ASUS Republic of Gamers and X79 ROG Review – Rampage IV Gene, Formula and Extreme
by Ian Cutress on August 3, 2012 1:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Asus
- X79
- ROG
ASUS are actively trying to embrace the gaming community in a way that is substantially unprecedented for a non-gaming focused company. Any gamer or user, with or without an ROG product, can sign up to the ROG forums. The ROG forums are filled with like minded users who enjoy their technology and their gaming, free to share ideas, modifications and the like. What sets the ROG forums apart from most is the active participation by ASUS-employed gamers who are there to offer advice and help solve problems.
These community moderators and helpers are both tech freaks and gamers themselves, and have the same passion and enthusiasm as the members. If the user is willing to listen, these moderators will talk to the community and individuals about how to fix their problem or improve their experiences of certain products, helping users get the most out of their products. All of this comes at no extra charge.
ROG Forums
The forums themselves are split, as you may imagine, between different component types and then Intel/AMD/NVIDIA as required. There is a main section for technical talk – help with suggestions for rig building, or a place for modders to show off their builds. There is also a section for gaming, for ROG forum users to discuss latest releases or tactics. A relatively recent addition to the forums is the ROG Pro section, which features help on MemTweakIt and ROG Exchange (explained later)
Articles
Unlike any other motherboard originated, gaming focused community, the community moderators at the ROG forums also write articles and guides for everyone. This can be as basic as installing a sound card, or more complex describing the myriad of overclocking options on product XYZ. These are not your typical guides – painstakingly written over pages and pages and then published online for everyone to use in step-by-step fashion and every section is explained. If there is a section that is not explained as clearly as you would like, the moderators or other forum users are more than keen to help (on a personal note, as long as the request is polite rather than a demand, users are more willing to lend aid).
As ROG is also aimed at overclockers, there are also series of blog posts aimed at what several of the internal ASUS overclockers and R&D have achieved in terms of competitive overclocking. 24/7 overclocking is more focused in the guides, but for extreme (liquid nitrogen) scores pushing the hardware to the limits, there are videos and explanations of what these world champion overclockers are doing.
Now, how about a look at our ROG X79 motherboards we have in for testing?
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iamkyle - Friday, August 3, 2012 - link
Has anyone used the included utilities on these series of boards that can comment on their usefulness compared to some other well-known OCing utilities out there?Jambe - Friday, August 3, 2012 - link
"Here on the Gene, ASUS are using two SATA 3 Gbps from the chipset (black), two SATA 6 Gbps from chipset (red) and two more SATA 6 Gbps from a controller (black, ASMedia)."The ASMedia 6 Gbps ports are red, not black. It might also be worth pointing out that the outside cluster is the ASMedia set and the middle one is the Intel set.
IanCutress - Saturday, August 4, 2012 - link
Many thanks for pointing this out. In my reviews I do go down the right hand side in order, especially in that paragraph. 24000 words and the odd one sometimes goes astray!Ian
HisDivineOrder - Saturday, August 4, 2012 - link
Doesn't the OC Key have a Single DVI limitation? You say in your article, "As long as you've got DVI, you're fine," or something along those lines, but the reality is that most of the high end users now use dual DVI (or Displayport) for 2560x1600/1440. After all, what's the point of pimping out your drag racing ride with the highest of the high end and then shrug and say, "1920x1200/1080 for yous!"Soooo... the high end are not using the OC Key because the OC Key doesn't support what the high end users are doing.
http://rog.asus.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-1128...
Honestly, I think the OC Key is just one big wasted opportunity because of this. Anyone willing to fork over $450 on a motherboard, $500+ on a CPU, have 8 sticks of memory, have four GPU's...
You think they need just a single-DVI OC Key? It's really rather absurd. It might be true, but people who spend that scratch will probably need the superior bandwidth sooner rather than later.
IanCutress - Saturday, August 4, 2012 - link
OC Key is not designed for gamers. It is designed for extreme overclockers who are competing for scores, most likely also using sub-zero cooling (Dry Ice, Phase or LN2). I have used it on occasion for competitive overclocking, and also have seen it used in overclocking competitions.That is its usage scenario.
Ian
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Laststop311 - Saturday, August 4, 2012 - link
I have an m18x desktop replacement. Has a 4.1 Ghz on all 4 cores OC without using turbo, the i7-2960xm, 4x4GB 1866MHz RAM, Crossfire Radeon 6990m's with both with a healthy overclock.It chews through almost every game on my 27" dell ultrasharp external monitor at 2560x1440 at at least 45 fps soe more some less but almost ALWAYS at very min above 25-30. Once I get the money to change out the 6990m's with 7970m's in crossfire I'll be playing every game at 45+ fps at 2560x1440 and full yltra settings.
So don't sit there and tell me laptops suck for LAN partys. Because actually I can carry my m18x in a little carrier like it's a backpack and set up at the lan and be ready to go in a hurry.
And the funny part is the laptop pulls higher fps then a lot of my friends pc's and that's not even with the 6990's upgraded to 7970m's.
ALSO the r2 version of the m18x came with a new specially designed beefier heatsink set up for the XM processor that is triple the surface area but fits right in place. So I'll also be getting that much larger cpu heatsink to crank my OC from 4.1Ghz to 4.3-4.4 or so, basically a crazy killer speed demon laptop cpu
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Claro Halo has a very very nice clean headphone amp (Headphone output with TPA6120 AMP IC) that can drive up to 600 ohms like a champ.It has incredibly high quality stereo RCA outputs for a low line level signal to a high quality stereo receiver (hardly any cards have gold plated RCA outputs which is crucial for a high quality connection to a high end receiver.) As well as a 5.1 optical output. If you require 7.1 output you can get the add on XT card that plugs in a connector on the sound card for additional gold plated 7.1 analog outputs.
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macforth - Saturday, August 4, 2012 - link
A very interesting read.......Thanks for that Ian.I have just bought an ROG, but it's the Maximus V Extreme..I am about to build a WC setup and run 690's in SLI.
The reason I chose the 1155 as against the 2011, is the cost of the top MB and top CPU (given the gaming world's belief that there's little gain), PCIe 3, and I don't need the abilities that the 2011 shines in. I more play games. And to be quite honest, to me ROG spells GAMER!
It's a while since I have seen any comparison of an ROG 2011 v 1155 just for games......and certainly not since the last proliferation of 1155's game to town.
Ahhhh it would be very very interesting!