Asus Rampage IV Extreme Motherboard Review

For those who "really" overclock the whole process can be pretty serious business and starts with a delicate dance between overall system stability and getting the most from your available hardware.  You push things a little too much and you'll induce a crash.  However, if things are tuned just right the results can be amazing, if only long enough to complete that benchmark and get the bragging rights you deserve.  Overclockers like this often demand a lot from their hardware and will do just about anything to get the results they want.  Sometimes that means more control over power delivery or simply real-time hardware control while the benchmark is still running.  

In this review we will be looking at a great new Asus Republic of Gamers motherboard called the Rampage IV Extreme.  This is a top of the line X79 motherboard supporting the latest LGA 2011 socket Sandy Bridge Extreme processors and designed from the ground up to be a premier overclocking platform.

We have looked at a few ROG motherboards in the past starting with the Rampage III Extreme followed by the Maximus IV Extreme, Maximus IV Gene-Z and Crosshair V Formula.  All of these motherboards share a common enthusiast thread and deliver on a promise to provide the best user experience regardless if you are a top end overclocker cooling with liquid nitrogen or a weekend gamer looking for an edge to improve your gaming experience.  The ROG motherboards can provide you with the tools and expertise to get you started.

One benefit you get from any ROG product is rich community support at the ROG Forums.  These forums are a little different from the traditional enthusiast hangouts since they are moderated by real ASUS employees who often post lengthy guides to help you get the most from your system.

While we consider ourselves expert enthusiasts there are times when we hit the webby tubes for a little help, either to confirm our findings or get answers to a difficult problem. The thing with enthusiast systems is that they are inherently confusing and while overclocking is basically the same from one board to another you cannot assume that board makers use the same settings, or even include the settings you are looking for.  It is issues like this that make overclocking guides so helpful, even if they come directly from the factory.