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ASUS Rampage II Gene Intel Motherboards
Customer Reviews for ASUS Rampage II GENE LGA 1366 Intel X58 Micro 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

Price: $249.99
Sale Price: $209.99
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Review Summary (86 Reviews): Rating + 4
OverallLast 2 WeeksLast 6 Months
Excellent Rating + 5 53ReviewsExcellent
newegg
62%
Good Rating + 4 17ReviewsGood
newegg
20%
Average Rating + 3 6ReviewsAverage
newegg
7%
Poor Rating + 2 2ReviewsPoor
newegg
2%
Very Poor Rating + 1 8ReviewsVery Poor
newegg
9%
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Reviewer Product Review
Jonesey I7
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/27/2010 4:08:26 PM

Rating + 5 OUTSTANDING


Pros: EVERYTHING, BOUGHT FROM NEWEGG FOR CHEAP ON SALE LESS THAN 200.

Cons: YEAH RIGHT!!!!

Other Thoughts: BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY BUY

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

Alex L.
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
1/21/2010 7:14:12 PM

Rating + 4 Great MoBo


Pros: -Lots and lots of options for a MicroATX mobo
-Not dead. Was happy about that after the initial scare \/.
-SLI and Crossfire is definitely cool.
-Software options if you want them. All of these things are so-so though, as you can easily find most of the programs online.
-Soundcard is nice too.

Cons: -Followed directions to a tee-- my system wouldn't boot up. It was grounded from the last two screws on right side of the board. I don't know why... it could very well be my case design, but I had to unscrew them for it to boot.
-Kinda pricey, but it's the best microatx mobo out there, so you gotta pay for it.
-SLI will cover the rest of the PCI slots because they're so close together (I guess there was really no other way 2 slots were going on there without covering up something). Lol. But I don't need them so I don't really care too much.
-South and North bridges are smoking! even when idle! What is that about? Probably gotta buy some spot coolers.

All of these amounted to one less egg. Sorry ASUS.

Other Thoughts: I don't know if I'll pay over 200 for a new MoBo anytime soon again. I really felt like I didn't need all of the functions available (SLI is definitely why I like and bought the board, but I feel like I should've saved 100 bucks and just done without it because I can't even afford a 2nd graphics card yet). That's entirely my fault though. Just something to consider if you're too eager to have the best, like I am.

My system:
Intel i7-920
ASUS Rampage II GENE
XFX GS250XYDFC GeForce GTS 250
CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB)
CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212
Antec Mini P180 Black Steel MicroATX Mini Tower
Seagate 500 GB 7200
And obviously, Corsair Extreme Series CMFSSD-32D1 2.5" 32GB SATA II

1 out of 1 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
1/17/2010 6:27:07 PM

Rating + 5 Super Board


Pros: Thought I would wait to write this review to ensure the board ran good. I am very impressed with is board. The overclock features are good, an easy task to perform. I read about the temps for the northbridge and mine runs about 54 degrees with the step up feature to 940 and about 63 degrees at 970. I took the advice of one review and got the antec spot cool fan and the temps dropped a good 7 degrees. Awesome fix. I run 6 120mm case fans with the Artic Cool CPU Fan. The system has been super stable and it took no time to put this board together. All temps are good even with two EVGA GTX 260 on board. a real tight fit indeed!

Cons: None at this point. Well maybe a better Northbridge cooling system. But other options do work. Just a good stable board and Newegg made all the purchases easy. Always good service.

Other Thoughts: Specs
Intel 920 I7
EVGA GTX-260 (2)
6 gigs of ram (corsair)
Windows 7 Professional
2 – 300 gb 10000RPM WD Harddrives
1 WD 500gb Hard drive
Thermaltake Fan Controller

cooler master CM 690 Case
850 Watt power supply

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

nraudigy2
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
1/9/2010 11:16:34 PM

Rating + 5 Great board for the price


Pros: Compact board with alot of options for overclocker and ease of installation. Has bios reset button which is very useful. Overclocking in Windows is really easy to with Asus softwares. Running this at 3.8GHz on i7 920 with 1800Mhz RAM at 1.337 CPU voltage. Can go up to 4GHz+ with just air cooler. CPU idles at just 33c. Make sure you set your RAM voltage right for it to detect all your total RAM size at OC RAM speed. My NB is highest at 53c after I replaced case fan with Antec 80mm at medium fan speed. NB temperature was about 65c with RAIDMAX stock fan. Has built-in Creative SupremeFX X-Fi audio. Supports both Crossfire and SLI. Comes with onboard LEDS to indicate the voltage conditions of CPU, NB/SB, RAM ect.. There is a POWER-ON switch that you can press to turn on your system.

Cons: Can't think of.

Other Thoughts: I have downgraded and upgraded BIOS firmware couple times in Windows from BIOS with no problem.

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

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
1/7/2010 6:23:46 AM

Rating + 4 Good board, could be slightly better.


Pros: I wanted to put together a compact powerhouse system and this board allowed me to do it.
I love the fact that it has 2x PCI-E 16x Slots in such a tiny board.
At some point in the future I'll add another ATI 5850 in Crossfire...
Asus built this board with overclockers in mind. There are a few built in "CPU Level up " settings in the bios that auto overclock, although I've found that using them tends to heat up the CPU pretty quickly as the voltage is increased quite a bit. If you know what you're doing, you're better off manually overclocking. I have an Intel i7 920 OC'd to 3.6 GHZ at 38-39C Idle and about 60-61C under load.
-Onboard audio is quite good.
-The board is just plain stable and well-laid out.
-There's plenty of room for gigantic HS/Fan combos for your CPU.

This is one of only two X58 MATX boards that have 2x 16x PCI-E slots. I think the other one is made by EVGA and is similar. I went with this one because of Asus' quality over the years.

Cons: The Cons? I have one gripe and one suggestion to ASUS:
-As noted, the NB runs HOT. I recommend adding a ANTEC Spotcool fan to run over it. I was running in the mid-high 60s before I did that, now I'm usually sit about 49-51C.

-My suggestion is that most boards in this price range include dual gigabit lan, although this board has a single ethernet port. Again, not really a con, but a wish.....

Other Thoughts: System specs:
Asus Rampage II Gene
Intel i7 920@3.6
6 GB Triple Channel RAM
4x 32 GBVertex SSD drives in Raid 0 (boot drive)
1.5 TB WD Green drive (storage)
Case: Coolermaster Elite 341 MATX case

The built in Intel RAID controller maxes out data transfers around 650-680MB/sec. My boot drive easily hits that for reads, and averages about 450-500 MB/sec Writes. Not a disapoointment, as I knew that I'd be hitting a ceiling with the intel controller before I ordered everything. (I'm too much of a tightwad to drop 300 bucks on a separate RAID controller)

I'd give this board 5 eggs if it didn't have NB heating issues. It's a great board, but you have to put it in a well ventelated case. The issue, is that it's hard to find a well ventelated MATX case that won't drive you crazy from the fan noise.
I'm switching over to a ANTEC P180 MATX case as the noise from my current case is getting to me a little annoyed. (4x 120mm case fans+ PS fan +CPU fans in my current case.)

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

Slappy Hooper
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
12/29/2009 9:20:33 PM

Rating + 5 Great board, but keep the NB cool


Pros: Hard to find an i7 board in MATX format with x58 chipset.
Tons of things built into this board

Cons: Limited upgrading potential once you pop a dual slot video card in

Other Thoughts: NB will heat up FAST. I have 4 120mm case fans in my case and after setting one fan to blow over the NB, the temps went from 60ish idle to 48-50 idle which I can live with.
Great overclocking potential on this. I took a 920 i7 to 3.6 ghz stable in about five seconds with this board.

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

Jeff S
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/25/2009 5:24:08 AM

Rating + 1 When it works it's a great board


Pros: Lot's of options for tuning, Asus software gives good visibility into what is happening on the board, settings etc.

Cons: I'm having the same cold boot problem (hanging with state of locked or VGA Bios) many others are reporting.

After accessing Asus' support forms and other sources, trying all suggestions, I submitted a service request to Asus. The response I received 3 days later was "run the motherboard out of the case".

Other Thoughts: There are other options for a good mATX MB, unless there is a driving reason to pick this one, until they get the problem straightened out, pick one of those other options.

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

AkumaSG
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
12/18/2009 11:12:12 AM

Rating + 5 A solid board.


Pros: Well, I finally broke down and built a new computer. After much debate I decided on the Asus Rampage II Gene. I wanted the smaller form factor and have not once had an issue with Asus in the past. I've used boards from QDI, Gigabyte, Tyan, and Abit in the past as well.

However, I decided that this particular board would meet all of my (possible) needs. When it arrived I put it into my new case (as everything was already ready and waiting) and in about 10 minutes was sitting in the BIOS.

I was immediately impressed with the slew of options available in the BIOS. Anyways, to make a long story short, I was able to get Windows 7 installed and the BIOS flashed to the latest version without a single hitch.

While the board is fairly small I enjoy the layout. It was very easy to work with.

Cons: There really weren't any cons when it comes to this board. One thing I will note however is the NB / SB temperatures. It doesn't matter if I'm idling or at 100% load the NB temps will quickly ramp up to roughly 68°C! The SB will hover in the low 50's.

I was aware of this from the get go however, and after placing an additional fan inside my case the matter was resolved.

Other Thoughts: I would definitely recommend the board and the brand, due to past experiences and current.

Be aware of the NB / SB temps, which is more an issue with the overall x58 design, than an issue directly with this board.

The only other thing I ran into was memory timings. My memory is 9-9-9-24 and I had to correct this in the BIOS as it detected it as 8-8-8-20.

This really was an easy install.

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

gchatten
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/13/2009 8:18:43 PM

Rating + 5 3 Systems & it rocks


Pros: Overclocking offers many features. 1 board DOA but replacement worked fine. Have 3 of these in identical systems/config for production w/DDR3-1600 and 8TB storage. All systems used in "portable lab", meaning they are moved in/out of office, transported, etc. and have had no problems at all (except the 1 DOA). Highly recommend this board for small form factor and reliability. It's a gem of a board for both "plug and use" and for serious over-clockers. Buying 2 more as soon as they are back in stock.

Cons: Placement of SATA connectors may be a problem in some cases; may require "L" connector or possibly cutting the case to make room to plug the cables in.

Other Thoughts: The only missing feature is wireless "N" which would have just taken the cake if they would have put it on this board. These boards replaced our older PK5-E's and we couldn't me more pleased. For overclockers: beware of using the "AUTO" settings; we found it best to manually enter just about everything, even if a voltage (for example) remains at "standard". "AUTO", in some cases, pushes the NB, CPU and/or SB to the max and causes problems. We have all 3 production systems OC'd to 4.1Ghz easily.

3 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
12/10/2009 11:09:32 AM

Rating + 4 very flexable


Pros: well organized board lots of functions to get everything working out of the box. Great support from manufacturer on compatibility. lots of extras to easily over clock components

Cons: had lots of trouble installing most of the drivers and programs with windows 7 64bit os. After some experimenting and downloading lots of individual files from asus everything seems to be working just dandy

Other Thoughts: Please Asus put out a zip file or bundle with all the updated programs for windows 7 64 bit it will save us lots of time

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

geGes
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/8/2009 1:31:23 AM

Rating + 1 Bad card is bad!


Pros: Played most games in 1920x1200 rez at 60+fps on highest settings, except maybe Crysis. Stays quiet and cool compared to other card's I've had

Cons: Died 2 months after purchase - very sad. Not sure how ASUS is with RMA's hope it wont be difficult.
Obviously a huge design flaw, no wonder its not available for sale anymore.

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

Compdoc4u
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/7/2009 10:49:29 AM

Rating + 1 Boot Failure


Pros: Worked fine for about 1 month

Cons: Turned off one day, next day no boot! Replaced power supply..no change...removed all connections to motherboard, drives, case fans etc..no change..reset CMOS ..no change..I guess I got a bad one..

Other Thoughts: I've been building systems for 15 years. This is the first board I have ever had completely fail. ASUS has been my motherboard of choice. I hope this message is read and ASUS will make it right.
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for this inconvenience. Please contact us at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/usa_rmaserv.aspx or 812-282-2787 and reference case number NE603629 so that we may assist you with troubleshooting / RMA process.

Sincerely,

ASUS Support Team

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
12/4/2009 2:43:27 PM

Rating + 4 Great motherboard


Pros: Great board layout and just about every feature you could possibly want.

Cons: First board was DOA but Newegg replaced it and the 2nd one worked fine.

0 out of 1 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
11/30/2009 11:35:15 AM

Rating + 5


Pros: This board is awesome. All of the OC features it has are just amazing. You can do all of your OCing from the desktop with the provided software without restarting or changing anything on the board. It looks great in the case and everything fits fine with no clearance problems.

Cons: none

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
11/22/2009 3:02:25 AM

Rating + 4 Good, but not great


Pros: Ran everything at stock speeds. All onboard features were working quite well, and the onboard audio is sharp.

Cons: Overclocked the RAM poorly. The computer was unstable past 1800mhz RAM. Super Talent DDR3 2000 was used, and whether there was one 6GB kit or two 6GB kits, it could never run past 1800mhz.

Other Thoughts: It can't be marked down too far for not being able to overclock well, but that was a big let down. Don't count on your RAM running at 2000mhz+.

Did you find this review helpful? Yes No

Tiger
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/17/2009 12:43:28 PM

Rating + 2 I love Asus, not this one..


Pros: D0 stepping is the deal, this bios is easy to configure if you do your homework. Just watch you auto settings!! Like the others have stated the NB runs pretty hot. Get a small fan for it. I don't think this board will last a whole Georgia summer.

Cons: My big gripe, is that the board will all of a sudden boot without a lan. If the reset were not on the rear of the cpu, this board would be back at newegg. So you have to reset the bios and reconfigure everything. It's not just mine, I found the solution in forums online. Also get all utilities at non-peak hours from the Asus site, the dvd can't read on Win7 x64(it's only been public for over a year.) So no one year Kaspersky.. try getting a freebie from either of those guys..

Other Thoughts: If you are in the market for an i7, do yourself a favor and wait for the newer Asus boards with USB 3.0 and sata 6.0gb/s. For anyone that uses aftermarket cooling on their graphic cards forget it, the micro is too small.
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

We apologize for the issues you are experiencing. Please contact us at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx and reference case number NE578007. Please include your system configuration so that we can try to duplicate the LAN issue you're having and help you to resolve this issue.

Sincerely,

ASUS Support Team

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

Hardwar Man
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/11/2009 7:34:48 AM

Rating + 5 Great Product


Pros: Low Price
Feature Packed
Overclocks just has well as the big boys.
Supports Crossfire X and SLi
Neweggs fast shipping, I live in Maryland and it shipped from New Jersey I had it in one day.

Cons: The northbridge runs hot, but what do expect from a passive solution. I bought a tiny fan, and it runs about 6-7 C lower. Without the fan running at 3.8Ghz it would get to about 66C on load. It runs moderately hot, that is expected for a passive cooling northbridge on the Socket 1366 platform.

Other Thoughts: With a D0 revision i7 920 and Thermalright Extreme Revison C, I was able to get 3.8Ghz with only 1.25 CPU Voltage. I proably could go higher but my power supply is not powerful enough to hit the 4.0Ghz. Overall a great product.

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

Eastspring
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
11/10/2009 2:46:59 AM

Rating + 5 4ghz 1.225volts prime95 stable


Pros: I can run 4ghz with hyper-thread on with low voltage of 1.225 volts. using Xigmatek Thor's Hammer S126384 with two 120mm fans blowing out some massive air, ran prime95 and pass @ 4ghz and temps with prime 95 stay well under 70c with air cooling, around 58-63 max with ht off and prime 95 doing heat test...idle temps right now are 36.32.36.34c

Cons: south bridge heat sink has no heat pipe,lcd poster is a bit## to unplug,need to install bios update that fixs the issue when turning on computer after base clock has been set over 170,my fix is to just hit the reset button and then restarts and turns on just fine with my oc settings still there.

Other Thoughts: 190x21=4000mhz on 1.225volts!!!
3x1gb mushkin 7-8-7-20 1600 runs over 1900mhz lol
280GTX XFX
550WATT CORSAIR for cpu,and 650WATT VGA THERMALTAKE PSU for the video card
RAPTOR300GB 640WD DATA DRIVE

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

Darby
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
11/6/2009 9:59:56 PM

Rating + 4 Motherboard awesome


Pros: Nice setup love the overclocking thing small and deadly nice combo by ASUS my second asus motherboard never died on me if your looking for a motherboard ASUS is the best

Cons: No network card really couldnt throw that in

Other Thoughts: make it all red so it could match my rig

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

Schwarzwald
Tech Level: average
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/6/2009 3:58:48 AM

Rating + 3 Looks great, but RMA needed


Pros: Quite a lot of features on a small board. Layout looked nice, shipped neatly, packaging is great. External readout is a quaint plus. Comes with ample cables supplied in the boxed version. Sounds like ASUS put a lot of work into this.

Cons: Currently RMA'd because it arrived with a few of the CPU pins bent. I'll be updating this review after it's been replaced. Really sucks, my previous PC died on me - figures I'd get this happening right at the height of a busy season for work and games alike.

Other Thoughts: Really hoping I can give this board a positive review once it goes through the RMA process. Everything about it looked good, so I have high hopes. ASUS is a company that seems to strive to live up to the name it's cultivated.

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Sylar Powers
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
11/5/2009 5:35:39 PM

Rating + 4 Still The Mobo To Get


Pros: Price, Performace, ROG Extras, Premium Sound, Looks.

Cons: Heatsinks could use some beefing up, but I can fix that aftermarket. Shouldn't have to though.

Other Thoughts: I would still buy this mobo today over any other, the best mobo for the money as long as you don't need more than two PCI 2.0 Slots.

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Lu(ky
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
10/18/2009 11:22:54 PM

Rating + 5 Best Micro x58 board out there period


Pros: Features up the kazoo, bios etc.. Great color scheme, Memory slots latch on 1 side now not hitting GPU card to take out memory. Small compact board seems to out perform my Asus P6T Del on overclocking CPU & Memory. Coming from Prelude and Forti sound card the onboard XF-i not bad at all.

Cons: Had problems with my Kingston HyperX 2000MHz kit. I changed memory out to Mushkins Redline 1600MHz cas (6) profile no problems now. I heard this board does not like Elpida Hyper base memory? I RMAed my Kingston waiting to retest on board.
Also N/B does get hot but running a Swiftech NBMAX water block on it now A+ no heat issues at all.
With 2 x 4890 in slots looks like there is no room for add on cards etc..

Other Thoughts: Running my system on water no heat issues at all. Comes with a FREE GAME and a FREE 3DMARK VANTAGE benchmark program. Specs below..

Intel i7-920 DO 4.2GHz
Asus Rampage Gene II x58 Micro
Mushkin Redline 6GB 1600MHz 6-7-6-18 1T
2 x Intel SSD 80GB G2 raid -0-
LG BluRay player
Corsair HX1000 PSU

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

wrangler
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/17/2009 1:17:25 AM

Rating + 5 Easy OC


Pros: Easiest OC of my life. i7 920 DO at 4.0 running cool and stable. Many smiles.
I hope more MB makers take this formula. There is no need for the giant ATX boards anymore unless you really need 3 way multi-GPU.
This board has everything you need, none of what you don't.
Buy it.

Cons: Wish NB was actively cooled, but I have to say, mine is not running as hot as I was lead to believe it would even at 200 bclk. Just going to screw a 40mm into the fins at some point.

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

tygrone
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/11/2009 10:32:33 PM

Rating + 5 Excellent Quality


Pros: Easy to set up. Recognized the i7 cpu! and 6GB of memory on the first go'round. The LCD poster gives useful feedback. The manual is excellent, just like they used to make them. The board has many useful indicators and is well labeled. There are 6 banks of memory and all appear to be available, despite some articles I've read on the 12GB limit of using 1600. Many OC goodies. All board software seems geared for the OC and gaming enthusiast. I am not an enthusiast but do appreciate the good quality and stable software.

Cons: Price is a little high for a microATX. Wish it was a mini but don't know how I'd cool the i7. For the price I was hoping for at least an external USB/IEEE or miniUSB port. Does not come with CrossFire bridge.

Other Thoughts: I was about to give up after trying 3 boards from Foxconn with no luck. I am running a simple setup, Win7U, i7 920, 6GB OCZ Gold, 850Corsair, ATI 4870, OCZ Vertex 60 (64bit OS), and WD Black 1TB. This is the fastest and most stable sys since my Athlon XP WinXPpro. Hope it stays that way. Nice sticker for a see thru window.

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

Ryan
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/8/2009 8:55:08 PM

Rating + 1 It was a good board


Pros: From the short time the board was still working I noticed it had a bios with a strong set of features. The board was also easy to install with everything going together nicely.

Cons: The north bridge and south bridge ran hotter than i would like I would like. I would give an actual temperature but I went to restart my pc and upon it trying to start back up the lcd poster gave me a cmos error. That was the last thing the board would do for me.

Other Thoughts: One day I hope to find a decent motherboard manufacture.
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 "NE533442" 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

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DEEDUB1200
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/5/2009 2:24:46 PM

Rating + 5 Best bang for the Buck


Pros: The best ballence of Power VS Size. Mobo I/O has almost anything you will need without adding additional cards. The CPU Upgrade in the BIOS took my i7 920 from 2.66ghz to 3.2ghz with the click of one button. It took care of everything. Getting the performance of a $1000 CPU for $300. Thanks ASUS

Cons: ARE you Kidding me!!!! NO

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

Alwas learning
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
10/5/2009 8:47:03 AM

Rating + 5 Easiest Build


Pros: Out of nine builds this was the easiest, every thing went together so fast and easy that i had to recheck every thing to make sure i did not forget anything.Once all the parts were together it was time to test my work,it posted and saw 6 gigs of ram and loaded all the rest of the programs with no problems at all.For some reason i have had good luck with what NewEgg sends me. Asus has been the brand i can count on with mother boards.

Cons: I did have a little problem getting one ram stick to seat in the slot but it finely went and worked well.Other then that all was great.

Other Thoughts: Again NewEgg the greatest fast and reliable.My build asus Rampage II Gene,BFG 295gtx video card,6gig DDR3 1333 Crucial memory, Intel i7 290 cpu, Corsair 850 W power supply.

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

Hydro
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
10/2/2009 3:18:06 PM

Rating + 5 Makes for a great portable PC


Pros: Supports Core I7 processors (LGA 1366), excellent quality build, good layout, nice I/O shield, good manual and documentation, good mix of I/O (eSATA, USB2.0, 1394).

Cons: Wish the PCI slot spacing wasn't so tight, but that's not a surprise with mATX format.

Other Thoughts: I needed to put together a capable PC that could host two GigE Vision cameras and be portable enough to take into the field. This mobo filled the bill - although I would have preferred support for LGA-1156 as opposed to LGA-1366 since the Lynnfield CPU's run cooler than the Bloomingtons. Still, with the stock CPU cooler, I've been able to maintain decent temps in an Apevia X-Qpack2 mATX case.

Ran right out of the box with the drivers provided by ASUS and has been running stress test for a few days with no problems.

Apevia X-Qpack2 micro-ATX case
OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W PSU
Antec Tricool 80mm/120mm case fans
ASUS Rampage II Gene, Bios 0809 (0904 is latest)
Core I7 920 Bloomfield, stock HSF
3 x 1 GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1333Mhz (TR3X3G1333C9)
1 x Seagate ES 250GB
2 x Seagate 7200.12 1TB
Intel Pro 1000 PT dual-port NIC
PNY 9800GT (VCG98GTEE5XEB)
Sony Optiarc optical drive
XP32 SP3

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audiquattro
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
9/29/2009 11:55:53 AM

Rating + 3 Nice board when it works


Pros: Very nice and simple board. Good layout.
OC'd well with i7 920 to 3.8Ghz
Doesn't generate too much heat.

Cons: Failed DIMM Slot A1 on arrival.
BIO failed to post until it reset to default.
XMP mode only recognize 4gig of DIMM

Other Thoughts: After bought about 5 openbox board from newegg before, I didn't worry much about purchase another one.
This one failed on me but newegg rocks with RMA the faulty board back. I was worried about getting cahrged for restocking fee on open box items. The friendly rep was able to inform me that they will waive the feed for defective item.
Since I have the Rampage II Extreme board ( also bought an openbox here ), the setup for the Gene was a breeze.
Compared the two and I see that Extreme is more stable at higher OC'd rate than the Gene version.
I didn't really need extra slots from Extreme so I decided to go with Gene for 2nd box.
I deduct 1 egg for QC from openbox and 1 egg from stability vs the Extreme version.
I end up buying the new one after I RMA the bad one. Since there were no stock for openbox at the time.

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Otter
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/20/2009 7:48:33 AM

Rating + 5 Satisfied


Pros: Lots of tweeks in bios,great software package included. The board runs nice and stable. I teamed this up with a I7 975 Extreme ( not purchased from egg), 6 gigs DDR3 GSkill 1600 mem., 1, 80 gig Hitachi (O.S. 7 64 bit) , 4 Tb. Hitachi, and a Nvidia 9600 GT video card. I have been using ASUS for all of my builds. I built this manly as a entertainment center and all I can say is sweettttt!! H.D. movies and games never looked better on my Samsung 46 inch LED T.V. and as usual Egg. delivered in P.D.Q time frame and expertly packed thanks Egg!!!

Cons: Would be nice if it had more than 1 esata, other than that none

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RMC779
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/17/2009 11:51:17 AM

Rating + 5 great m-atx board!


Pros: A great overclocking board in a small form-factor. Able to overclock extremely well and use full 12GB of RAM along with 2 dual slot video cards. Both SLI and Crossfire support and only $220. Large coolers like the Prolimatech work with this board with out changing orientation. First fan does rest on top of first stick of RAM but it fits and cools extremely well.

BIOS is set up well and easy to use. Overclocking on this board was a breeze. Tons of options to dial in those settings.

This board has blown me away with it's performance!

Onboard start, reset, and clear CMOS are a benchmarking dream come true.

EZ-Flash BIOS utility makes flashing the BIOS simple.

The features of this board are designed for enthusiasts and overclockers. ASUS got this one right!

Cons: Not any room between PCI-E slots but being a m-atx board that was obvious and didn't deter my purchase. Still allows for dual slot cards but they're tight.

LCD poster isn't of much use to me personally but that's not really a con.

Other Thoughts: i7 920 @ 4.0Ghz
Prolimatech Megahalems with 2 Scythe 110 CFM fans
12GB Mushkin DDR3 1600 6-7-6-18-1T
Rampage II GENE
2 Saphire Vapor-X 4890s
1TB WD Black HDD
DVD-RW
PC Power&Cooling 750 watt PSU

Suicide screenshot of 4.63Ghz on air! Run benchmarks like 3DMark 06 and Vantage @ 4.3Ghz. 4.0Ghz 24/7 overclock running 100% full load.

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computerdiehard
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/15/2009 9:39:34 AM

Rating + 5 Works like a Champ


Pros: Easy overclocker, the cpu up is very nice just select the i7 965 and it automatically adjusts the cpu to a 3.2GHZ, has plenty of extras on it. Love the LCD you can have it monitor temperature of all 4 cores of the processor and 2 other areas of the case and it will monitor voltage to the cpu and memory. It is kind of a small board but works great with my Quad-sli 9800GX2 and DDR3 2000. Got a 34,000 score on 3D Mark Vantage

Cons: Maybe a little more space between the two x16 slots because my 2 cards cover the x4 slot.

Other Thoughts: Cooler Master HAF Case
G Skill DDR3 2000 memory
Cooler Master V10 cpu cooler
2 - BFG 9800 GX2
2 - Raptor 300gb Raid 0
Windows 7 Ultimate (official release from DeVry)

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RaptureMe
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/6/2009 8:24:28 AM

Rating + 5 Best Of The Best!!


Pros: This Board is amazing and worked right out of the box.
I purchased this as a temp replacement for my Gigabyte UD5 that arrived from newegg DOA.
I am so impressed that I am completely ditching the Gigabyte UD5 and staying with this mobo.
Asus just did such an amazing job that they have won me back as the brand to buy.
It has everything you could ever want:Its Portable,Powerfull, Looks Killer,and Works like a Dream!! Oh and did I mention it didn't cost me an arm and a leg??
It sports 2 Full 32x SLI/Crossfire PCI-Ex 2.0 slots,Has a Reset Bios from the out side of the case.
Also has a neat feature where the power on/off and reset bios are on the board it self so you can fiddle with Overclocking with out having to repeatedly open and close your case or connect and disconnect the switch/power cords.
Something I really liked was the fact that the seta ports dont get covered up by Grafic cards and are very easy to access with the larger series of cards that are out these day.

Cons: NONE!!

It maybe a con if you don't go buy one right now before they are all gone.

Other Thoughts: No problems at all running ubuntu 9.04,Vista Ultimate 64 or Win 7 Ultimate 64.
With Patriot Viper 3 x 2GB DDR3 1600 and a Core I7 920 DO stepping the Motherboard auto Set the CPU speed to 3.2Ghz at 1.2v.. With Bios "0904"
Using the Stock cooler didn't get hot but is warmer then I would like.
I have seen reviews for this board where people have pushed there 920's to 4.2-4.5Ghz on air via Ultra 120 Extreme or Megahalem Black ED

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EricTheRed
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/4/2009 10:31:15 AM

Rating + 4 Looks good now.


Pros: Good design, simple to install components. clean layout. everything is running well. Asus tech support is top notch. I will be buying more of these. Any company that I can speak to a support person, who thinks for themselves and does not just following a script will get my business.

Cons: during the 1st boot up, LCD Poster displayed "LOCKED" placing a support call to ASUS to resolve this had the following advice. Remove power cord, video card, ram and BIOS Battery. install one RAM stick in slot A1 (second from the CPU). Wait 11 min. Reinstall all hardware, and power cord. Boot the system. IT worked perfect from then on.

Other Thoughts: The CON was only a minor setback. If Asus support was less than helpful, or only a scripted responce I would have purchased a different MB. However this is my 3rd Asus MB this year (differnet computers) and they all have worked without issue. (win7 x64 Pro, x64 Ultimate, and x64 Home Premium on the 3 systems)

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pete.d
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
9/2/2009 11:26:39 PM

Rating + 4 Packs a punch


Pros: ASUS quality, full-featured in a micro-ATX board, user-friendly.

Cons: 90-degree SATA ports are good for some people, but it'd be nice if it was an optional config. For example, instead of the whole 6-port unit soldered to the MB, a 90-degree adapter on top of a vertical-insertion gang of ports; leave the adapter plugged in for out-the-back use, pull it off for straight-in-from-above use.

I could barely fit a 90-degree SATA cable on the MB plug, and there's no way a straight-plug SATA cable would fit for my case (the hard-drive enclosure sits just in front of that corner of the MB, w/ mm to spare). With this case, I can only use 3 of the 6 ports max.

Also is the disconnect between the ASUS ProbeII software and the MB labeling. I have a bad DIMM (haven't had time to track it down yet), but can't tell which one it is without spending some time, because the ProbeII software, while it does tell me I've got an "unpopulated" DIMM slot, it names that slot "DIMM3" (numbered 0-5), while the MB itself is labeled as channels "A1, B1, C1, A2, B2, C2".

Other Thoughts: For other people, the current SATA port configuration would be just as critically important, because their video cards or other adapters would block the ports. So give us the choice!

As far as the DIMM names goes, obviously there's a one-to-one mapping, but it's undocumented, so now I have to figure it out by trial and error.

These two issues pale in comparison to the overall quality of the board, the ease of setup, and that's not even counting the "overclocking-light" features for those who want some more performance but don't have the patience or experience for doing it "old school".

I especially love the numerous temp-controlled fan plugs, the "overclock-light" features, and the double-spaced PCIx slots to handle double-width SLI cards. And it's silly to even mention it, but the i/o port shield is really nice-looking!

Fit-and-finish is top-notch all around. Nice to see ASUS is sticking with their tradition of quality.

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MassiveOverkill
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/25/2009 9:37:59 AM

Rating + 5 Bought another


Pros: I bought a second board, this time from the Egg. BIOS 0904 fixed my cold-boot issues. Those concerned with NB temps, get an Antec Spot Cool. That fan alone lowered my NB temps from 60-50C over the 70mm I previously had on there. Runs great with OCZ XMP memory (12 gigs again). I also upgraded to GTX 275's in SLI.

Cons: none

1 out of 2 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
8/23/2009 12:07:32 PM

Rating + 5 Great little Mobo


Pros: Overclocked my i7 920 4.2ghz no problem with the coolermaster v10 cpu cooler. running gskill ddr3 16000 at 1900mhz 7.7.7.18 with no problems add a gtx 295 and you have a great little machine. likes some have said it does not always overclock at start up you have to create a profile to get your settings as they were but thats no big deal :)

Cons: northbridge chip runs very hot...

Other Thoughts: cant complain for the price ..its as good as higher priced mobos, just less pci-e slots.

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chipmcc1
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/18/2009 6:18:59 PM

Rating + 5 Great Mobo


Pros: High build quality, tons of features and settings, manual isn't in broken English, fast.

Cons: BIOS hiccups. Haven't tried to overclock it but occasionally gives a warning during post that the previous OC attemp failed.

Other Thoughts: I've built a bunch and can't find much wrong with this one. Nice job ASUS.

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Vader6412
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/11/2009 6:07:28 PM

Rating + 5 Great Board


Pros: X58 board in micro ATX form, Tons of OC options, Easy to use for beginners and advanced users.

This is a great motherboard. I am not an experienced Overclocker but I was able to OC my i7 to 3.2 Ghz with ease. The manual is very much in depth and easy to understand. The board does come with a ton of cables for your needs as well as a cool sticker to put on the side of your case. You do get some nice gifts as well like 3Dmark06 that comes on the disc with the motherboard.

I've heard alot of complaints about the NB and SB getting really hot but using PC probe that came on the disc with the board, my temps remain at 55C for the SB and 57C for the NB. I don't know if Asus has corrected this issue or I was lucky.

Cons: Really don't have any cons on this board. I'm sure I'll find one in the future but right now everything works perfectly and better than expected.

Other Thoughts: Highly recommend this board if your are looking for an X58 board in MicroATX form. Very user friendly for even the most inexperienced overclocker.

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N/A
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/6/2009 1:46:17 PM

Rating + 5 Best MoBo I Ever Bought!


Pros: There is a lot of OC options LCD poster is pretty cool and np so far.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: Specs
Intel 920 I7
Nvidia geforce 280
6gigs of ram
windows vista home prem
70gb 10000RPM
1TB HD
Blue Ray Burnner

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Week#2 (Vipe!)
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/4/2009 4:30:42 PM

Rating + 1 X-Fi does not work (#2)


Pros: A lot of OC options.
Great for those with lots of free time to tweek & debug.

(I previously promised to repost when I resolve or work around this issue)...

Cons: BUG: The front L&R channels do not work, also some OC software conflicts/disables the "Sound Device". (Have to uninstall the OC software to resolve, not sure which caused the conflict yet).
I will disable the onboard sound and use my old X-Fi board until Asus releases a new bios to fix the issue; or I'll return and get a more stable MB.
The latest 0904 Bios fixed the "no sound" issue from the 3 color matching plugs Orange (center), Black (Rear) and Lime (front); but still the front L & R speakers do not respond.

ASUS: Please fix this X-Fi issue & SW conflict, and give us a new Bios release. Until then if you have any other ideas or suggestions please let me know. You have an excellent gaming/OC MB here, but just need to work out these bugs for your customers.

Other Thoughts: Possibly a bad MB or just my configuration...

MB: ASUS Rampage II Gene
CPU: i7 920 Nehalem 2.66GHz
Cooler: COOLER MASTER V8 Rifle CPU Cooler (Very cool!)
RAM: 6GB CORSAIR XMS3 DDR3 1333
GPU: BFG 275 GTX OC SATA
HDD: WD Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB
PSU: Antec EA750 750W
CASE: COOLER MASTER HAF 922 (Awesome Case!!!)

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Week#2...
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
8/2/2009 7:36:49 PM

Rating + 1 X-fi does not work


Pros: A lot of OC options

Cons: Can not get the onboard X-fi to work correctly.

If I plug in a X-540 5.1 speaker system into the upper 3 exact matching color jacks I get no sound except center and rears channels... but only in the X-fi volume panel tests.

A reboot with jacks in this color matching position disables all sound including the Win volume icon.

Plugging only the lower center position to black, allows sound/music to play but only to the 2 rear speakers identifying them as fronts.

I'll have to agree with alphadog here that the sound is not so good.

Note: the X-fi card in my old system still fully works with these LX-540 speakers... well actually better since it has a Gaming and Audio mode.

Other Thoughts: ASUS? do you have any ideas?

I'd rather not return it, or disable the onboard X-fi sound and install an X-fi board, but I'm running out of options since updates to the SoundMax and other drivers from ASUS, as well as 2 reinstalls of WinXP have been of no help.

I will repost when I resolve or work around the issue.
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 "NE444868" 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

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da31fox
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
7/31/2009 5:08:23 PM

Rating + 3 False Advertising from Asus and Poor Support


Pros: LOTS OF FEATURES!!!!
Small size (if you need it)
layout is decent could be a bit better for newer more common cases like BTX or Full Towers
comes with a lot of cables/adapters

Cons: Asus support stinks, they are slow to respond, unhelpful the first few times you contact them. They don't give out info unless you ask repeatedly.
Also their marketing is on the verge of false advertising with Kaspersky anti-virus is only trial software thats bundle not full version like 3dmark as one would think by descriptions.
Also once you get the cord plugged into the board for the lcd poster display its nearly impossable to remove it due poor design
also it hates my cooler master V10 heatsink, wont work with it.

Other Thoughts: I didnt buy from newegg on this item only due to having gift cards for somewhere else. But asus support would remain the same. I have issue with them 5 years ago and had hoped they had changed since then but have not. I would avoid them completely if other manufacturers would put the features I want onto a product I could afford. Guess that is where the other companies money goes it to better support, or least I hope so.
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 "NE443254" 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

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JagJared
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/20/2009 8:58:06 PM

Rating + 5 Great board.


Pros: It is a very compact board made for the beginning/somewhat experienced overclocker that is looking for a board that is easy to set up, tune/tweek, and is powerful in its own right. Perfect for setting up a powerful game or video editing system. That is this board.

Cons: Large graphics cards - like my 2 EVGA GeForce GTX 260 216 Superclocked that I'm using - tend to block some of the lower board connector sockets. Be careful to plug all those
in before plugging in the graphics cards. Also, make sure you don't knock them out of place when plugging in the cards.

Other Thoughts: My System:
COOLER MASTER Centurion 590
Core i7 920
Asus Rampage II Gene
2 - Corsair P128 Solid State Drives in Raid 0. <==wow!
2 - EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked in SLI
OCZ XMP 6 GB DDR3 1600
LG Black 6x Blu-Ray Burner

Amazing machine...plays solitaire really fast...

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N/A
Tech Level: somewhat low
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/18/2009 5:25:07 PM

Rating + 4 Nice


Pros: Awesome mobo.

Cons: PCIE slots are close together. Geforce 260 just barely fit and it makes wireing difficult with my case. Also, I had a bad DIMM, no way of figuring out with the BIOS which DIMM slot isn't recognizing the faulty DIMM.

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alphadog
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/13/2009 10:08:32 AM

Rating + 3 Decent Board. Some Issues...


Pros: Nice small format, yet well-designed to allow good fit with multiple components. I had no heatsink or video card length issues while setting up (except minor nit in Cons). Angled SATA on mobo can be either a boon or a bust, depending on case, though. Reliability is unknown, as I have had it for only a month now, but it has been stress-tested on 24x7 with no hiccups on Win7.

Cons: The two blue PCIe slots are too close. I put a 4870 in the first one, and if I put my other in xfire in the next slot, it will basically be flush against the first one, blocking the air intake.

SupremeFX sound is basically a poorly supported, typically-bad Creative Labs product. I still have no subwoofer working...

Other Thoughts: My build: i7 920, this mobo, Ximatek Thor Hammer, 6GB mushkin (998691), Sapphire ATi 4870, extra helping of fun...

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Phalkon
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/7/2009 5:25:17 PM

Rating + 5 Solid i7 Board


Pros: Reasonably priced, easy for overclocking, worked with my corsair RAM. The LCD poster is also really cool, gives me the cpu temps, etc, and even has a nifty blue backlight.

Cons: Northbridge runs pretty hot, idles around 67c, 72-74c load. Doesn't seem to be much of an issue. Just make sure if you buy a new cpu fan that it will blow on the NB heatsink.

Other Thoughts: I have my i7 920 OC'd to 3.4 ghz running flawlessly. Bangs out Maya batch renders like a beast.

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tweldy
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/7/2009 10:38:02 AM

Rating + 5 Exactly What I Expected


Pros: Exactly what I expected, easy installation, no problem with the motherboard. The options in the BIOS for overclocking are expansive. I just wanted the board for the quality and reliability, though.

Cons: I had a bad DIMM, it would be nice if the BIOS would display which RAM slots were occupied. Having six slots makes it harder to identify faulty DIMMs.

Other Thoughts: The SATA connectors face out from the back, which made connecting SATA cables tricky as they nearly touch my hard drives. This is a mini ATX board after all.

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RICKY BOBBY
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: less than 1 day
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/7/2009 12:21:43 AM

Rating + 5 Best Upgrade Ever!


Pros: After 5 system builds (and ONE NIGHTMARE DEFECTIVE ASUS RAMPAGE EXTREME 775 BOARD) ASUS has redeemed themselves and my confidence in their product; swapped the OEM Gateway 6800-01e board out for this MICRO ATX board - PERFECT FIT in 20 minutes & done - LOAD DRIVERS AND ROCK AND ROLL BABY!!!:) EGGstremely happy!

Cons: NONE. U B in good shape if U buy this :)

Other Thoughts: NEWEGG ROCKS! Best prices! Best customer service! All day, all night, 24/7.

Any Q6600 owners can breathe new life into their old sytem with a GIGABYTE EP45-UD3R board -sweeeeet!!!

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dcaccavano
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
7/6/2009 9:26:05 PM

Rating + 5 Best Mobo I Have Ever Owned


Pros: Great board. The Layout is perfect. Everything fits on the board nicely and just WORKS. I had no problems booting from the get go and it has been rock solid stable since. Runs either SLI or Crossfire if that is a concern for some people. I am using this build for my primary computer in my living room and I am very pleased with my decision. The board just feels solid. Great quality as always.

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: my build:

Rampage II Gene, Core i7 920, XFX GTX 260, 6 GB OCZ DDR3 RAM, 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint HDD, OCZ MXP 700W PSU, NZXT Rogue case, Samsung T260HD Monitor, Windows 7 RC 64 bit

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N/A
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/4/2009 12:40:36 PM

Rating + 4 Lovely MB


Pros: All this stuff on such a small board. Booted right away running Vista 64. used the software to increase the 950 to 3.7Ghz and it just reboots and goes even faster with no problems. I'm not an overclocker and looking at the options in that section is mind boggling. but even I can get 20% more speed out of an i7.

It's not for a gaming computer and plugged into a KillaWatt it only pulls 110 watts or so at idle.

Cons: What am I supposed to do with the little display. It's cool, but mounting? Maybe I'll cut off the ears and use double stick tape to put it on the front. I should slot the spare 5 1/4 blank to fit the ears and then use double stick, but what a pain!

Other Thoughts: It always stops at the single SATA on boot waiting for a key press or 3 seconds and I don't see how to turn it off. it's not a problem, only annonying when you waiting for the 10th reboot during setup.

SAPPHIRE 100255DDR4 Radeon HD 4670 512MB 128-bit GDDR4
Patriot 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) PVT36G1333LLK

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shellshock_gt
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/3/2009 1:33:26 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: Lots of features for a great price, one of the few Micro boards out there. Good placement of all connectors and fit great into my case (mini p180)

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: I would highly recommend this board to anyone seeking a micro board for the i7 processor. I have windows 7 x64 running and it has been stable since day 1

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Kesti
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
7/1/2009 12:43:45 PM

Rating + 3 bad dimm slots :(


Pros: Beautiful board, Asus has always been a great brand, the workaround for win7 drivers was a little annoying but doable, LCD poster very useful! Would have given 4-5 eggs but the lifespan of this board was, alas, too short...

Cons: Only recognized 1gig out of 3gb of memory, then stopped booting altogether. LCD Poster displays "LOCKED," if you have this same problem don't waste your time RMAing the memory like I did - it's either the memory controller on your otherwise wonderful core i7 CPU or the motherboard's, so set up your RMAs appropriately.

Other Thoughts: Newegg is being very helpful about my RMAs...I just want this new box to work :\ Props to Asus for their great customer support. I will write another review when/if I ever get past LOCKED.

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Freeze
Tech Level: average
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
6/23/2009 10:26:54 PM

Rating + 5 Useful LCD poster


Pros: Well built, forgiving, speedy mobo. The LCD poster can be changed in BIOS to cycle display of NB, SB, MB, CPU temps. Very convenient.
Overclocking is now as easy as speeding on the freeway.

Cons: Had to put EVGA GeForce GTX260 video card in the second PCIe 16 slot leaving the first one empty, but the mobo's OK with it. The card's too big for the case I bought. It's my fault, not the mobo's. The LCD poster should come with a snap-in drive bay blank.

Other Thoughts: The LCD poster options don't appear until you select ADVANCE\LCD Poster & LED Control\LCD Poster Mode\HWM Select\All Temp in the BIOS. I also updated the BIOS with my company logo which dazzles my customers when I turn on the computer.

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Mrav8er
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/23/2009 10:25:23 AM

Rating + 5 A very sweet Mobo!


Pros: This thing is an engineering work of art! So pretty, it's almost a shame to cover it all up. Super stable. Great BIOS, more comprehensive than most boards I've worked with in the past. Very well laid out, including SATA ports turned 90 degrees so as not to interfere with large video cards. Stock Intel cooler easily clicked on without all the Mobo crackling that puts my hair on end. Really nice illuminated reset buttons to boot when testing, plus an external CMOS button on the back panel near the audio jacks. Not that it matters, but it was beautifully packed in a super high quality box that looked more like a presentation case. Oddly, it didn't come packed in an anti-stat bag, but sitting on a plastic (probably anti-stat, but didn't have the traditional silver look) sheet.

Cons: No show stoppers here.

The only negative I noticed was that ASUS typically adds a alot of accesories in with their boards that cost north of 200 and this one, other than the external poster (didn't need it, didn't use it) didn't come with much. The one thing I was looking/hoping for was an external eSATA port to put into a card slot for an external HD. Now I gotta go rummage around for one.

Other Thoughts: Don't listen to the guys complaining about this board not playing well with Win7, it's not even released yet!
This thing is awesome. I have put this rig together to be primarily a Photoshop CS4 crusher. Booted first time right out of the box. Stable, no hiccups, no errors, no issues. Smothest, easiest build to date! Vista HP64 loaded on quickly, found all the updates and was up and running in less than an hour. Temps run a cool 34c CPU, 39c case, but I have yet to measure the NB. A lot of previous posters have noted very high NB temps.
If Asus can do this well on a matx format board, they have seriously set a new benchmark for standard atx.

Setup:
Apevia X-Qpak2 with supplied 500w psu
Asus Rampage GENE II mobo
Intel Core i7 920, stock cooler, stock clock
6 GB Corsair XMS3 1600 (3X2GB)
EVGA Radeon 4870
Intel X25-M 80GB SDD <--- Sweet!
Vista Home Premium 64
Samsung Optiarc DVD
Thermaltake eSATA hard drive dock
WD750aals HD

2 out of 3 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
6/23/2009 6:59:27 AM

Rating + 5


Pros: good motherboard.

Cons: no problems

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

Phil
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/20/2009 4:55:13 PM

Rating + 5 Nice Little MOBO


Pros: Posted 1st time out of the box. Played well with OCZ 1600 xmp ram and a i7 920. At stock settings this 920 runs at 2.81ghz. The step up feature 940/965 are two clicks away LOL and it works. A cooler master V8 fits well.

Cons: The northbridge runs hot but I here all X58s do. The pretty little red piece of metal in the middle of the northbridge was poorly glued. When I received the MOBO it had been bouncing around on top of the MOBO, who knows how long. It ended up between the ram slots. After the MOBO posted some crazy glue took care of that problem.

Other Thoughts: I to tried win 7rc 64 and 32 bit but no driver support yet from ASUS. I can't blame them who knows what microsoft will end up with at retail. I know virtual pc beta is a joke. But all was not lost 64bit VISTA solved all my problems as far as an OS. LOL

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

markseagoe
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
6/10/2009 11:55:42 AM

Rating + 4 Win7 Drivers unavailable


Pros: I have already written a review but I did find a couple cons so I am writing below...

Cons: The disk that comes with this mobo has no win7 drivers, and will not auto install once it detects win7. Asus tech support says "you're on your own" for win7 users.

My system, despite latest BIOS (0705?) and realTek win7 network adapter driver update, trying different power settings in BIOS, continues to experience an issue when it goes to sleep and resumes. I saw another customer (named "N/A") saying a similar thing when his system "crashes", his network is gone. Mine resumes OK but win7 says it has had a bluescreen, and network adapter is not even seen in device manager, and internet connection is gone, requiring power cycle to recover.

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

Dave K.
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/27/2009 1:09:58 PM

Rating + 5 Amazing


Pros: If ASUS can pack so many features and great performance into a Micro ATX size, why aren't ALL motherboards this size? All I can say is: Wow!

Cons: The northbridge chip runs very hot- even at idle. I added an Antec Spot Cool (which NewEgg apparently doesn't sell) for this, and that helped a lot. But a better solution may be needed if you intend to do any serious overclocking.

4 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
5/26/2009 8:47:37 AM

Rating + 4 Decent Board


Pros: RAID is controlled on-board which means I didn't have to install any drivers when I loaded Win7 RC. Had some issues with the instructions Ctrl-I looks like Ctrl-L, but it has a great set of tools for raid and bios settings

Cons: When my PC crashes I have to disable and re-enable to the On-board LAN to get it to work again

Other Thoughts: I'm stuck in a place where I wonder if its the board or the OS that's causing most of my problems. Is the RAID causing my system to be unstable? Is Win7 somehow turning off my onboard LAN? tough techie questions

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

markseagoe
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/25/2009 10:24:52 PM

Rating + 5 works great


Pros: Really overall pleased with this board, it runs my I7 Bloomfield and no problems. Super-dee-duper.

Cons: LCD Poster backlight, even if BIOS is configured for always on, still goes off certain times during posting. That's annoying, but then it stays on and tells you the time, so it's a bit useless. Would have been nice if it came in a drive bay panel.

Other Thoughts: I heeded the advice of previous reviewer who said stay away from Seagate with this, so I got 2 WD SATA drives. Also have 2 SATA Sony DVD RW, Sigma Monster SP-570 PS, but skimped a bit using Mushkin 2Gx3 DDR3 and SAPPHIRE 100274L vid card and Apprevia X-Supra case since I didn't want to blow my wad. All works great together. If you install Win 7 w/ flash drive because you don't have access to DVD Writer (I only had reader) then you need 4G flash drive, and the BIOS setup for that is a little vague but doable once you realize that the flash drive has to be ordered in the CD/DVD section - took a bit of experimenting on my part.

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

AParsh335i
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
5/21/2009 9:39:20 PM

Rating + 5 Worth the money!


Pros: I think I can answer some questions really quickly that people want to know before purchasing:
-Fits CoolerMaster V8 CPU Heatsink!
-Fits Corsair Dominator 1600 RAM!
-Fits 2x GTX 260 in SLI!!!!!!
-YES, the onboard x-fi sounds GOOD!
-Yes, it does come with an FLEXIBLE SLI bridge
-THIS IS EASIER TO OVERCLOCK THAN AN EVGA X58 OR EVGA X58 CLASSIFIED SPECIAL EDITION!
-My RAID0 array that had my windows vista x64 from my EVGA X58 picked up right away and booted right into windows the first try! I didn't have to do a fresh install! I just picked up the OCZ vertex so I am going to do one anyway but transerring data is going to be faster and easier.

These three factors are really making this setup amazing

Cons: The LCD poster gizmo is pretty cheesy and I wish the price was lower without this thing.

Other Thoughts: I originally had an EVGA x58 3x Sli board and used the step up to get the EVGA x58 Classified (the 449.99 version with all the extras). The ECP on the classified was way better than the LCD thing on this ASUS but who the heck cares about that stuff anyway? You can fit all the high end stuff you need in a tiny micro ATX case without overheating anything. EVGA had it's "Dumby OC" thing that would not POST so i had to do the research to figure out how to do a low end OC on my own. This board i simply set my Intel core i7 920 to replicate the stats of a 965 and it simply works and stays at 30-40 degrees Celsius.

Set up:
-Intel core i7 920 @ 3.2ghz light overclock
-Corsair Dominator 1600 DDR3
-Coolmaster V8
-2x EVGA GTX 260 216/55nm Superclocked versions SLI
-LG blu-ray/hd-dvd/dvdrw
-OCZ vertex 60gb SSD
-2x Samsung Spinpoint 1TB in RAID0
-TAGAN ABS BZ700 psu
-Visiontek 450w dedicated PSU
-Antec mini P180

5 out of 9 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
5/21/2009 7:50:56 PM

Rating + 5 An Excellent Buy


Pros: CPU level up option in bios is an easy way to get to 3.2 ghz. Manually adjusted to 3.6 and uses less voltage then level up function and runs the same temperatures as at 3.2ghz. All the options you could want. Installed and booted up first time.

Cons: It isn't free.

Other Thoughts: Whether you know alot or very little about overclocking, this is the board for you.

Running an i7-920, EVGA GTX285, 6gb of Corsair Domintor memory and using a Corsair 850TX power supply. Upgraded from a c2 duo e6850. Much more of a performance increase than I expected.

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

karl
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
5/12/2009 8:54:19 AM

Rating + 5 Great Asus Rampage Microatx


Pros: you must have this motherboard. this is a great motherboard to invest. Just update the bios for better performance.
his is pretty much the ultimate motherboard full stop, the layout has always been a problem for me on other boards but this one has it down to a T. definately the best looking board i've ever seen. T

Cons: none, maybe price

Other Thoughts: ASUS with Rampage II GENE is changing this perception of microATX format

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

Brian
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/12/2009 7:05:26 AM

Rating + 5 Great Product


Pros: Great features, lots of SATA ports for way more hard drives than I'll ever use. Onboard power switch was great for testing components before fully installing system.

Cons: First board was DOA, however this could have been due to a bad CPU, but Newegg replaced it no questions asked, and I had a working one within a week.

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

Phil
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/3/2009 10:24:08 AM

Rating + 5 It's Asus. Case Closed.


Pros: Makes the DFI Lanparty Jr. cry like a little girl. HTCP's are the next big thing, and Asus as usual are on the top of the heap.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: Newegg has unreal shipping. 2 days and it was at my door.

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

ogi
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
5/1/2009 10:09:37 AM

Rating + 4 almost too good


Pros: very fast, good overclocking features, placement of components is just perfect for me it has everything i want in a matx board

Cons: bad chipset cooling design both north/south bridge constantly over 80C while gaming

Other Thoughts: other than that its a good gaming matx board im planning to put 40mm fan on the northbridge later hope it helps

5 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
4/28/2009 10:28:04 PM

Rating + 1 asus WAKE UP!


Pros: Great board for overclocking....that is until I got a D0 i7 920! This board requires 0601 BIOS to run D0. My LCD Poster quit working when I installed D0 i7 920. And yes I know how to turn it on/off in BIOS. LCD Poster worked fine with i7 C0 step 920 with 601 bios, but as soon as I installed D0 920 it quit! Whats up asus, I think you need to hire a good bios writer. What good is the LCD poster if it isnt recognized when using D0???? I even re-flashed 0601 and still no LCD poster.

Cons: heres your canned response>We are sorry for this inconvenience. Please contact our Technical Support Department at http://vip.asus.com/eservice/techserv.aspx and reference case number "NE348782" 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
NEVERMIND ITS LONG DISTANCE TO PHONE & GET PUT ON HOLD!!

Other Thoughts: JUst fix the BIOS, hire an evga tech to do it.
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

For your convenience, a case number has been created for you. Please contact us at APS_support@asus.com and reference case number NE356388 for assistance in resolving your issues.

Best Regards,

ASUS Support Team

10 out of 22 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

Grandmaster J
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 month to 1 year
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/25/2009 1:36:18 AM

Rating + 5 HELPFUL HINTS... :)


Pros: Hello all, please be aware that some seagate hard drives do not work with asus i7 motherboards for some reason. After tearing half my hair out and countless hours of switching configs and research i found the answer was right there on ASUS web site. I notice some other customers having the same issues... CMOS error, overclocking failure, no posting, locking up.... ALL caused by having a seagate hard drive... I never thought a hard drive could effect the bios loading so much. Well there it is, hope this helps some. Other than that issue its a great board. Good OC'r.

Cons: Few little things, one is that it is just a little to small for my sli likes. Graphics card 1 gets on average 9C hotter than lower one considering there is about .6cm between them giving very little air flow to the top card. Other thing is that I dont quite understand why the northbridge gets so hot... There might be too much on the heat pipe since it goes to the caps also... Either way i thought the NB would be more efficient than it is with heat. I hope MB makers go to 2 slot gap for multi gpu sets as standard since most high end cards need room for their ovens cooled with two slot sinks. I know what I was buying so my bad. :)-

Other Thoughts: As for the hard drive issue and anyone getting a DOA board... this stuff happens lets keep ratings fair. Thanks

5 out of 10 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

sono
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/21/2009 7:30:13 AM

Rating + 5 micro board, macro clock


Pros: Best sure thing to get 4ghz out of the box.
Onboard sound is good enough for games.
Capable of the highest consistant overclocks over all others to date.
Very low power yields big results. 1.3375 volts for 4ghz is lower than all the other review boards.
Northbridge heatsink fins come off so you can just bolt the block on to the northbridge plate. Free voltage reg cooling.

Ram runs nice, unlike some others

Cons: lack of space for the extra pci slot with sli means onboard sound is a must use.
The onboard sound is not as good as the x-fi gamer, but it is better than any other onboard sound I have used. Within happiness range.

The 920's get hot at 4ghz, even with D0 stepping and water cooling.

The Northbridge block, plate deal, works fine for me, but without added cooling it is not very effective.

Other Thoughts: Came from an 780/q6600 overclocked on water.

If your a 780/6600 guy this is your board. Don't worry about the onboard sound, it's good enough.

Don't even think about overclocking until you read the reviews and copy their settings. Much more complicated than the 780's.

core 920@ 4ghz, asus gene, 6 gig corsair dominator pc1600@ 1700, EVGA 8500gtx, swiftech water cooling. Zalmon 850 psu.

5 out of 8 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
4/17/2009 11:48:31 PM

Rating + 4 I like this Board


Pros: Lots of overclocking software. Good board layout, seems well made with decent components

Cons: The Lord help you if you actually have to use the Jmicron controller. It tends to hang the system at boot time. (You won't need it if you don't use IDE drives). Hard to do a complete custom overclock and hence somewhat limiting The 2 4 pin power connectors are too close to the CPU and are somewhat hard to reach.

Other Thoughts: Actually you can use the IDE port without the Jmicron drivers, which are incredibly buggy. Just use the windows default IDE drivers. Don't install Jmicron.!

There is a bit too much handholding with the overclocking setup. I know my i7 920 has some multipliers locked, but I thought I'd have more control over the RAM multiplier somewhere in BIOS.

The BIOS will lock you out of some choices until you start playing around with their OC software in windows (such as TurboV). Also within the BIOS the base clock can't be adjusted, but can be adjusted via TurboV in windows. Conversely in windows there is no easy way to alter DRAM frequencies.

On the other hand I've never seen OC work as well as this while inside the operating system. Also if they are going to force defaults on you, they should consider disabling some of the advanced CPU features such as hyperthreading or speedstep as a default.

7 out of 11 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
4/17/2009 7:56:46 PM

Rating + 4 Cooling Choices


Pros: I bought this board because of the mATX form factor, ease of mild overclocks and the ability to reuse my CPU cooler (zalman 9700). I run my system at 100% loads 24/7 to participate in the @home projects. I selected the mild 3.2GHz overclock which set the memory at DDR3-1280. This caused my CPU and NB temps to run between 70..75 C. Trying to run the memory at higher speeds caused the NB to shoot into the 80's. I replaced the zalman 9700 with the ThermalRight 120 eXtreme 1366 and the stock NB cooler with the ThermalRight HR-05. I configured the TR-120 with a single fan in push mode exhausting up through the top of the case. The TR HR-05 was set parallel to the cpu heatsink and I placed a 70mm fan in push mode to also exhaust up (through the CPU heatsink). The 70mm fan blocks the first GPU slot so I placed the ATI 4670 in the second GPU slot which worked fine. With the mild OC of 3.2 GHZ and DDR3-1280 the NB now runs 45..50 C and the CPU runs 55..60 C, a huge improvement.

Cons: Stock NB cooler needs help.

Other Thoughts: Case: Antec P182 + 3 120mm fans in upper chamber,
CPU: i7 920,
Usage: 100% loads 24/7

Passmark 3D graphics score for the ATI 4670 in the second GPU slot was 1006 compared to the score of 862 for a nVidia 8800 GTS card I had in another system. So it seems placing the GPU in the second slot did not effect performance much.

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

MAT
Tech Level: average
Ownership: less than 1 day
4/17/2009 10:27:08 AM

Rating + 5 For - When it boots, its good.


Pros: see other thought

Cons: see other thought

Other Thoughts: i'm writing this review to suggest one option to the guy who wrote the review under the title "When it boots, its good.". I have experienced this problem with my p4c800E asus MOBO. and it took me a while to find out that it was because of a bad CMOS battery. changed the battery, everything's fine. so i suggest you try that too just for some $4.

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

THRILLED TO OC!!!
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
4/16/2009 7:11:10 PM

Rating + 5 BEST MOBO EVER


Pros: OCZ 1500 tri-channel-- 1st time booted right up. It's fast. Did "memory up" function in bios-- with one click it ran 1850MHz at factory settings. Another click, it ran 1600MHz at 7-7-7-20!! Clicked option 2000 MHz, it's been running for 3 days now, CPU @ 2.8MZHz. This board with OCZ 1500 is the real bomb. Glad I didn't get Corsair 1600, compared to these OCZ they're slow.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: All the reviews about Asus Gene & OCZ 1500 were spot on magnificient. I'm enjoying real world results!!!

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

sl2yk
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/15/2009 10:52:21 AM

Rating + 1 When it boots, its good.


Pros: When the board boots properly, typically after "warming up" for a minute, it runs Vista-64 flawlessly. With careful manual settings I'm able to hit 3.8 GHz stable on air cooling with the triple channel memory at 1604.

Cons: Initially would NOT boot, failing during post indicating "CMOS Err" on the LCD. After many boot attempts, it finally booted into BIOS setup. However, sucessive boots would randomly fail. The LCD now displayed "Locked" after failed boot and no longer "CMOS Err". It seemed that the more I kept rebooting, the better the boot sucess rate was. The boot problem is present whether the system(both cpu and memory) is set to stock speeds or overclocked. All of my troubleshooting was done at stock speeds. The board now it boots 90% of the time only when it is warm, but has serious problems when booting cold (powered down for a few hours). When I got home from work yesterday and booted the system, it failed to boot. Upon the next boot attempt I found that the bios settings had somehow been wiped, even though I did not press clear cmos. Something's wrong.
CPU level up function doesn't work unless I manualy reduce QPI speed to ~7200
Poor NB cooling, 65-70C when CPU is 29C.

Other Thoughts: I can use my system only after a lucky boot up or after having rebooted it a number of times and reconfiguring bios setup. I've recently read about similar problems with the Rampage II Extreme board here in the newegg reviews for it. Thank you newegg! I think there's a certain percentage of these Rampage II boards (both Gene and Extreme) that have the same "cold boot" problem I've been plagued with.
I've tried to solve the problem by updating the BIOS to 0601, but it did not help. I just noticed there's another BIOS update: 0705 "Fixed BIOS setup may lag when if set CPU ratio over standard ratio" I'll try it, but doubt it will help.
May the boot be with you.

My system configuration:
MB: Rampage II Gene
CPU: i7 920 (stock to 3.8 stable)
Cooler: ZALMAN CNPS9900LED
RAM: 6GB CORSAIR DOMINATOR TR3X6G1600C8D
GPU: EVGA 260GTX SSC
HDD: 2x640GB WD Caviar Black as Raid0
PSU: Corsair 620Hx
CASE: Antec miniP180
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 "NE348782" 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

7 out of 16 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
4/14/2009 12:24:18 AM

Rating + 5 SWEET JUICED


Pros: I haven't even installed and I'm weak in the knees. All the reviews I've read of lil gene is that 's she's a sweet juiced overclocker!!! Waiting for my I7 from egg!! I gotta wipe my face!!

Cons: It's a mess!

Other Thoughts: Can't wait to clean up on clock speeds for half the price of her big daddy!

1 out of 10 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
4/10/2009 9:19:53 AM

Rating + 5 golden overclocker


Pros: Currently, I have clocked this board to 4.3GHz, stable enough to run super pi with 9.04 second 1 meg time. Prime stable @ 4.2 GHz 1.4v cpu (i7 920). I just wanted to see what overclocks I could get stable. Temps at 4.2GHz- NB 45c , SB 40 , cpu cores 75c . This board does overclock very good. You can't expect this board to overclock with everything on auto, lol. Some basic overclocking knowledge is needed . I run this board at 3,8GHz 24/7, no problem.

Cons: nada with the board, although I agree asus tech support is below average.

Other Thoughts: I also have my 1600MHz dram overclocked, again, you need basic overclocking knowledge to be able to build your own computer! So buy this board its lots of fun to overclock...but, get some overclocking knowledge first.

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

Massive Overkill
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
4/10/2009 7:05:22 AM

Rating + 5 Perfection


Pros: 6 SATA mounted parallel to mb, plus 2 eSATA, SLI/Crossfire support with full bandwidth PCI-E slots, 6 DDR3 slots, firewire, onboard reset and power switches, rear bracket CMOS reset, LCD status indicator, overclocking options of it's bigger brother, 8-phase power, comes with SLI connector, sexy PCB color, Software emulated X-Fi.......while it's not hardware, it's better than ACL from Realtek.......I noticed an immediate improvement in audio quality, 5 PWM fan headers, 8-pin aux power connector, and superb motherboard layout.

Cons: It doesn't do my dishes or wash my clothes.........seriously, this motherboard has EVERYTHING.

Other Thoughts: Overclocked my i7 920 to 3.8 Ghz and only cooling is holding me back from going further. This is with 12 gigs of OCZ DDR 1600. I have two GTX 260s in SLI, one a 192 shader and the other a 216 shader.

My scores:

Vantage 23747
3DMark06 23398

I bought this from another vendor, but I should have waited as Newegg had it in stock the day after. I would have gotten free shipping and it would have arrived sooner had I bought it from the Egg, not to mention the superior customer service.

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

Happy
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
4/9/2009 8:05:32 PM

Rating + 5 Great MoBo


Pros: Excellent Buy. I had the DFI board and sent it back to get this one. The board layout is just outstanding. The only drawback from the DFI board to this, is I have less fan connectors, had to use one splitter - but thats me and my case with a ridiculous amount of fans. I have always liked Asus boards but DFI beat them to a mATX x58, back on track now. Asus software is great for monitoring and the BIOS is much more "realistic" for users, not as extremely ridiculous as the DFI BIOS was. Read the XMP for the memory perfectly, DFI lacked this option.

My setup:
Antec Mini P180
Intel Core i7 920
Asus Rampage II GENE
TherrmalTake Extreme Spirit II NB Cooler (had to mod the bracket)
Corsair DDR3-1600 6GB Dominator kit (fan purhcased seperate)
2x HIS Radeon HD 4850 in crossfire
Asus PhysX PCI Card
TRUE with 2x Scythe S-Flex 120mm fans in pushpul
Zalman Fanmate 2 and a splitter for the 2 CPU fans
3x Scythe S-Flex 120mm fans (2 intake, 1 exhaust)
WD Caviar Blue 640 GB drive
Corsair

Cons: I think its not just this board but all X58 boards (the DFI had this problem too), the northbridge just gets HOT. I took off the supplied northbridge cooler and replaced with ThermalTake Exreme Spirit II cooler and arctic silver, this lowered the NB temps about 7 degrees C, still over 50 all the time. I have not yet prime tested this board, but the DFI got up to 90 C during prime95 with an i7 920 oc'd to 3.6. Tempted to try watercooling out of desperation on this. CPU got hot too - as high as 75 C even with excellent cooling and lapped TRUE, but thats with a full 1 ghz overclock.

Other Thoughts: I have a TRUE with 2x 120mm fans, one on each side, with it oriented front back, you lose the ram slot closest to the CPU socket due to fan overhanging it - only an issue if going over 6 gb though - which most won't. Got the dominator fan for tripple channel, it stays on, but not as well as with conventional ram slots. On this board, the ram slots are higher up than the DFI board, so more clearance between ram and top video card. Will probably upgrade graphics to single GTX295 down the road, no worries about this board handling it though, PSU is another story - fine for if i only get 1, if I get a second will have to upgrade. I absolutely recommend this board, having tried the 2 mATX options for X58 now, I can say it is an easy decision and worth the extra $20. This board, if the cooling gets worked out, can support an amazing set of hardware in a small form factor.

10 out of 12 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
4/8/2009 8:29:36 AM

Rating + 2 All that glitters is not gold


Pros: Currently, can't think of any

Cons: So far will not accept any overclocking. Even something as simple as the X.M.P option with everything set to auto and yes, I have already run a memory test with MemTest86+ and all is ok. So far Asus technical support is terrible and can't answer many simple questions like why am I not seeing the i7-crazy configuration option listed on page 3-10 under "3.3.2 CPU Level Up [Auto]" and page 3-11 under "OC From CPU Level Up [Auto]".

Other Thoughts: This board is too new and as a result will probably have some bugs to work out. I would stay away and go with the more reliable p6t deluxe or other brand until this Mobo has stood the test of time.

core i7 920
12GB Corsair Dominator ddr 3 1600
Nvidia Quadro NVS 450
Noctua NH-C12p cooler
Manufacturer Response:Dear Valued Customer,

Please contact us at aps_support@asus.com and reference case number "NE345283" 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

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

Max
Tech Level: somewhat high
Ownership: less than 1 day
4/3/2009 4:38:38 PM

Rating + 5 Who's gonna tell him


Pros: NO onboard video,MicroATX,SLI/Crossfire

Cons: None yet.I start e-mailing Asus,DFI and Gigabyte 5 years ago a e-mail once a month about making a high powered MicroATX mobo without onboard video.DFI came with it first.

Other Thoughts: Who's gonna tell him that we don't want onboard video or parallel ports. It's a gamers board.We all know we can get all the features on a full ATX Mobo we know this.The trick is packing as much horse power in a small form factor.Kinda like moding a Honda Civic.We know Mustangs have V8's but we want small and powerful.

3 out of 17 people found this review helpful. Did you? Yes No

N/A
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 week to 1 month
4/2/2009 8:58:50 PM

Rating + 3 Good board


Pros: Good board. i7 cpus are drastically faster than older chips at the same price point. Option of SLI/Crossfire is nice, though I'd imagine most people don't need it. Other problem is getting two grphx cards to fit in a uATX case! Serious pain and routing issue! Definitely got less HD's in the case due to the dual grphx cards.

Cons: Unfortunately, this board cost a bit more without any sort of built-in graphics.

Other Thoughts: Not sure why this board doesn't show up as a uATX board when searching... NewEgg should probably fix it!

3 out of 25 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
4/1/2009 8:59:23 AM

Rating + 5 nice board


Pros: Everyone has issues with memory compatibility questions. This Mushkin 998679 6GB kit works perfect with this board!The board runs like a champ. MY northbridge temp is 38c at i7 920 default speed.

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: Get the Mushkin ram here at the newegg. its fast & compatible with this board. Newegg shipping & quality as always.

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

korben43
Tech Level: high
Ownership: 1 day to 1 week
This user purchased this item from Newegg
3/31/2009 4:41:14 PM

Rating + 5 mATX size, full ATX power


Pros: Has all the features of its bigger brother, the Rampage II Extreme in a mATX form factor.

Cons: none

Other Thoughts: Using it in a Silverstone SG03 mATX case with a 1200w PSU, 6GB DDR3 1600 from OCZ, 2.5TB of hard drive space, a Core i7 920 and dual GTX 295's.

4 out of 6 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
3/29/2009 7:14:15 PM

Rating + 5


Pros: Micro-ATX x58. Good documentation. Plenty of overclocking and tweaking settings to play with.

Cons: None so far.

Other Thoughts: Not many choices as far as micro atx boards at this time. Had been waiting for Newegg to offer this board and jumped on it when I saw it.

4 out of 7 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
3/29/2009 6:14:41 PM

Rating + 4 Northbridge too HOT!


Pros: Easy install. Excellent OC. All the features you could ever want. Running i7 920 stable at 3.2 Ghz (watercooled).

Cons: NB runs around 70 C with added 40 mm fan. Went up to 80 C at full load without fan. At stock speeds, runs in mid 60s.

Other Thoughts: Installed in MiniATX case temp running around 35 C.

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

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