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Asus Rampage II Extreme Motherboard: Cue up the Battle Hymn of the Republica

Gordon Mah Ung — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:12:18 -0500

We know what you’re thinking, what more could a motherboard vendor put on the PCB that would convince anyone to part with $400? Asus thinks its latest Rampage II Extreme board in the Republic of Gamer’s series will do it.

This X58-based Core i7 board features support both Tri-SLI and CrossFire X, six DDR3 DIMM slots, EAX 4.0 software support, an audio card riser, heat pipes, LCD poster displays and a joystick and probe ports to connect your multi-tester.

What the hell do you need a joystick on a mobo for? Using the provided small single-line LCD display, you can toggle voltages, overclocking profiles or clock speeds. Want even more insane features? The board features probe ports to connect a multi-meter to the motherboard to read direct voltages for the RAM, southbridge, PCI-E, CPU, QPI and CPU PLL’s.

One feature the board doesn’t have that we expected was support for Nvidia’s nForce 200 chip. Instead of the Nvidia hardware, Asus has SLI certification for up to three-way SLI in a x16/x8/x8 configuration. There’s no word as to whether Asus plans to offer a board with an nForce 200 part in it yet.

Hit the jump for another pic!

Gigabyte GA-EP45-DQ6

Gordon Mah Ung — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:00:00 -0500

If you don’t just like Gigabit ports—you love them— Gigabyte’s GA-EP45-DQ6 is the motherboard for you. This mobo has four Gigabit ports that can be teamed together for one seriously fat-ass network connection.

Elsewhere, the board is typical Gigabyte; it includes surface-mounted buttons and the most clearly marked USB and FireWire ports we’ve ever seen. So if you nuke your USB drive because you plugged the USB connector into a FireWire header, it’s your own fault, brother.

Hit the jump for the rest of the review

MSI P45 Platinum

Gordon Mah Ung — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:58:07 -0500

We admit it, sexy chipsets such as Nvidia’s nForce 790i SLI Ultra and Intel’s X48 get all the ink, but in reality, most of the world runs on plain-vanilla chipsets such as Intel’s new P45. And the truth is, you don’t necessarily give up performance or features when you choose a middle-of-the-road board; in fact, the affordable MSI Platinum has just about everything you’d want in a motherboard.

Hit the jump to read the full story.

The Dream Machine Revealed--Part Three of Three!

David Murphy — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:10:00 -0500

And thus, the grand story of the Dream Machine 2008 comes to its final edition. And do we have a reveal for you! We're going to show you the ultra-secret case that encloses the mighty guts of our speedy Skulltrail machine. We're also giving you a first-look at the not-quite-as-secret videocards powering the graphics of this hefty rig. Before it catches ablaze, we'll also show you the cooling setup and what we used to rock out whilst checking the cooler for leaks.

That's right. Today, you're getting the case, the graphics, the cooling and the sound--an epic conclusion to the most powerful rig we've ever built. If you're just joining us, you'll want to check out the beginning of the story as well as the second edition of the Dream Machine saga, where we officially showed off this machine's spankin'-fast processors.

But enough small-talk. Click that little "read more" link and prepare thyself for greatness.

MSI P35 Combo Platinum

Gordon Mah Ung — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:07:56 -0500

You can change CPU sockets, dump PCI, and jettison legacy ports all day long, but nothing, absolutely nothing, pisses people off like moving to a new type of RAM. Luckily, there’s a fallback: dual-format RAM motherboards such as MSI’s P35 Combo Platinum board.

Hit the jump to read our review of this dual-format monster.

The Dream Machine Revealed--Part Two of Three!

David Murphy — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 11:45:48 -0500

Here we go again! It's time for our second look at what's going into the Maximum PC Dream Machine 2008! If you're just joining us, here's the skinny: once a year, the Maximum PC staff descends to its underground lair. After a number of bizarre and dark technological rituals (we sacrifice an iMac), the team emerges with a gift blessed by the Gods of Technology themselves: the Dream Machine. It is, hands-down, the single-greatest computer you could ever hope to assemble based on the year's best (and sometimes unreleased) products!

This is an epic three-part series, and you're on step number two. If you want to start from the beginning, check out our unveiling of the rig's keyboard, mouse, display and hard drive(s). If you're ready for more Dream Machine action, we're taking a look at the system's CPU(s), motherboard, optical drive, and memory this time around.

Grab a cold beverage and prepare to feast your eyes on splendor by clicking that little "Read More" link.

MSI K9A2 Platinum

Gordon Mah Ung — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 18:08:47 -0500

If you want AMD performance without the cost, MSI’s K9A2 Platinum might be the ticket. It’s a bare-bones yet performance-oriented board for Phenom procs that boasts no fewer than four x16 physical PCI-E 2.0 slots, as well as support for eSATA and SAS drives and loads more features than you'd expect from a board of this price.

Hit the jump for the full review!

Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe Wi-Fi

Gordon Mah Ung — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:33:24 -0500

Out of sight and out of mind usually means no one even knows–or cares–that you're alive. That’s the problem AMD’s chipset division has faced lately.

With Nvidia still ruling the roost in Phenom and Athlon 64 chipsets, AMD’s chipset division doesn’t get much press for its new chipsets. Here’s a news flash though, some pretty compelling motherboards are using the new 790FX chipset.

Asus's M3A32-MVP Deluxe is one of them. One of the first boards to support AMD’s Phenom, the M3A32-MVP is pretty much the reference board as far as Phenoms go.

Hit the jump for a full review!