Asus Striker Extreme Review - PAGE 9

Wow, I want I want.

i love the look of it and all the features it has. my current hardware choices are being based around that mobo

ps; i am aware that it looks like the originator is me because ive been sniffing around for this mobo...i assure you that im not.

I am not trying to discourage anyone, but before making an investment in this mobo you might want to check out the Asus forums:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx?board_id=1&model=Striker+Extreme&SLanguage=en-us

The Striker is a hot piece of hardware, and I will agree, Asus does need to refine the BIOS for it.

But honestly, I never encountered any signigiant problems during my testing. Sure, the slow SATA speed results from HDTach bothered me, but that may have been a communications error between HDTach and the SATA controller (no being able to properly register the correct SATA speed when everything was running fine).

Furthermore, I decided not to run the RightMark Audio tests as I received all zeros for the CPU utilization during that test. Yeah, no CPU load when running audio would be nice, but would also be impossible.

As I had concluded in my article, the Asus Striker is a sweet piece of hardware that needs a few good BIOS revisions before it'll start to shine (already great though).

Hmmm, I wonder if some extreme water cooling could get this board past 4GHz? I wouldn't doubt it

I have a question. You showed how the Noctua heatsink doesnt perfectly fit. Did you guys try with the ThermalRight 120 that you dubbed best heatsink?

jmicahg,

I'm curious, the particular board you reviewed; did Asus send it to you, or is it an off-the-shelf retail part?

Well, firstly, the Thermalright 120 CPU cooler does not have the interfearance issue that the Noctua had. With the Thermalright, is is about 7-8mm of clearance between the bottom fins of the cooler and the top fins of the heatsink that the Noctua was bumping into. A Striker owner could always use a Thermalright 120 instead of a Noctua NH-U 12, but personally, I like the Noctuas better.

And yes, Asus did send us this board. They didn't cherry pick it however. No one at Asus tested a batch full of Strikers and sent us the best of the lot. What we got would pretty much be what the average consumer could expect if they went out an bought a Striker of their own.

But as for that issue of some Strikers hitting a 500MHz plus FSB, those review sites actually sent their Striker back to Asus to get a better one that would hit 500MHz plus.

That seems unfair. In relation, we've had memory modules pass through Neoseeeker with the manufacturers claim that said modules will hit some very high timings. When they don't meet these specs, we send them back and get a pair that do meet spec. But we always report on out initial findings, regardless of how good or how bad the performance was.

The average consumer can't send their board back to Asus and request one that'll hit some higher performance standard. All of our testing and results are what the average consumer can expect if they we to purchase the same part (though performance may vary slightly).

Furthermore, some sites will claim an outrageous overclock acheivement regardless of stability. For us, it isn't enought that the board simply POSTs, but it has to run our tests and cannot crash. If it does crash, we count that as unstable and would not claim it as our final figure. Stability is of the utmost importance.

jmicahg,

I wasn't implying that you had received a hand-picked board, I was just asking.

I am always skeptical, however, when manufacturers supply reviewers with product.

If you have taken time to visit the Striker Extreme forum, I think you will find that you were fortunate to receive a relatively good mobo.

I hope Asus decides to step up and resolve the many issues with this board.

Just being accurate and honest. It is somewhat of a bad omen (for the end consumer at least) when a vendor supplies review sites with that cherry picked hardware.

It's like 'Consumer Reports'. They will go out and buy the products they review and rate. They won't accept a product direct from the factory. A car maker could have a team of mechanics rebuild and blueprint the car from scratch, invalidating the quality of their production products.

But I do agree in that Asus has to clean up the Striker. Most of its ills right now lay within the BIOS. I'll probably check back with subsequent BIOS revisions and see what happens, and keep the article updated as such.

Looking forward to it!

I'm serious looking for help OC'ing the Striker Extreme. I have the following hardware and I'm boping the author of this article can help. My hardware is as follows:
CPU: Core 2 Duo E6850 batch #L723A943
RAM: 2GB Corsair Dominator 10000
Motherboard: Asus Striker Extreme (bios 1303)
Video card: Evga 8800 GTX Super overclocked version
Hard drives: 3 (750GB Western Digital 7500AAKS)
Power Supply: 750W PC Power & Cooling Quad

And a VapoChill LS that is keeping the CPU into the negative tempas. And all I can get is a measly 3.7Ghz

Any professional help would be appreciated
Adam

so, does the Noctua NH-U 12 can be used with this motherboard?