ASUS Rampage III Black Edition Review - PAGE 1

The X58 platform is slowly winding down, but manufacturers such as ASUS are making sure it exits the stage with a bang. After being on the market for over two years, X58 based motherboards have gone through multiple improvements, and as it stands the majority of X58 boards now utilize the latest SATA 6Gb/s interface, USB 3.0 ports, dual BIOS and robust heatsinks. However, some boards such as the ASUS Rampage III Black Edition take the design even further by including features such as support for QuadFire, Tri-SLI and up to 48GB of DDR3 memory. In addition, the Rampage III Black Edition also comes with a high-quality ThunderBolt LAN/Audio combo card that functions as a USB audio DAC, and it even includes a Bigfoot Killer network interface card.

With all so many features, the Rampage III Black Edition is not your run of the mill motherboard, and as with all enthusiast grade products it comes at a premium. At launch, the MSRP of the Rampage III Black Edition is $559.99, but we have seen it priced as high as $599.99 at some e-tailers. The average pricing makes it $200 more expensive than the original Rampage III, and one of one a few motherboards on the market to cost over $500.

Along with the feature set, the Rampage II also includes an Extreme Engine Digi+ design that improves the board's overall stability, and promises to boost the overclocking potential. Essentially this is done by balancing the voltage level in-real time to supply the board with adequate power for the demand. Another facet to the design is the use of high-quality components that achieve better electric conduction and thermal performance. The Rampage III Black Edition also has super alloy chokes and dual high-quality NEC TOKIN proadlizes to reduce the equivalent series inductance (ESL) and equivalent series resistance (ESR).