvidia errors when launching games, specific or all games, its almost always either driver not being update or you are trying to use a large resolution and its not supporting it. I am running perfect on 1280x1024 on everything and 1600x1200 on desktop, I get NV3dum DLL error when I launch games set at 1600x1200, but not when I set it down.
The QVL on the website is bad, make sure to look in the manual. Get my RAM, IT WORKS 4GB is all you need.
Temps: CPU= 19-23C idling, 26-30C gaming/load
Rig:
This mobo
Q9550, xigmatek 120mm Rifle cooler ~3.8ghz
Geforce GTX 260 core 216
Corsair DDR3-1600 G XMS DHX 9-9-9-24 1.9v
OCZ 800w eliteXstream
640gb hdd
supreme fx 2

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

aitaliano
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/28/2008 9:55:55 AM

Rating + 1 By Far one of the worst boards


Pros: Ok, so when you get a board you would figure that the auto feature would work half way decent when it comes to a non over clocked chip, well, guess what. NOT ... Prepare to set everything manual. The water cooled chipset be carefull not to use the supplied clamps. Thats a mess waiting to happen. Use tie wraps. The plastic reducer,, be carefull cause out of no where they break and leave a nice mess inside your machine. I have used 3 of these boards in 3 different machines with cosiar ram and 3 different quad core processors and lock up occur at random. Whats the pros? Well yea you can overclock nicely but being able to not lock up all the time is a challenge.

Cons: Plenty

Other Thoughts: ASUS always makes boards that they send out with problems and wait for the users to react before they have 5 - 6 bios updates to correct the issues. If I had to buy this board again it would never happen. I would have gone with a gigabye board. Right out of the box the board needed to be flashed imediately. You have to love tech support as they say "well did you try other chips and memory" well the answer was oviously yes.. They wanted me to RMA the board. What, do I RMA 3 boards. Are they having a bad batch that they are not telling people?
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

Please contact our Technical Support Department at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx and reference case number "NE283951" so that we may get more details about your system configuration and assist you in resolving these issues you are experiencing.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

2 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

lholt70
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/26/2008 5:39:07 AM

Rating + 5 Great Board! No Problems


Pros: Tons of features - excellent bios adjustments. Owned this board for almost 2 months now and have had no issues. I'm not sure why every review site out there gives this board there highest reward and yet so many users here have problems with it.

Cons: This is not a board for a novice user. More than likely you will have to make voltage and memory timing adjustments even without overclocking.

Other Thoughts: Running with Q9550 and OCZ 1333 was able to hit 3.4ghz (linked) stable under OCCT for 8+ hours. 2.5 vcore and 1.7 memory voltage, 52c max temp using thermaltake 780i with Swiftech GTZ and additional radiator Danger Den (2x120 fans).

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/25/2008 2:57:23 PM

Rating + 1 Avoid At All Costs


Pros: Absolutely NONE!!

Cons: If possible, I would give it negatve "eggs".

I wasted almost two weeks of my life trying to get this defective product to work. All of my components work fine. The motherboard was defective from the factory. Even worse, based on the various tech forums, the actual design is defective. Avoid at all costs!

Other Thoughts: I have bought ASUS motherboards for 8+ years and this is the first one that was defective. I never expected ASUS to produce a piece of garbage product.
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

Please contact our Technical Support Department at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx and reference case number "NE283337" so that we may get more details about your system configuration and assist you in resolving these issues you are experiencing.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

2 out of 8 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

pc for the win
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/24/2008 3:00:02 PM

Rating + 5 THE BEST!


Pros: The way it looks, and that fact how easy to over clock.
probably because it came with bios update already.

Cons: none.

Other Thoughts: asus makes the best mother boards period.

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

arthurh
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/17/2008 7:33:47 AM

Rating + 5 OC'ers Dream


Pros: Excellent OC'n abilities. Has voltage adjustments for just about anything you could think of.

My PC was built specific purpose for MS FSX using one graphics card during play as this game does not like SLI or CFX, thus why my selection of 8800GTS 512. These GPUs are OC'd and play other games in SLI VERY well with this set-up.

However MS FSX does like all the CPU cores you can throw at it, thus my Q9550 CPU.

Plays MS FSX with almost all sliders at CUSTOM! I only have a 20" CRT monitor so 1280 X 1024 is about as good a resolution I can run and still be able to read anything.

OC'n knowledge is a must if you expect to have a stable PC. Lots of info on the internet regarding OC'n this M/BD.

I am not disappointed. It also does everything else very well too.

Cons: Some what picky on Ram. I'm currently using OCZ Plat. 2000 2 X 2G kit as it under clocks well.

My best OCs have been with my ram set at 1600 unlinked. Tried linked and syn'ed but wasn't nearly as stable.

YOU MUST SET RAM SPECS MANUALY AS WELL AS MOST OF ALL THE OTHER VOLTAGES FOR BEST PERFOMANCE AND STABILITY.

This is not meant as a plug and play M/BD though I don't really think thats a con.

Other Thoughts: My specs are as follows;
Q9550 2.83 stock currently @ 3.8 stable. NOTE: I could OC this CPU past 4 GH but wasn't stable and didn't want to use the time to get it stable. May be a ram problem here.
2 x 2 GB OCZ Plat. kit.
2 X 8800 GTS 512 BFG OC'd.
1 WD SATA 11 640 G HDD.
Vista Home Pre. 64 bit
PC Power and Cooling PSU 750W
Home built W/C except for CPU water block.

Vista rating is 5.9 with this PC, would probably be higher if such a number was available.

I know that Intel just released their new i7 CPU platform but I do not feel cheated by this PC at all. I think it will last me for some time to come.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
11/16/2008 10:40:52 PM

Rating + 5 Asus Boards


Pros: I don't really own this board but I have found that on past Asus boards do not download drivers sets from Asus. I did this on my first board and couldn't get raid 0 to work for my life got freezes and blue screens took me about 8 hours to get it right. What I ended up doing was downloading the exact same drivers from Nvidia and guess what rock solid.

Cons: I am not saying it will fix everyones problem with this board but I think it will help alot of you. My theory is that all these board makers take the original nvidia version of the drivers and try and tweek them or something to make the board preform better but it has done nothing but cause me headaches in the past.

Other Thoughts: I also wouldn't recomend getting drivers for none microsoft products off of windows updates because I have also had issues from there mainly with creative products.

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/13/2008 7:53:16 PM

Rating + 5 Its not bad at all


Pros: The best mobo anyone can buy, has all the bells and whistles, looks great, and the price is just about right.

Cons: after you update the bios to your preference theres really nothing wrong with this board.

Other Thoughts: before i purchased this board i felt a bit scared if i should get it or not, people saying alot of bad stuff and its hard to figure out, etc, its all bull! get it if your thinking of getting it, its pretty easy use and to overclock.

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
11/12/2008 9:07:52 PM

Rating + 1 I wish I hadnt payed for this


Pros: The name sounds cool.

Cons: After all the bios updates and frusturations, this board is still not stable with a lapped and polished E8600 watercooled, board watercooled, memory watercooled. 4 fans and a dual radiator. Wish I could smash it and get my money back.

Other Thoughts: If you like building computers that work, dont buy this board. This is the most unstable chipset I have worked with to this day.

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Inzone
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/26/2008 2:47:35 PM

Rating + 1 Endless frustrations 2nd review


Pros: Lots of overclocking capabilaties. This board , if you manage to get a good one, could be one of the best on the market.

Cons: I sent my second board in for repair ( #2 pcie 2.0 slot went bad and would not recognize anything that was placed in it, also the bios became corupted on a bios update and would not post). Recieved the board back from Asus repair and the pcie slot was not repaired and the bios was reset to 0402 and all atempts to upgrade fail with the message " Rom Id not compatable with bios". I gave this board 1 egg but would prefer to give it 0 eggs.

Other Thoughts: Don't know what to do now, Asus makes you pay shipping one way for any repairs, can't keep paying out money for this extremly expensive board. Not to mention the time involved in unassembeling my watercooling system each time to get the motherboard out. I was fortunate on the first board as it was still covered by Newegg and they replaced it no problem, too bad the actual manufacturer of the board dosen't do the same, they have this bogus repair system that dosen't work at all.
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for any inconvenience regarding your RMA experience. Please contact our customer service department at 510-739-3777 (opt 2, opt 2) and reference case number 275338 so we can help resolve your issue.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

7 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

marvin
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/26/2008 7:06:18 AM

Rating + 5 Extreme II


Pros: This is my second ASUS Extreme board. Both posted immediately and neither has experienced any problems.

Cons: NONE

2 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Dark Indy
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/21/2008 11:43:43 AM

Rating + 4


Pros: Lots of extras. There is a lot of thought put into this board. Everything from back lit control panel, to water cooled chip set. Easy to overclock with the built in 5,10,15,and 20% presets in the BIOS.

Cons: Not the most stable board I have had. It froze up on me twice during the POST. I also had to clear the CMOS when I started having trouble with the network cards. Wish I had thought of that first before trying to reinstall my OS.

Other Thoughts: Remember, built in network means that when it acts up, clear the CMOS. It is nice that they put it as an easy to get to button on the back panel and in the case instead of a jumper you have to memorize. Makes me wonder now if it was really for "easy tweaking and overclocking"

The Water cooler block on the board is a 3/8 barb. They include a 3/8 to 1/2 plastic adapter that you use hose clamps to hook up. Looks tacky, but it works.

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/17/2008 3:12:07 PM

Rating + 5 could be worse


Pros: looks good
easy instal
like the bios set up easy to use

Cons: had problems with first ram purchased for S2E, make sure to look at quality vendor list for board

Other Thoughts: This is a great mobo if you get lucky, it seems that you either get a good 790i set or you don't, and it doesn't matter what brand you go with they all have the same problem with the chips. Also beware that some people had problems with the fusion block leaking. once you get the board update bios to 901 and you should be on your way :)

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

fresca
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/30/2008 10:34:28 AM

Rating + 4 Not for the faint of heart


Pros: Beautifully laid out, lots of options in the BIOS. Tweaking options abound.

Cons: lots of options in the BIOS (if you are intimidated by that sort of thing), tends to not be plug and play

Other Thoughts: I had been having problems with random lockups while gaming (Warhammer right now). System is not currently overclocked as I needed a stable system first. After much troubleshooting, problem was solved by setting the "SPP<-->MCP Ref Clock, MHz" setting from "Auto" to "200.0" made the system 100% stable through hours of gaming.

Hope this helps someone out there.

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Danny C
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/29/2008 7:20:19 PM

Rating + 4 Finally, IT WORKS RIGHT!


Pros: Ok, so FINALLY the new 1104 BIOS updates fixes the poor Quad SLI performance, fixes freezes, fixes bad voltage settings and all that good stuff. This board is finally working properly and performing like THE BEAST IT IS!

Cons: It took Nvidia over 6 months to fix a billion issues with this board. It used to freeze, BSOD, give poor performnace and all that.

Its not self setting, its not a plug and play board....but then again it is an EXTREME board....so. I almost had in mind to blow up Nvidia's headquarters because this thing drove me MAD for the first 6 months, before those jacks got off their rear ends and fixed the dam issues. Alls good now....

Other Thoughts: WARNING! THIS BOARD IS FOR EXPERIENCED OVERCLOCKERS THAT HAVE DONE THIS BEFORE! DO NOT BUY THIS IF YOU DONT KNOW WHAT OVERCLOCKING IS AND YOU DONT KNOW HOW TO OVERCLOCK!!!!!

If you want an extreme PC, go X48 which is simpler and allot more "Plug and Play" than this is. This is the better board, but you need to know what you are doing.

If your system is locking up, do yourself a favor (if running quad core CPU)

Northbridge - 1.50 V
SB -1.6 V
CPU -1.3-1.36 V (what ever is stable)

7 out of 9 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

protecs
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/29/2008 5:46:05 PM

Rating + 1 790i buyer be ware


Pros: board looks great newegg orders 10 eggs shiping on time
not a pro but
invest in intel chipsets you will be happer than a nvidia one if you are a sli fan invest in the 9800gx2 card only one as the card has two gpu to one slot and will work in sli mode with intel chipset as intel x58 chipset is just arround the corner and nvidia admited that sli can be done with just a bios code and doesent need a nvidia chipset to work so x58 chips will do both sli and crossfire

Cons: the chipset is another nvidia junk and the problem is not with asus but everwhere asus'evga'xfx'and all the others if you choose to buy this chipset exspect a lot of headakes and put your games and apps in something else as your head will ake eaven more crashing frezing all the time updates to drivers and bios files are few and far between and still dont fix anything exspect code init and cpu init to pleag your life mem init and so on i have had to reinstall vista 50 times in the last 3 mo. and data cruptshion every where as the chipset will not copy large files it is also real bad with raid setups and sli setups as well poping sound doesent like sound blaster at all so you will be stuch with onboard sound that will send you into loops and lockups 790i ultra is alos very pickey of memory will not run 8gb so dont buy 4gb has problems as well so you will be left with 2gb tops at standard speeds 1033or 1333 as anything above that is coing the memory and you will receve code init

Other Thoughts: and the board is done
note two asus doesnot replace boards they fix them or send you a referb one as replacement is out of the question the rma process takes 7 to 14 days shiping and a 10 to 14 day turn arround so you will be looking at just about a mo. in down time for every rma process from asus plus the 3 to 7 days trying to reach them as they do not call you back just take you name and number at the end of the day they toss them in the trash and start over as it took a mo. to get a person to give me a rma i had to refuse to give them my name and tell them i have done this before and i got no reply i was then transfered to support whitch took me through all the garbage remove everything find a speaker turn system on and wait for beeps as they were not to willing to wait for me to do this stuff they requested eaven sugesting to go to radio shack and buy stuff to trouble shoot this is not the asus i have come to know in the past as i have been buying this boards sence slot one days

4 out of 19 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Grath
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/20/2008 4:41:27 PM

Rating + 3 Have to RMA after 6 months


Pros: Worked great for the most part. Didnt get hotter than can be reasonably expected. Ran my DDR3-1600 at 1800 and my 3.0GHz CPU at 3.5 without a problem at first. I was content to run at stock speeds anyway I just liked knowing how much overhead I had to work with.

Cons: Its supposed to be rated for 400 but I was never able to push the FSB higher than 390. Even with my multiplier down, anything higher would either not POST or would be stable for less than a minute. I usually ran at stock 333 speeds anyway so this did not alarm me at first.

A couple months in I started getting some random lockups, maybe twice a week at first, but they have steadily become more frequent until a week ago when it was crashing 3 or more times a day and finally failed to POST. The LCD poster reads CPU INIT and doesnt get past that. Some research indicates that this is unfortunately not an uncommon failure.

Other Thoughts: Im not sure if it was ever fully stable even without an overclock. It handled extreme short duration stress testing magnificently, but even from the beginning it would not run Orthos or Prime95 for longer than a day before reporting errors. I knew it was an immature board and the DDR3 was questionable, so the fact that it was otherwise quite stable was satisfactory.

And before you go screaming PEBCAK and call me a noob, yes I did go to considerable effort to eliminate the CPU, other components, and software as points of failure before blaming the board.

E8400, 4GB OCZ DDR3-1600, EVGA GeForce 9800, 4x WD RE2 500GB in RAID-5 on a HighPoint RocketRAID 2300. I got that discreet RAID card so my array wouldnt be dependant on a specific board or southbridge, and boy am I glad I did, plugged right into my other system no problem.

2 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Nabizko
Tech Level: high
Ownership: more than 1 year
9/13/2008 5:17:22 PM

Rating + 5 Novices Listen Up!!!


Pros: I quote someone here who wrote a con on the reviews as "Cons: Tends to have problems with locking up if you don't know exactly what you are doing." By: steve2470 on 9/10/2008 Folks, This is exactly the problem with allowing people to write reviews on a perfectly good products when they have no idea what they are talking about, if you don't know EXACTLY what you are doing, you shouldn't be overclocking anything...or for that matter, you shoudln't be buying a high end MB designed for people who know EXACTLY what they are doing, not just because they have the money to burn. This MB is top notch, it runs like a dream, and has extremely powerful OC options. But you need to know what you're doing with this board, or you will run into problems that are your own fault, NOT THIS BOARDS!

Cons: allowing users to write negative reviews based off their own lack of knowledge.

Other Thoughts: All of the cons that I have read are user error...this is a guarantee, this board is what you are looking for if you want to run those three gtx 280's and smoke your buddy for months or years even.

20 out of 24 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
9/11/2008 2:51:27 PM

Rating + 1 Good for display purposes


Pros: Looks good on a shelf.

Cons: I went from a rock solid X38 board to this thinking I could push my e8600 further. The only thing I can say is buy an x48 board and live happily ever after. This board is like a newborn child because half the time you are clearing CMOS because it wont post, if you can get it to post then you can run it no problem. When I have to restart my computer because of updates the thing will never post and I have to clear the cmos, load profile and restart.

Other Thoughts: After the OS loads I have Prime95 stable all night at 4.5GHz on my e8600 and 500FSB with the memory at 2000MHz, everything is water cooled and the cpu will never go above 60C but getting the thing to post is a nightmare, makes you want to pull your hair out and dump a bucket of water on your computer. I miss my P5E3-Deluxe.

1 out of 11 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

steve2470
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/10/2008 2:27:56 PM

Rating + 5 review 3.0, with cautions


Pros: Tons of overclocking options. Very fast board.

Cons: Tends to have problems with locking up if you don't know exactly what you are doing.

Other Thoughts: I am on my second board from Newegg of this model. I RMA'ed my current board back to Asus, who (afaik) sent it back to me unchanged and unmodified. DO NOT BUY THIS BOARD IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO DO ANY RESEARCH. Out of desperation, I went to the overclocking forums and learned how to set my BIOS for this board. If you are smart, you will do this also BEFORE purchasing this board. If you do not, you will have a lot of frustration on your hands. I'm giving it a five this time around because now it is very stable and running fast. I had to learn the hard way.

6 out of 8 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/5/2008 10:07:16 AM

Rating + 4 Striker II Extreme


Pros: Pretty much everything you could ask for in terms of overclocking.
Haven't had too much trouble with heat, air cooling keeps it at less than 100F when processor is overclocked to 4GHz under full load.

Cons: Having trouble with getting headphones to work, have a 9800gx2 with the spdif cable in but no audio jacks work, back of the case, front of the case, even on the monitor. sound will only come out through the monitor's speakers via hdmi cable.

Other Thoughts: I contacted Asus about the dilemma (not word for word, but told them the basic setup) and they said, "You aren't specifically clear on what sound you're trying to achieve (SPDIF? Analog?) and where you are plugging in your headset (front panel of the case, back panel, etc), or if you have the OS set to enable digital out or not. Please phone us at the below number so we can help sort out this issue."
Well I'm stationed in Germany and I have to buy minutes for my cell phone with Euro, no way am I going to call, be on hold, and attempt to get this sorted out. The military doesn't pay that well!

4 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/28/2008 3:26:10 PM

Rating + 2 striker 2 extreme


Pros: NO pros as of yet.

Cons: too many to list.

Other Thoughts: I wouldn't buy another striker 2 extreme. Nothing but problems, Had to rma my first one. ( took a month and a half for them to get there act together) to get the second one, ordered a fan as well, lost my info 3 times now ( month and a half later still no fan), still issues with pc probe, and aisuite.

5 out of 9 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/27/2008 1:56:03 PM

Rating + 1 Another DOA


Pros: It would have been a good motherboard I am sure, if it had worked.

Cons: Yes this is another DOA complaint review. I dislike when a quality product gets lambasted by someone who just got it DOA but since it has happened so many times I think it is a systemic problem of this particular motherboard.

I have a high regard for ASUS products but this one is just not up to par clearly. HEED THE WARNING

7 out of 12 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
8/27/2008 9:36:13 AM

Rating + 5 Striker board


Pros: Never built any system with that kind of speed. No Problems setting up and getting running.
Runs @3.3 with no problems.
Installed an Asus V60 Cooler. Had to modify the cooler a bit to make it fit.(just filed the finns down a bit)
Running Samsung 750GB 32Mb Buffers Raid 0

Cons: Non

Other Thoughts: ASUS STRIKER II NSE nvidia nforce 790i sli chipset ATX form factor 3xPCI-E(x16)/2xPCI-E(x1)/2xpci/4xddr3 w/sata2 raid,dual lan(gb),1394,usb 2.0 & audio (cpu type:intel - socket 775) =CORE 2 DUO E8500 3.16G (1333Mhz)= STANDARD MEMORY OPTIONS= CORSAIR 4GB KIT TW3X4G1333C9DHX

6 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Inzone
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/25/2008 7:31:13 PM

Rating + 2 Not an easy install


Pros: I have built my own computers for quite a while and I was always an Asus supporter and have used them exclusively. Always had easy installs even when I built my first and didn't know a whole lot.

Cons: This board should be the board for overclockers and extreme gamers and thoes that just want to build an awsome computer but it's not, even though the specs are there the board is so problematic that you have to spend hours and hours on this thingand it gets very frustrating because you spend $450 on a motherboard you should get something that works extremely well without all the headaches. I already RMA'd the first board(fusion block leak and no post) and the second one so far no leak and it does load the operating system. However when I try to overclock (level up utility) the problems start. the post will freeze the operating system will freeze and you have to reset 3 to 4 times to get it to load. Once I return to normal clock it runs fine. I updated the bios to the newest realese but no luck.With all the capabilities of this motherboard you should be able to do much more than just run stock settings. I have emailed Asus tech support to see if there is anything short of another RMA.

Other Thoughts: Spent a lot of time on this build with a lot of high quality components. I certianly would not have spent what I did if I was goimg to run an average motherboard.

3 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/23/2008 9:34:32 PM

Rating + 1 Disappointing/ Unsatisfactory


Pros: None !

Cons: What a total dissappointment. I have been an avid user/buyer of ASUS products. I will never again purchase ASUS products again. I have had so many problems with this mobo in stock configuration I havent even been able to work on overclocking. From random lockups to blue screens. You name it this mobo has done it. Tech support from ASUS has been lacking at best. It Takes a week or more for a response from them and the advice I have received has done nothing at all to resolve any of crashes, lockup's, blue screens.

I have been spending approx 2 1/2 hours a night over the last month reading forms on ASUS and other areas of the net looking for ideas to fix the buggy mobo. I have tried everything from bios updates including the latest, uninstalling OS ( I have used vist 64, vista 32 and win xp 32...xp has been the least buggy of them all). All drivers are up to date..to many things to list here..it is just so frustrating to receive little to no support or help from ASUS!

Other Thoughts: 1) Antec 1200 Full ATX tower (7 120mm fans + 1 200mm top mounted fan all have blue LED's)
1) ASUS Striker II Extreme 790i Ultra SLI DDR3 MOBO W/ water block
2) ASUS GTX260 896mb 448-bit DDR3 PCI express 2.0 video cards
1) Hiper 1000w power supply
1) Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 Yorkfield 2.66Ghz stock....
2) OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) 240 pin DDR3 1600 SDRAM
1) Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB 10000 RPM SATA 3.0GB/s hard drive
1) ASUS DVD RW Burner w/ lightscribe

G15 keyboard
G5 mouse
Samsung 22" LCD & 19" LCD
Altec Lansing audio system

**Warning** Do not buy this MOBO
**Warning** OCZ ram has been reported to incompatability issues with this MOBO

6 out of 12 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Boomer83
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/20/2008 11:18:42 PM

Rating + 3 MIxed Blessing


Pros: Looks good, works great when it works.

Cons: STRESSFUL. I spent most of my setup time for my new rig on this mobo. turning off and rebooting the thing until it didnt freeze. My best advice, is go straight to the ASUS site and download the newest bios update, it seemed to solve most of the problems. But just getting the OS on there will be an adventure.

Other Thoughts: Almost broke it in half in a fit of rage...

1 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat low
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/19/2008 6:08:01 AM

Rating + 3 nothin is easy


Pros: Looks great and does what it is supposed to. runs cool w just air as well

Cons: nothin yet

Other Thoughts: OCZ ram is rather hard to get to work on this board, not that OCZ has a bad product the two just don't work together, try corsair:) Update bios and drivers immediately, suggest 901 for bios. AI Suit causes lots of problems don't instal it.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/15/2008 5:29:02 AM

Rating + 2 Extremely Unstable


Pros: Specifications look outstanding.

Cons: This motherboards seems to be a hit-or-miss, you either get one that works or more often then not one that doesn't. After 4 RMA's, 1 to NewEgg and 3 to Asus, it is still very unstable even at the lowest specs.

Other Thoughts: It's your money, but I recommend you look elsewhere for high performance and stability.

4 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Mike
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/12/2008 1:32:42 PM

Rating + 5 Awsome board


Pros: Dose everything it is advertised to do!!! Very easy to work with BIOS. Runs cool even with air cooling.

Cons: I've only got 1 9800 GX2 installed and it runs great with the board. Problem I noticed is that if you want to run SLI there will be issues with the power and USB connections to the motherboard at the bottem. Connections are perpindicular to the board and don't allow enough room to install a 9800 in the bottem PCI-E slot. Will have to mod the connectors to get them to work...same goes for the 3 temp sensors. No joy with 2 of 3 using the recommended (slot 1) PCI-E for the 9800.

Other Thoughts: none.

3 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

FireFluid
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
8/5/2008 12:07:20 PM

Rating + 5 Awesome board!


Pros: oh man oh man, this thing is awesome! Q9450 at 3.8Ghz with 1.37v and 27C idle 40C while playing Crysis! All the features in the world. I'd bought and tested EVGA with this board, EVGA don't come close to what this board can do. Two thumbs up for ASUS.

Cons: I haven't get to play with all the features yet. BSOD and lock ups are results of hot Northbridge. Slap a fan or watercooled it overcome the issues. Update your BIOS is a must!

Other Thoughts: Cosmos w/ window case, Asus striker II extreme, Asus D2X sound card, Q9450 @ 3.8Ghz, Swiftech 1/2 ID barb watercooling, 9800 GX2, Liberty 650W PSU, Gateway XHD3000, 300 raptor, 3TB HD space, 4GB Patroit DDR3 1333, Logitech edge keyboard. Vista Ultimate 64.

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

PC GURU
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/3/2008 7:50:15 AM

Rating + 5 PC GURUs BIOS Corruption Fix


Pros: This is a great board it has all the options you can think of and more so consider that when purchasing. You are given options to manipulate nearly every voltage and clock speed to the CPU and GPU.
If you are having problems please read it fixed almost all of the problems that you are having that I have had too. The system ran much much much smother after this.

Cons: This is my second MB, I RMA the first one do to a BIOS corruption error, the second one had it to. I'm sure you all might have it on yours also. I will tell you how to fix it. You will need to download the latest BIOS and AWDFLASH utility from the asus web site. You cant use the EZflash on the board if your BIOS is older then 0402. You will have to use use either AWDFLASH to upgrade BIOS when your currently installed BIOS is prior to version 0402. You can use EZflash to upgrade BIOS from version 0508 and newer. You might want to do it this way any how to fix the corruption. Use a flash drive or a floppy, floppy preferred faster and easer. After downloaded put the new unziped BIOS and AWDFLASH utility on the floppy. Restart your computer and run threw the BIOS update process using the AWDFLASH utility NOT EZflash on the MB.

Other Thoughts: This will update MBs EZFLASH too. Here is the con. when its writing the blocks if at any moment you get a red block that is a error, look at the color key. LET IT FINSIH, and flash again after restart until you get all good written bocks. Now in the future you can use the on board EZFLASH utility to do this with out a problem.
My system: Thermaltake 850w, this MB Intel E8400, Corsair DDR3 TWIN3X2048-1333C9, Western Digital VelociRaptor , Seagate 500GB 7200.11, 2 9800 GTX in SLi. Samsung SATA CD/DVD/Lightscribe burner.

3 out of 3 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Beldedric
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/31/2008 4:56:48 AM

Rating + 2 problems help


Pros: like the watercoolin options no leaks, decent lay out

Cons: Well maybe someone can help... I have problem loading windows on this thing while runing raid just locks up i have 3.2 extreme runing at -55 c 2 raptor drives stuff just won't load... 8 mb ram oza 1600 7 6 6 24
anyhow can;t even install windows due to constant lock up not sure if its the hd or ram or board

Other Thoughts: good idea but yet to work

1 out of 6 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
7/31/2008 1:15:22 AM

Rating + 5 Striker II memory


Pros: Ah but WHICH OCZ memory are you talking about??

Cons: none

0 out of 7 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

StarPanther
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/30/2008 11:52:09 AM

Rating + 5 "Expert Board. Overclock Champ"


Pros: Ok, let me get this out of the way first, almost all the settings in this board's bios need to be manually set, this includes voltages, memory timings, multipliers, sata configurations. This board is not for the faint of heart and i knew that going in (I like to have complete control over my equipment and this board is for power users. When you take your time this thing overclocks like nobody's business and is one of the best in the game. I installed a custom watercooling config with this board and had only a little trouble with the northbridge waterblock hose clamps must be very tight. (DO NOT USE INCLUDED WATERBLOCK SUPPLIES ONLY USE QUALITY TYGON TUBING AND DANGERDEN CLAMPS) For all those that bashed this board before taking their time maybe you can learn a lesson here. Also Asus's website has forums dedicated to individual boards every possible problem is covered there. In short, buy this board if you enjoy tinkering to get max performance and don't if you are lazy/impatient.

Cons: Took a few hours of my time to get ownage performance?

Other Thoughts: Quick List for Success:

1. Use your own watercooling parts/tubing if you plan to use the northbride waterblock

2. Try not to leave any settings in bios on manual and read through the problems others have had on the asus forums website (there are recommendations on settings posted)

3. I can't say enough about just using OCZ memory in this board, fixes one problem before it would happen

4. Have a positive attitude, positive karma, and you will come out with a rig the envy of all your friends

12 out of 13 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/28/2008 10:01:15 AM

Rating + 5


Pros: Works exactly as described in the documentation. LCD poster useful for installation. Water cooled chipset. Beautiful board when lit up. Usual ASUS attention to details. Bios understandable.

Cons: The water block nozzles on the chipset are really some metric size that 5/16ths ID tube will work on. Mine leaked when I tried to get 3/8ths ID to clamp up. ASUS ships a homely white adapter for 3/8ths and 1/2. Had some flow restriction here, when feeding direct from processor to chipset to SLI cards. Info on the nozzle size was hard to find - something like this needs to be in the product info up front. Wound up with Y adapters feeding the chipset and the processor and SLI cards at 1/2 ID. Dropped the GPU temps 3 or 4 degrees in Crysis. Also - too darn expensive! Didn't have enough money left to get the Extreme processor this board deserves.

Other Thoughts: D-tek FuZion v2, CPU; Swiftech Stealth X 2, Evga 8800 GTX; modded MCP350 Lang pump, Feser X-Changer 240mm radiator. OZC Platinum 4GB PC3 12800 (will have to set timings and voltage in bios), E8400 Wolfdale 3.0, Vista Ultimate 64, Raid 5. LG Blu-ray. Great machine! Hunch is that if your going to do high end clocking this board might need to separate the chipset cooling from the rest.

1 out of 2 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Kieran
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
7/17/2008 6:49:02 PM

Rating + 4 Good board


Pros: The motherboard seems to work great. I was able to set up a quadriple boot system. Notably I have absolutley no problems whatsoever in XP in any regard. Very stable system with fast boot-up times. (perhaps too fast that I can't read the POST in time) Love the onboard power button and the reset button, lots of fan ports. Great protection features, notifies you of boot failures. Lots of things to tweak. I especially love the LCD poster as it let's me know what's going on before the monitor turns on. SLI works great too. Dual net is superb. Nice LEDs.

Cons: Most of the problems that I have occurs outside of XP. Mostly in Vista. Probably due to instable drivers. However, the problems that I have could be due to components other than this board, but I was unable to narrow it down clearly for every one of them.

As for the specifics to the board. I have an ESA chasis with four USB ports and the ESA pcb plus ESA water cooling system also requires two additional USB ports. The onboard USB ports were not enough if I want to hook them all! But who uses it all anyway?

Due to the fact that my ESA pcb doesn't work, I installed all of my chasis fans onto the motherboard. Now the 4-pin fan installs on most fan ports and work okay, but the chasis-2 fan socket is right next to the audio connector and has to use 3-pin fan. The Q-fan feature/software doesn't seem to work properly. It should be better documented on how it works. It works but I don't know at what temp the fans would speed up, what the reference tempetures should be.

Other Thoughts: With regard to the fans, when I have the system in SLI and installed the fans to chasis-1, the CPU temperature goes up dramatically. I suspect more power/voltage is delivered to it. After reading the manual and plugged the fans to the recommended Opt2-3 it returned to normal.

I am using 0402 bios, as I had bios flash errors before with other MBs, I was afraid to do any bios updates on this expensive board since I don't have the time to go through the RMA process. For the same reason, I did not try H20 cooling.

Oh, one note, after shutting down my computer, my SupremeFX card would give off a spart a few seconds later after the system lights turns off. !??

4x OS: WinXP Pro, VistaUltimate 32+64bit plus Fedora 8(i386) {Fedora 8 x86-64, Fedora 9 i386&x86-64 also works. Wasn't able to use Solaris 10, need more time to figure what's going on}

Q9450/Corsair 2x2GB RAM@9-9-9-25-1T 1333/2xEN9600GT SLI/Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W/Thermaltake Armor+ ESA/ASUS DRW-2014L1T/Seagate 1TB HD

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Jeff
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
7/13/2008 9:12:03 AM

Rating + 5 Excellent MB


Pros: Memory performance!!!!

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Cost

2 out of 5 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/11/2008 7:59:00 AM

Rating + 4


Pros: My second board seems to be problem free thus far. North Bridge fusion waterblock even appears leak-free.

Cons: Hopefully ASUS will get their act together and actually get this board working with 2000MHz memory & EPP2.0 profiles as advertised.

2 out of 4 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

common sense
Tech Level: high
Ownership: less than 1 day
7/10/2008 12:53:30 AM

Rating + 3 Doesn't matter


Pros: Its a great motherboard.

Cons: It costs nearly as much as your graphics card.

Other Thoughts: I do not care what kind of motherboard you are buying, what bells and whistles it has or anything. When it comes down to it a great motherboard is only incrementally worse then the best and in this case $450 is outrageous. No you do not get what you pay for because it doesn't come with a bj. This is a joke and I feel terrible for anyone who spends this much on a motherboard that offers no more stability or performance then a $300 equivalent.

3 out of 13 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

dragonsprayer
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
7/9/2008 11:42:14 PM

Rating + 2 Asus 5, nvidia 1 - 2.5!


Pros: SLI! Asus makes great stuff! Anyone who says they will never buy asus - is only get a second rate product. Asus makes the best mobos in the world, nvidia or intel chipsets. Great package, worth the $100 premium for asus engineering and extras! For those wanting 1600-1800 fsb you will need to tweak this mobo - settings are key and need to be set one at a time. One at time is hard, but its the only way to do it.

Cons: Lets face it its the nvidia chipsets. Nvidia played hardball with intel back on 975X chipsets and now after 3 years its all catching up with nvidia. I rated this a 2 since it got a 2.5. Its a 2, since nvidia chairman boosts how great they are while the stock callapse and mobos fail left and right!

Other Thoughts: Water cool the north bridge or add extra cooling with a 40mm fan. Get settings from someone like warpedsystems that will share settings on open forums such as neweggs. If you have a quad set the ldt to 4X. Memory as you ad voltage you need nb voltage and heat builds. Asus has a 3 year warranty, forget evga - i think there failure rate is new 100% - well it seems so.

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