X48 Motherboards from ASUS

Rampage Formula

Rampage Formula will be an X48-based motherboard targeted to gamers. One of the main differences between Rampage Formula and P5E3 Premium is the use of DDR2 memories, which are cheaper and we can find far more models targeted to overclocking on the market.

Figure 6: ASUS Rampage Formula.

Rampage formula will have “only” two PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots truly working at x16 and supporting CrossFire, two PCI Express x1 slots and two standard PCI slots.

It will have four DDR2-DIMM sockets, supporting up to DDR2-1600 memories (in overclocking, as DDR2 standard officially only goes up to 1066 MHz).

This board will use Intel ICH9R south bridge chip and will have six SATA-300 ports supporting RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10. A JMicron chip will provide one ATA-133 port, but no extra SATA or eSATA ports.

Rampage Formula will have 12 USB 2.0 ports controlled by the south bridge chip and two FireWire (IEEE1394) ports controlled by a VIA VT6308P chip, one located at the rear panel and another available through a header on the board.

It will feature two Gigabit Ethernet ports each one controlled by a Marvell 88E8056 chip, each one connected to the system through a PCI Express x1 bus.

In Figure 7, you can see the rear panel from this motherboard: PS/2 keyboard, six USB 2.0 ports, coaxial and optical SPDIF outputs, clear CMOS switch, FireWire ports and two Gigabit Ethernet ports.

Figure 7: Rear panel.

If you pay close attention you will see that this motherboard doesn’t have a PS/2 mouse connector, so you will need to use a USB mouse with this board. It also doesn’t have serial or parallel ports on the rear panel, not even through a header located on the motherboard.

Also as you can see this motherboard does not provide analog outputs for audio, only digital (SPDIF) outputs, provided by the south bridge chip. Analog audio is available through an add-on sound card (installed on a PCI Express x1 slot) called SupremeFX II that will come with the motherboard. This sound card is based on Analog Devices ADI1988B codec, producing 7.1 audio with a 92 dB signal-to-noise ratio for its inputs and 101 dB SNR for its outputs and a maximum sampling rate of 192 kHz for both inputs and outputs. This is perfect for the average user but users willing to professionally working capturing and editing analog audio (converting LP’s and tapes to CD or MP3, converting VHS to DVD, etc) will need to find a motherboard with a better input signal-to-noise ratio (at least 95 dB) or to install a better add-on sound card.

What make this product really attractive to gamers are the small details. Besides the external clear CMOS switch – which is pretty handy for hardcore overclockers – you can find on-board power and reset switches (see Figure 8) and several other features found on other “Formula” motherboards from ASUS like:

• ASUS EPU (Energy Processing Unit): according to ASUS this feature provides up to 58% power savings when the computer is idle and up to 7% when the computer is working on its maximum performance.
• Voltiminder LED: LEDs that indicate the voltage status of your CPU, chipset and memories using a color-code scheme.
• External LCD POST diagnostics display: The traditional POST display allows you to know through a two-digit code what is wrong with your computer if it doesn’t turn on. The problem is that you need to check on the motherboard manual what each code means. This external LCD display shows you a message instead of a two-digit code, making it easier for you to know what is wrong if your computer is dead.
• Several overclocking options on setup, of course.

Figure 8: On-board power and reset switches.

This motherboard will use only solid aluminum capacitors, which is great to prevent the infamous capacitor leakage problem, and ferrite coils on the voltage regulator circuit, which provide a lower power loss compared to traditional iron coils.

Figure 9: Ferrite coils and solid aluminum capacitors on the voltage regulator circuit.