ASUS ROG Rampage VI Extreme Review

Up Close continued

We’ve spoken at length about the importance of good MOSFET cooling on the X299 motherboards and the Rampage VI Extreme follows the perceived wisdom of utilising a heatpipe to increase the surface area and keep things under control. Every motherboard we’ve looked at that used this particular solution has been successful and the Rampage VI Apex was particularly frosty so we have high hopes for the Extreme. The most obvious change – silver flashes aside – between the Extreme and the Apex is the changes in the DIMM area where the Extreme has eight DIMM slots and a single DIMM.2 M.2 drive connector, rather than the Apex four DIMM slots and two M.2 slots. Naturally more DIMM slots might have a tiny difference to the pure memory bandwidth capabilities when compared to the Apex but we think that more people own RAM than multiple M.2 drives, so perhaps it’s for the best.

  
  

If you’re the type of person who is constantly bemoaning the lack of USB, RGB and Fan headers and connection points then you’ll be delighted with the Rampage VI Extreme. Wherever you look there is either a button to press for the MemOK! or BIOS Switch, a header for everything from AURA Sync RGB LED Strips to fans to 12V water pumps, front panel USB 3.1 even pump flow monitors. If you can plug it into a PCB then you can bet your bottom dollar that the Rampage VI has a hole for it somewhere. Speaking of the RGB LED Strips you don’t just get one header for 12 inches of limp lighting, but instead the Rampage VI Extreme has enough to double as a Christmas display worthy of Oxford Street should the mood take you.