Asus Striker II Extreme

Verdict: Nvidia finally designs a new memory controller.

Nvidia might have been using ever higher numbers in its chipset names but, while the new nForce 200 chip added 3-Way SLI and PCI-E 2.0 support to nForce 780i SLI, not a lot has changed in Nvidia's Northbridge architecture since the nForce 4 SLI Intel chipset added DDR2 support. There have been revisions, but nothing brand-new - it's like taking the director's cut of 'Blade Runner' and calling it 'Blade Runner 2'. Nvidia's new nForce 790i SLI chipset changes all this, however, with its use of a new DDR3 memory controller that's been designed from the ground up. There are two versions of nForce 790i SLI, the standard and the Ultra, and the latter forms the basis of the Striker II Extreme.

The nForce 790i SLI Ultra introduces Nvidia's Advanced Memory Controller, which features new and improved data-fetching prediction algorithms and independent arbitration algorithms. Nvidia claims that the former speeds up the process of transferring data to and from the memory, while the latter improves memory access efficiency.

Of course, the new chipset also supports SLI. As with the nForce 780i-based Asus Striker II Formula, the Striker II Extreme is ready for 3-Way SLI, with two 16x PCI-E 2.0 slots (the blue ones) and a 16x PCI-E 1.1 slot (the white one). There are also two PCI slots, a 1x PCI-E slot and another slot for the 8-channel SupremeFX II audio daughterboard. If you use three dual-slot graphics cards in 3-Way SLI, you'll only have the Supreme FX II slot free, while using two dual-slot graphics cards leaves the white PCI-E 16x slot (which can accept any PCI-E card) and one PCI slot free.

Interestingly, this Republic of Gamers board also sees the return of Asus' Fusion Northbridge heatsink, which can be used either as a passive cooler or a waterblock. Asus states that it will only use Fusion for special edition boards, and most Republic of Gamers boards will feature the 'pin-fin' heatsinks used on the Striker II Formula.

Unfortunately, The Striker II Extreme's heatsinks encroach on the CPU socket, and we couldn't install our Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro in its natural orientation, with the fan blowing toward the rear of the case. Instead, we had to position it with the fan blowing downwards, and even this was a tight squeeze.

Otherwise, the board is well designed and has two optional fans for the VRM heatsinks, which is handy if you're using water cooling. The box also has the usual external LCD POST readout, which is more helpful than the two-digit readout of other premium motherboards' PCBs.

Where the Striker II Extreme shines is in the BIOS, where you'll find loads of overclocking options. You have complete control over the memory timings and, as with all recent nForce motherboards, you can unlink the memory clock and the FSB. The best feature, though, has to be the voltage section, which allows you to adjust the voltage of the CPU, memory, Northbridge, Southbridge, CPU PLL and CPU VTT. The colour coding of the voltage applied (green for safe, yellow for borderline and red for dangerous) is reflected by the colour of appropriately placed LEDs on the motherboard.

However, overvolting is only useful on a motherboard that clocks to high heaven, and previous nForce chipsets have fallen short of Intel's chipsets when it comes to overclocking. We were able to overclock our Core 2 Duo E6750 to 3.66GHz by overvolting just the CPU, and could push the FSB to 518MHz (2,070MHz effective) after dropping the chip's multiplier to 6. This is better than the XFX nForce 780i SLI board, which managed 510MHz, but the £105 Intel P35-based Asus P5K Premium WiFi-AP hit a 540MHz maximum FSB.

The Striker II Extreme was almost as fast as our reference Asus P5K Deluxe WiFi-AP at stock speeds - a feat that not many motherboards we've reviewed can manage. Testing with the 3.66GHz overclock saw the scores shoot up in two out of the three tests; if the Striker II Extreme had reacted better to the overclock in our multitasking test, it would be one of the fastest boards we've tested.

Conclusion

We're happy to see the return of the Fusion heatsink on the Striker II Extreme, and the ROG series going back to it roots by offering uniqueness, aiming to offer high performance and massive overclocking ability. It's also refreshing to see Nvidia make a new memory controller that makes for a potentially very fast motherboard. Although the heatsinks around the CPU socket of the Striker II Extreme are a few millimetres too tall for a chunky HSF, this isn't the black mark as this board is designed for water cooling. At £280, the Striker II Extreme is pricey and can't rival the Asus P5K Premium WiFi-AP for value, as the Asus board costs £105 on www.ginger6.com. The P5K also overclocks further than the Striker II Extreme, which means only major SLI fans need to consider this board.

• Western Digital Caviar Blue (640GB) - Hard disks / storage
• Samsung SATA SSD 32GB - Hard disks / storage
• Spore - Games
• Zalman VF1000-LED - Other cooling hardware
• Arctic Cooling Accelero S1 Rev 2 - Other cooling hardware
• Antec Mini P180 - Cases
• Turok - Games