Robilar

Whole bunch of new pics posted in the first 4 threads.


As mentioned earlier, I had to cut a sizeable hole in the back of the TRUE mounting plate. there is a large capacitor on the back right where the cpu sits. Why they had to put it there is beyond me....

I have it installed and ready to go. Tomorrow, pick up my 4 gb of DDR3 1600 Mhz and I should be ready to go (fingers crossed).


I tried to raise the TRUE backplate on rubber washers but couldn't create enough height to clear the chip on the back without actually touching the back of my case.

Otherwise the board has a flawless design.

I elected to go with the lower mosfet cooler (even though the taller one fits beside the TRUE. It also clears the rear fan from the case as well). If I get temp issues or instability I will switch it but its so cramped next to the TRUE, I figured I'd stay with the stock model.

The supplied water block looks to be a POS. The good news is that the plate it sits on (Which is connected directly to another plate with heatpipes running through it) is made of copper as is the bottom one.

The guck they put on it literally took me over an hour to remove. As you can see by some of the pics, the NB TIM solution was not covering the entire block and was far off centre.

Robilar

EK has a NB block that they state in their compatibility guide works with the rampage extreme nb


http://www.ekwaterblocks.com/downloa...et_04-2008.pdf

here is a link to their pdf compatibility list.

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Ghostleader

I read in this thread over at Overclocker.co.uk that they have some problems with OCZ ram and also with any ram with samsung chipset, I hope you be fine with yours thou.


They noticed some contact issues between the heatsink and the X48 chipset next to the VRM and also between VRM and Heatsink (page6).

Do you notice any of that on your board?

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Asus Rampage Extreme Overclocking Guide

Running SLI on a Rampage Formula

Running SLI on a Rampage Extreme

Test Rig

Mmansueto

I have personally had issues with both sets of OCZ ram i have used. The DDR2 chips i had just could not pass memtest to save their life, and this set of DDR3's that i have i think my maximus extreme is to blame (it overvolts ram by about .5v). Overall i think OCZ is an excellent ram manufacturer. I have the same ram that Robilar ordered, and i love them.

I will be ordering that MB this coming up week (if i survive, or my rig for that matter, this massive hurricane coming here )

zlojack

Well, get yourself to a safe place and make sure your rig is protected

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Robilar

I had a look, the thermal pads all show signs of contact. the only spot that does not cleanly touch is the removable mosfet sink to the left of the cpu. they had a thicker thermal pad which provided contact. As such I used a thicker than usual layer of thermal paste to provide heat transfer between the pipe and the sink.

I should have my ram a little later this morning and I'll be able to fire this puppy up.

Mmansueto

i can not wait to see how far this board can go. Come next week, i will have this board.

45nm

I'm starting to think that all this hassle with adding the optional heatsinks and cleaning the blue Asus TIM is not worth ordering this motherboard.

__________________
"... Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos ? It’s fair."

"The world changed after August 8 this year."

ErBall

Here I go thinking my dfi x48 is high end, and you come stomping in here with a motherboard with EXTREME on it. I mean.....come on.

For Christ sakes.....EXTREME?

How are we supposed to compete?

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Robilar

Thanks for the link. I read through the thread thoroughly. No mention of any issues with the 1600mhz ocz ddr3, only the 1800 and 2000 (and then it seems to be isolated issues with very high clocks).

I checked the TIM on the NB and it looks like contact is fine. Apparently the issue you mentioned does not occur on every board just the odd one.