Asus Rampage III Extreme Motherboard Review

Asus ROG Rampage III Extreme
Intel Core i7 980x (3.33Ghz) Hex Core 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache
Custom Watercooler Danger Den Waterblock
1x nVidia GTX 580
3x Corsair Dominator GT PC2000 6GB DDR3 (7-8-7-21)
Western Digital VelociRaptor 150gb SerialATA 10000RPM
LG 20x Super Multi GSA-H55L
Corsair HX 850 Watt PSU
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Intel X58 Chipset
Core i7 920 (2.66Ghz) 4 x 256KB L2, 8MB L3 Cache 4.8GT/s QPI
Custom Watercooler - DangerDen TDX-MC 1/2" hose
3x G.SKILL PI Black 6GB DDR3 (8-8-8-21)
VisionTek 3870 PCI Express
Western Digital Raptor X 150BG SerialATA 10000RPM
LG 20x Super Multi GSA-H55L
Hiper HPU-4S730 730w power supply
Window 7

Sapphire Pure Black P67 P67 Chipset
Intel Core i7 2600K (3.5Ghz) Quad Core 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache
Custom Watercooler Danger Den Waterblock
1x nVidia GTX 580
2x Corsair Dominator GT PC2000 6GB DDR3 (7-8-7-21)
Western Digital VelociRaptor 150gb SerialATA 10000RPM
LG 20x Super Multi GSA-H55L
Corsair HX 850 Watt PSU
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

Our old motherboard testing suite was compiled to expose differences in chipset design.  In the beginning this worked very well for us however there was very little effort spent to test the other aspects of the motherboard.  Now with the advent of an IMC and PCI Express being moved to the processor we found ourselves needing to improve our testing procedure and find new ways to determine actual performance and quality of the boards we review.  Because of this we will be rolling in some new tests and saying good bye to some old friends.  

Other than the new standard tests it will be business as usual with out of box testing first followed by overclocking results.  The match ups here are not typical and should provide for some interesting results.