Asus Rampage II GENE

  Photos and presentation of the card

Like all maps in the range ROG, the box Rampage II gene consists of two compartments, one with the card itself and a second with the whole bundle. Viewpoint in color map is very similar to its big sister the Rampage II Extreme but its design is much more sober. Like the Foxconn Bloodrage, the Rampage II gene has more holes in socket 1366 of the mounting holes for socket 775. The card has 6 ports supporting Dimm DDR3 triple channel up to 1600MHz (oc) which are powered by 2 phases.

This motherboard supports the latest Intel® Bloomfield processors in LGA1366 package which has memory controller integrated to support 3-channel DDR3 memory. Support Intel® QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) with system bus up to 6.4GT/s and a max bandwidth of up to 25.6GB/s. Intel® Core™i7 processor is one of the most powerful and energy efficient CPU in the world.

The Intel® X58 Express Chipset is the latest chipset designed to support latest Intel® Core™ i7 Processors and Intel´s next generation system interconnect interface, Intel® QuickPath Interconnect (QPI), providing improved performance by utilizing serial point-to-point links, allowing increased bandwidth and stability. It also supports up to 36 PCI Express 2.0 lanes providing better graphics performance.

SLI or CrossFireX? Fret no longer because with the ROG Rampage II Extreme, you’ll be able to run both multi-GPU setups. The board features SLI/CrossFireX on Demand technology, supporting SLI or CrossFireX configuration. Whichever path you take, you can be assured of jaw-dropping graphics at a level previously unseen.

The motherboard supports DDR3 memory that features data transfer rates of 2000(O.C.)/1800(O.C.)/1600(O.C.)/1333/1066 MHz to meet the higher bandwidth requirements of the latest operation system, 3D graphics, multimedia, and Internet applications. The triple-channel DDR3 architecture triple the bandwidth of your system memory to boost system performance, eliminating bottlenecks with peak bandwidths of up to 43.2 GB/s.

Compared with the Rampage II Extreme, Asus has been forced to cut the gene from one bios but retained Buttons Power ON / OFF and Reset. However, we can note the appearance of a small button labeled "memOK. As its name suggests, this is a button to load default memory settings for better compatibility of the latter, without having to restart completely reset the bios.

The Rampage II GENE supports 6 SATA devices without prior installation, managed by the ICH10-R Intel but 1 SATA device managed by a JMicron 363. The controller also manages the e-SATA port and up to 2 PATA devices. The ICH10-R is cooled by a small black radiator while the X58 chipset and mosfets are cooled by two radiators connected by a system based on heatpipe technology. Note that the upper radiator placed on the X58 can be detached to be replaced with a waterblock.

Despite the fact that the card is declined in micro ATX format, the back panel of the Rampage II gene is as complete as most X58 motherboards in ATX format. There is a PS2 keyboard port, six USB 2.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet RJ45 port, one