The Asus Extreme Rampage first tickled my fancy with its cheesy, toys-for-boys name, but that impression soon dissolved when I laid eyes on the slick heatpipe system and menacing black visage of the demo unit sent to us for review and testing. And I don’t mind saying, this is the first in a long while that we tested the overclocking capabilities of a motherboard to any great length – the features, technologies, the sheer number of marketing catch-phrases and even the “Designed for Overclocking” imprinted all around its box will make it a crime to not spend some quality time trying to burn down our test bench’s components.

We are glad to report then that we have not managed to burn anything down after a week of adjusting little knobs and dials, going into BIOS and ratcheting up frequencies to the heavens – but we did gather some very interesting data that we want to share. As long-time readers of our magazine and this blog know, we do not have the most cutting-edge components in the country. Perhaps not even in our compound (we share our compound with 2 large computer component distributors). So it is understandable that we, and especially yours truly, were all a bit apprehensive at where our somewhat old components were going to end up – not burnt up per se – we were worried the components might drag down the Rampage’s potential.

                                             Note the number of VRM components - part of the 16-phase CPU power management system.

Thankfully, this was not the case, and we made sure to check around forums and testimonials of other, expert overclockers on our rig. Listing them down, we used an Intel E6550 Conroe clocked at 2.33GHz, matched sticks of Kingston HyperX DDR3 RAM clocked at 1066MHz, an Antec NeoPower 480W PSU (we know, we know – we didn’t run a demanding videocard so it’s ok), an MSI 8600 GT 256MB, and other miscellaneous odds and ends. I made sure to add a couple of fans to blow on our open-plan test bench to ensure proper cooling. We also started out with an Intel stock cooler, but soon upgraded to a Cooler Master Gemini S boasting of a 120mm fan and massive heatpipes. Look at its review here.

                                             TweakIt controls were also present in addition to some well-executed Power and Reset buttons.

Test procedure is pretty standard – we didn’t have much time to test before we had to go to press, so our testing concentrated on making sure of stability and stress testing the components to quickly reveal errors and/or lock-ups. We did this by running two instances of Prime95, and using the torture test option with floating-point calculation and RAM testing. Prime95 was set to run on each of the two cores exclusively, adjusted through Windows Task Manager’s Processes tab. At the same time, we ran CoreTemp, a CPU temperature probe, CPU-Z to dynamically monitor frequencies and voltages of the CPU and memory, plus Rightmark to act as backup to the other numbers being thrown out by the other programs. Task Manager was also left running in the background with the “Performance” tab to make sure the two cores on our CPU was at full utilization.

                                             The Fusion Block is a screw-on component that can be exchanged for a purely air-cooled optional heatsink.

                                             An LED lurks beneath the RoG brand.

We made sure to utilize most of the overclocking options available – starting with the one step overclock offered by CPU Level Up – wherein the BIOS lists a number of higher clocked (and more expensive) CPUs that you can choose to overclock to. We started timidly, going to the first step up in the list – netting us a 2400 CPU rating calculated from 344 FSB x 7.0 multiplier. Stress testing and PCMark + 3DMark testing revealed no inconsistencies, so we went on to the next step. Long story short, CPU Level Up topped out at a Q6800, giving us a 2.93 CPU rating using a 502.8 FSB and a 7 multiplier. At this point, with any other “normal” (or non-overclocking) motherboard I would have gladly called it a day – 2.33 to 2.93 is already a substantial increase, and I was more than happy that our decidedly mid-range CPU got this far.

                                             The rear panel seems strangely empty without the included X-Fi soundcard.

But this is a blatantly “overclocking” motherboard that we’re talking about, and we have barely scratched the surface of the mountain of options the Rampage has in stock under its Extreme Tweaker interface. The next step involved manually adjusting FSB frequency by using the “overclock from CPU Level Up” function, which takes your successful Level Up to the next err… level. Again to make the long testing process-story short, we were able to adjust, burn-in for at least half an hour, and run benchmarks on a total of 7 more frequencies before we encountered a hiccup. Specifically, we passed through 2.96, 3.05, 3.10, 3.35, 3.50 and 3.57 before finally hitting 3.64GHz (from 2.33GHz!!!) – which booted up but promptly hanged while we were setting up Prime95 to run. This was at an FSB of 520 and a 7 multiplier with standard voltage. Other adjustments to the voltage (1.38 from 1.35) resulted in a reset to default clocks (2.33GHz) and adjustment of multiplier to 6 with an accompanying 606MHz to hit 3.64 resulted in the Rampage refusing to boot at all.

                                             8 SATA connectors, with 2 boasting of "Speeding HDD" function.

                                             In a touch of class (or perhaps whimsy) Asus includes the option to add your name to a plaque.

Further testing with the multiplier set to 6 with a 600 FSB (to hit a nominal 3.60 GHz CPU clock) met with no success, so we started playing with CPU core voltage, trusting to the Rampage’s multitude of safety features to allay our growing nervousness. At 520MHz x 7 (3.64GHz CPU) we ramped up CPU voltage to 1.400 – only producing hard locks (frozen screen with inoperative reset). More tests finally produced a winning combination – we throttled back FSB to a more sedate (but still amazing) 514MHz, coupling it with the standard 7 multiplier. We adjusted Vcore to a more relaxed 1.375, finally achieving a stable 3.60GHz overclock with no lockups, hangs, restarts, or errors encountered in PCMark, 3DMark, Crysis, and general productivity activities performed on the test bench.

                                             A top-down views shows a crowded but well thought-out layout.

Now let’s lean back and examine what was done during testing. We started with a sub P7k mid-range processor in the E6550, which runs at a stock clock of 2.33GHz. Multiplier is of course locked, seeing as this is hardly an “Extreme” chip, and the chip was bought early in the production run (1 month after release) of the E6550. With this we achieved an overclocmore than 1GHz higher than stock – 1.3GHz to be exact. An E8400, the highest clocked dual-core CPU easily available locally, has a price of P10,500 and runs slower at “only” 3GHz. With some simple adjustments (never mind the long process leading to it – since this is part and parcel of an enthusiast’s tweaking) we were able to “gain” thousands of pesos in performance. Granted, the E8400 has much more cache and is probably faster in most real-world applications, but a 1.3GHz gain is undoubtedly impressive.

                                             ML-Caps introduce stability when overclocking and is part of the Extreme Engine feature of the motherboard. Stack-Cool is a passive cooling feature present in most Asus motherboards.

Certain upgrades as mentioned before were required for us to reach the stated speed, but these were hardly onerous additions – the main component changed was the CPU fan – Intel’s stock fan was giving temperatures of nearly 85 degrees Celsius at 3.05GHz – simply unacceptable. Swapping it out for the Cooler Master gave us consistent 55 degree temperatures – never exceeding 65 degrees. Additional fans were also mounted, and we made sure keep our office air conditioning running. Remember too that we have not delved too much into the other options available either in BIOS or through the on-board TweakIt feature – instant overclock with a few toggle switches! - This has both been a learning experience for yours truly, and a further emphasis on the Rampage’s mission – to be an absolutely kick-ass motherboard that makes no apologies for its overflowing feature list, while making it as easy as possible for an amateur like me to achieve overwhelming overclocks with minimal study (I’m pretty rusty after all – my last serious overclocking venture was with an Athlon X2 4800 – and I didn’t get more than 300MHz of extra speed).

                                             Extras are over-the-top as well. Note the X-Fi discrete souncard.

The listed features and marketing catchphrases has not been covered here – they’re easily available online and in our upcoming September issue of HWM. I’m sure our readers will be more adept than me when it comes to utilizing the other options available, and will achieve overclocks as good as or higher than what was achieved with our humble specs. As a simple exposition of just how high we reached with our overclock, we also highlight just how high Asus can go as an enthusiast’s brand – especially on a motherboard that they may not actually make any money out of (the number of features and the likely marketing target price precludes this), but still made to cater to the absolute extreme cream-of-the-crop enthusiasts who want nothing but the best for their rigs and their overclocking adventures.  More pictures of the overclocking process follows.

                                             Baseline numbers at stock clocks.

                                              Initial attempts were very cautious. 2.4Ghz with 344 x 7 in this screen shot.

                                              At this point, the stock Intel fan was still being used. Note the high 80+ temperature.

                                              With a CM cooler, we only hit 58 degrees at 3.10 GHz utilizing 442MHx x 7.

                                              Hitting 3.42GHz, we brought in another monitoring utility to confirm the suspiciously low temperatures - it all checked out.

                                              3.57GHz! At this point I was wondering just how high I can go. The colorful graph belongs to the Rightmark program.

                                              This is our best effort - with better cooling and more adjustments, we are sure you guys can do better.

Click here for the raw numbers recorded during overclocking.