User Review Asus Rampage V Extreme Unboxing - All Hail The New King !!

In this Unboxing i will be showing you the ASUS Rampage V Extreme motherboard, This thing is crammed full of technology and Innovaton ! Truly is a beast to behold ..equipped with the X99 chipset and with that stunning OC panel this motherboard is the most highend X99 motherboard available.


It's Massive, Heavy, Insanely pretty , ROG Tuned to the MAX, and has the most insane extreme Overclocking technology built into it. This awesome motherboard comes with a huge amount of features like SLI/Crossfire support, AC WIFI, Tons of SATA3 and Sata Express connectors, Extreme LN2 overclocking features, a brilliant audio solution, M.2 PCIe compatibility and ofcourse.. the Best Overclocking support on the planet. Period !!


With the Rampage V Extreme ASUS once again has raised the bar ultra high, with a huge amount of features and overclocking potential. The board comes with the nice external OC panel, and the most detaild LN2 options as well. Even for the enthusiast and not a Extreme Ovreclcoker, there is plenty of other stuff that makes this board the one to get !!


So lets get on shall we ? :D


Here we have the standard ROG Packageing that does a good job of letting us know what to expect inside and also the product highlights



More product features and details..



We get a sneak peak at the monster J



Here are some of the highlights of this x99 monstrosity..



There is a HUGE Accessory package provided with this board.. there are soo many that they wouldn’t fit in a single image.. that’s a first !!. Also things to note are the fact that Asus has gone back to a Shiny I/O cover vs the older black ones. I prefer the older ones but this has a very slick Chrome finish to it .. Pretty awesome.



I really like the Sata stickers .. will make wiring up this puppy a whole lot easier . Also worthy of noting here is the Wifi AC triple Channel Antenna that’s good for 1300Mbps !



Here is the Antenna I just mentioned.



Asus also provides us with a 5.25inch drive bay adapter for the OC panel. This is a lovely touch and makes the installation of the OC panel a breeze.



Here is the OC Panel and the connecting wire. Only wish Asus made this wire a whole lot longer so that we could route this from the back of our chassis for a much cleaner install. This is one place where I think they should make an improvement.



Some more shots of the OC panel from Various angles …











Finally we get to the board :) .. Notice how well the OC Panel is packed.. Absolutely no chance of it getting damaged or it damaging any components on the motherboard. Lovely !






And Finally.. The Beast in all its Glory … Ready to be unleashed on this world !!



Unleashed… What a thing of Beauty this is :)



Asus has not skimped an inch on this board.. Look at that back.. heatsinks everywhere and everything is screwed down tight.. I love seeing metal screws and not plastic push pins that we see on cheaper/lesser brands. This is one heck of a job… This is probably the stiffest PCB I have ever held. Absolutely reeks of quality !



Some Side profile action… its just pretty from every angle :D



Pretty Pretty Pretty… :D



Finally we get down to business… Here we can see the plethora of SATA 3 ports which are all native !!! We also see the 2x SATA Express ports directly below the regular SATA ports. These are powered by the ASMedia chip that you can see directly behind them , it is partially covered by the South bridge heatsink but is clearly visible.

Also to note is the black 4 pin Thunderbolt header right below the south bridge heatsink. Also note the Keybot button and also the red bios switch button . This conveniently lets us boot from bios 1 or bios 2. Very handy for LN2 sessions and also for Recovery !

One can also see the 3x mounting holes for M.2 Sata SSD’s of various lengths right behind the SATA ports.



As we move higher , next to the 24 Pin ATX power socket we find a USB header to its left. To the Right of the ATX power connector we find some of the best innovation from Asus for the Overclocker.. The Slow mode Switch , The Retry button , The Safe Boot button , The Ln2 mode jumper and last but not least the Mem Ok button.

Also above those switches we have the regular ROG start and Reset buttons. Above them is the Q-code LED which provides is handy codes for trouble shooting if there is a problem . Right next to the LED is the PCI-E lanes switch. Using this we can selectively turn of each of the four red PCI-E slots on the motherboard. No need to plug out and plug in gpu’s to test which one is faulty. This is where Asus has been busy innovating !! :D



Here we can see how well Asus has managed to isolate the Sound section PCB from the Main PCB.. Alsong with the red LED’s that backlight this part , this makes for one slock looking rig once this is installed in your case .



Asus has filled the back panel with I/O ports. First up we have the USB bios Flasback button and the Bios Reset button. Next we find 2x USB 2.0 Ports and and PS2 port for your keyboard/mouse. Then we have 10x USB 3.0 Ports and then the Asmedia ASM 1042AE controllers add more USB 3.0 ports. We also get an Intel Ethernet port. This is followed by a triple channel Wifi AC adapter that’s good for 1300Mbps . The motherboard has embedded Wireless LAN 802.11 ac/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and even Intel WiDi (Wireless Display). Finally we have our Supreme Fx powerd audio outputs.



Check out them PCI-E slots.. I can just imagine what kind of multi GPU/workstation setups one can build on this awesome motherboard.. truly sick stuff :)



Looks whats hiding under the Southbridge heatsink .... The lovely ROG controller Chip and also one can spot the As Media controller for the SATA Express Ports too.



Towards the lower part of the board one can see the USB 3.0 header that’s powered by an As Media controller as well as the 2x Bios chips next to the Sound Stage button. We can also see the molex power connector and the front Panel audio connectors.



A close up of the sweet little ROG chip :)



Here is the Novuton I/O controller sitting right next to the Li-ion battery.



The Rampage V Extreme comes with the latest SupremeFX to minimize electromagnetic interference (EMI), premium ELNA audio capacitors and 8-channel gold-plated audio output ports offer precision-engineered audio that is designed to be on par with dedicated soundcards. This motherboard features new audio technologies such as Sonic Sense Amp, which detects headphone impedance and automatically adjusts the built-in amp and the Sonic SoundStage button, which provides an easy way to apply the best audio settings for popular games.



Here is the As Media controller responsible for some of the USB3 ports .



Right next to the 24 pin ATC power connector we find the M.2 Pci-Express 3.0 x4 SSD Slot for some seriously fast I/O. This slot is rated for 2GB/Second.. You read that right.. 2GB !! This is the back of the socket.



And this is the front where we will have to plug the drive in.



And here we can see the mounting holes to secure the M.2 Pci-e SSD to the motherboard. There are holes at various lengths to support all the different form factors that M.2 Pci-e SSD’s come in.



This is the Buisness end right here.. The Patented OC Socket from Asus.. A true marvel of Reverse engineering. Eat your heart out Intel :p



The Cpu socket from another angle.. Intel has revised the mounting mechanism verses the older x79 socket.



Asus sticks the socket cover to the motherboard with some custom tape. This I think is a lovely lovely idea. I have seen several motherboards that had their CPU sockets badly damaged by the cover that came loose and played havoc with the socket pins. Good job !!



The socket from another angle. This thing is massive. !!!



And here we have the Jewel in Asus’s crown.. The OC Socket.. This is stunning innovation right here people. Can you imagine what is takes to reverse engineer an Intel Cpu.. This is a mind boggling achievement that cannot he stressed enough. This is a propietery socket from Asus that features 60 additional pins for a total of 2071 pins !! These additional pins provide for much better overclocking of both CPU and RAM and also lets one use much lesser voltages to overclock. No other brand has done this yet.

A new OC Socket was created specifically for overclockers by ASUS and ROG. Here you are looking at the only socket that utilizes extra pins to connect a proprietary circuit to contacts found on the Haswell-E Chips



Take a look at this beefy VRM section. The whole thing reeks of quality. The Heatsink weighs a TON and the VRM’s and chokes are the best Asus or anyone has ever used on a motherboard. Asus uses Micro Fine Alloy chokes combined with a Power IR Vrm stage. Top quality components here.





One can clearly see the Digi+ 5th Generation controller in this picture right next to the ram slot.



And this Is what the whole fuss is for.. this sexy little logo that means soo much :D



Cheers for looking guys and thanks a ton :)
Kind reagrds :)
 
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