Asus Rampage Formula

Verdict:

[+] Rampage

Very fast; excellent overclocker; great layout

[-] Old Age

Exorbitant price; little improvement on the Maximus Formula; DDR2 memory

There's nothing quite like hearing the 'Rampage!' voiceover after sending a bank of rockets spiralling down a corridor in Unreal Tournament. Rampage is therefore an apt name for Asus' successor to the imperious Maximus Formula, an overclocking motherboard with a reputation for blowing the competition out of the water when it comes to performance.

The new Rampage Formula, like the £138 Maximus Formula, is part of the Republic of Gamers (ROG) series of extremely overclockable motherboards, and it now weighs in at £170.14. Like the Maximus Formula, the Rampage Formula is an LGA775 board with an Intel chipset, and also uses DDR2 memory.

While the Maximus Formula is based on Intel's X38 chipset, the Rampage Formula attempts to justify its £20 premium by its use of the new and improved Intel X48 chipset. X48 has official support for the 1,600MHz FSB speeds of the latest Intel CPUs, but little else over the older X38 chipset. Due to the similarities between the Rampage Formula and the Maximus Formula, we were expecting the older Maximus Formula to be discontinued, but Asus has denied this will happen. It has also said that it doesn't have plans to make a DDR3-compatible Rampage Extreme.

LAYOUT

The Rampage Formula is identical in layout to the Maximus Formula. The copper chipset cooling setup is neat and attractive, and covers the Southbridge, Northbridge and CPU VRMs. The VRM heatsink even extends into the rear I/O back panel. There's still room for plenty of ports though, with six USB 2 (eight, if you use the included backplate), FireWire, and both coaxial and optical S/PDIF. The absence of eSATA isn't too great a loss.

The Rampage Formula's multigraphics support (CrossFire, in this case) easily allows the use of two dual-slot cards. With these cards in place, the uppermost of the two PCI slots will still be usable, as will the lower of the two 1x PCI-E slots. All of the six S-ATA ports are situated on the edge of the board, so they won't interfere with large graphics cards. An interesting omission from the Rampage Formula is connectors for liquid-cooling tubing on the Northbridge heatsink, as seen on previous ROG boards. This is odd, considering that ROG boards are built for the high overclocks that are only possible with liquid cooling.

EXTRAS

The usual ROG extras are included, with a free copy of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and the external LED POST readout. There's also the usual array of useful features, such as the illuminated power and reset buttons neatly placed on the lower edge of the PCB. However, for £200, a newer game might be better, and power and reset buttons, and LED POST readouts are hardly innovative.

PERFORMANCE

We were disappointed by theRampage Formula's results in our tests too. It kept pace with our reference system in the image editing and video encoding tests, with scores of 1,001 and 1,003 respectively, but the multitasking test came in at 871.

The Rampage Formula easily ramped up our 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 to its air-cooled maximum of 3.66GHz (with a 458MHz FSB), and the scores improved dramatically. The Gimp and Handbrake overclocked scores match those of the X38-based Maximus Formula. However, the multitasking test didn't fare well, with a score of 998 compared to the 1,290 of the Maximus Formula, while the £175 DDR3-equipped Asus Maximus Extreme marginally outpaces both the Rampage Formula and the Maximus Formula.

BIOS

The Rampage Formula's BIOS has plenty of options, including the option to 'Level Up' the CPU to a higher speed grade. We were able to transform our E6750 into an E6850 or an X6850 by simply pressing two keys, for example. The BIOS also offers massive control over the voltages of the PC - it's possible to zap 2.4V through the CPU, 1.85V through the Northbridge, 3.4V through the memory and 2V through the FSB. Only the latter is especially useful, though, as it enabled us to push the FSB to 550MHz (with our CPU multiplier dropped to 6x) - a new record.

CONCLUSION

The Rampage Formula doesn't offer enough extra performance or innovative features over the Maximus Formula to justify its £175 price tag. It's also odd that this is a DDR2 board and no DDR3 version is planned. The Intel X48 chipset (and this particular implementation of it) is all about obtaining maximum performance and the highest frequencies, which is the whole point of DDR3.

As such, the Rampage Formula is an unnecessary upgrade of the Maximus Formula. If you want to obtain the best performance, the DDR3-compatible Asus Maximus Extreme is the best option, otherwise the Asus P5K Premium WiFi-AP at £104 (from Aria) is the obvious choice.

You can buy the Asus Rampage Formula from Scan Computers for £170.14 inc VAT now (price correct at time of review)

For more information on the Rampage Formula, visit Asus' website

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