ASUS Rampage Formula Review

Makaveli - June 9, 2008
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Testing:

To test the ASUS Rampage Formula X48 motherboard, I'll be comparing it to some of the hottest motherboards available right now. This list includes the Gigabyte X48-DQ6 (Intel X48 chipset), ASUS Striker II Formula (Nvidia 780i chipset), and the Gigabyte EX38-DS4 (Intel X38 chipset). Each motherboard was tested with the same equipment at stock settings, to ensure no advantages for any of the boards. I can already tell that this is going to be a bloodbath, because each of the competing motherboards are really outstanding. May the best motherboard win!

Testing Setup:

Processor: Intel Q6600 Core 2 Quad 266x9
Motherboard: ASUS Rampage Formula
Memory: Mushkin XP2 8000 Redline 2x2GB 5-5-5-15
Video Card: Gigabyte 8800GT Turbo Force Edition
Power Supply: Ultra X3 800watt power supply
Hard Drive: Seagate 1000GB SATA
Optical Drive: Sony Dual Layer Burner
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate Edition

Comparison Motherboards:

Comparison Motherboard 1: Gigabyte X48-DQ6
Comparison Motherboard 2: ASUS Striker II Formula
Comparison Motherboard 3: Gigabyte EX38-DS4

Overclocking:

Overclocked settings:

Processor: Intel Q6600 470 x 7
System Memory: Mushkin XP2 8000 Redline 5-5-5-15

This motherboard was a breeze to overclock. To OC this board, I attempted to get the highest Front Side Bus that I could. After many different settings, the highest I could get stable was 470x7. This motherboard booted up at 500x7 easily, but Windows didn't like that overclock. I could get into Vista with 485x7, but it wasn't stable enough to run benchmarks. 470x7 is not a bad overclock at all in my book, but I was thoroughly surprised that this motherboard had no issues booting up with the FSB set at 500. The BIOS' "Extreme Tweaker" made it extremely easy to overclock the ASUS Rampage Formula, because all the options that I needed, and many more, were all conveniently located on the same tab.