ASUS Rampage IV Extreme Motherboard Review

ASUS Republic of Gamers Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 Motherboard UEFI BIOS

The ASUS UEFI BIOS on the Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 motherboard are without a doubt the most indepth that I have ever come across. More specifically it’s the Extreme Tweaker side of the BIOS that has more options than you can shake a stick at. The Extreme Tweaker options that the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme first boots into when you enter the BIOS. The above screen shot is the first section of the ASUS Extreme Tweaker page. Here we can load a couple of different OC Profiles including, Normal OC Profile, Gamers’ OC Profile, Extreme OC Profile (Low Current), and the Extreme Profile (High Current). We also have the Ai Overclock Tuner, CPU Level up, as well as the ability to adjust the CPU multiplier. The highest available multiplier is x57. We can also adjust the Bclk of the Intel Core i7 39xx series of processors. The ASUS Rampage IV Extreme has the option for a memory multiplier of x26.66 which would give us a memory speed of 2666MHz.

Scrolling down on the ASUS Extreme Tweaker page in the Rampage IV Extreme UEFI BIOS we are presented with several sub-pages for DRAM Timing control, DIGI+ Power control, CPU Performance Settings, and the GPU/DIMM Post page. Moving further down we can begin to adjust several of the system voltages.

Continuing to scroll down in the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme UEFI BIOS we gain access to several more of the voltages. We also have a few more sub-pages. ASUS has dubbed these pages the CPU Tweakers’ Paradise, Memory Tweakers’ Paradise, PCH Chipset Tweakers’ Paradise, and the VGA Tweakers’ Paradise.

The first sub-page in the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme UEFI BIOS is the DRAM Timing Control. Here we can adjust all of the timings and sub timings of your chosen memory. We can also load four different profiles, Elpida Hyper Profile, Tight PSC Profile, Loose PSC Profile, and the Raw MHz Profile.

Scrolling down the DRAM Timing Conrol we can see a few more timings available for tweaking.

A few more…

More…

Will they ever end?

There you have it, plenty of DRAM Timing control options for 99.9% of the people who will use this board.

The DIGI+ Power control page within the ASUS BIOS has all of the available options for the DIGI+ VRM control.

A few more options for the DIGI+ Power Control.

The CPU Performance Settings sub-page of the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme UEFI BIOS is an additional place that we can adjust the CPU Ratio. We can also enable or disable the Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology or the Turbo Mode. The lower half of the page allows us to tweak the Turbo Mode Paramaters for Duration Power Limits or add additional Turbo Voltage.

The GPU/DIMM Post sub-page brings us to another page which we can choose which of the two options we want to head to.

The GPU Post page of the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 UEFI BIOS shows us the number of lanes each of your graphics card is using. In our case it shows that our ATI (actually AMD though) is utilizing all 16 lanes available to it.

The PCIe Lane simulator allows you to map out your PCIe Lanes with out having any VGA cards installed.

The DIMM Post shows us which DIMM Slots we have our memory installed at, as well as shoing us the current frequency. The Jedec on our Corsair Vengeance memory modules is 1333MHz, hence why it’s showing up as 1333MHz memory running at 1333MHz instead of the 1600MHz it is rated for.

The CPU Tweakers’ Paradise allows you to tweak the PCIe CLK Skew, CPU I/O Skew, and the COU I/O Drive Strength.

The ASUS Rampage IV Extreme Memory Tweakers’ Paradise has even more option for the memory.

Bottom of the Memory Tweakers’ Paradise.

Above you can see the options in the PCH Tweaker’s Paradise.

And the Final page of the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79’Extreme Tweaker’ section UEFI BIOS is the VGA Tweakers’ Paradise. This is where the cable soldered to the graphics card voltage regulator comes into play. That needs to be in place for this page to be effective.

The main page of the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme BIOS features the date, time, language, and security options. We can also see the BIOS Version and build date. As well as some basic information about the system including memory and CPU speed.

The Advanced page of the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme UEFI BIOS is pretty much the same as all of the ASUS motherboards we have looked at in 2011. We have access to CPU Configuration, System Agent Configuration, PCH Configuration, SATA Configuration, Onboard Devices Configuration, and APM.

The ASUS Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 motherboard has a very solid system monitor section of the UEFI BIOS.

Above we can monitor all of the various voltages throughout the system on one page.

The Temperature Monitor page of the ASUS Rampage IV Extreme displays the CPU Temperature, Motherboard Temperature, PCH Temperature, three optional temperature probes, as well as the temperatures that can be checked with the K-Type probe for your thermometer.

The ASUS Rampage IV Extreme has great Fan Speed Control Options. Here we can control six different fans and the various settings that accompany them.

The Tools Tab of the ASUS ROG Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 motherboard has access to the ASUS EZ Flash 2 Utility for flashing the BIOS, ASUS SPD Information which provides the Jedec profiles and XMP Profiles of your memory choice, ASUS O.C. Profile, BIOS Flashback, and the Go Button File.

Here we can see the ASUS SPD Information in action. The Jedec profile of our Corsair Vengeance memory is 1333MHz while the XMP profile is 1600MHz.

The ASUS Rampage IV Extreme Intel X79 motherboard supplies us with eight different O.C. profile save slots.

The BIOS Flashback allows us to force boot from the second BIOS Chip or to copy the information stored on the first BIOS Chip to the second chip.