Layout and I/O

The first thing that catches someones eye is the red Fusion heatpipe coolingsolution (1) which can be cooled passively or actively. If want to cool southbridge, northbridge and the voltage transformers actively you can choose between an additional fan or even watercooling.[/en]

The board layout is clearly structured. If you want to place an impressive CPU cooler on your precious processor there are no annoying components in your way that could complicate the fitting. Around the memory the situtuiation unfortunately isn't as optimal. When your using a big graphics card such as ATIs 4870 X2 you have to fiddle with the memory bank until you get the modules planted into it.

To position your cables properly you get SATA connector which are angulated by 90° (3). Very useful are the onboard "on/off" and "reset" buttons (4) as well as the CMOS reset button (5) which is located between the connectors. Also you get BIOS ROMs which allow to save two different configurations. Therefore one of them can be used as a overclocking-BIOS and another for gaming or just default. Down to someones whim the board can be booted with the first or the second BIOS on.


Concerning to external connectors the ASUS Rampage Extreme delivers two gigabit enternet ports, six USB 2.0 connectors, one PS/2 keyboard connector, firewire and one e-SATA.