ASUS ROG Zenith II Extreme Review
Up Close – Overview
When the first ROG boxes went from red to black we were staggered, but it now look so cool you wonder why they didn’t do it long ago. Sure the red branding was important, but it’s still comfortably recognised as a ASUS/ROG product.
We wish we could get you to reach through the monitor to pick up the Zenith II Extreme. It’s a beast, weighing in at a legit 3KG. If you ever wondered whether the tiny motherboard screws in your case would be better off swapped for large thumb screws, then now is the time to find out. It’s a monster. Our display stand is barely able to hold it up.
The first quad channel motherboards looked like the early efforts of the design teams to fit things on, but a couple of generations later and it’s clear that some very talented people have proven their worth by knocking it out of the park. The move of the CPU 12V power connectors to the right hand edge has definitely made a difference, and more efficient, high output MOSFETs have reduced the need for enormous, board covering power phases which has had a knock on benefit to the amount of real estate required for heatsinks.
At the lower half you can see the solidity of the Zenith II Extreme design. There are no swoops and gashes, it’s all very square and effective. We’ve always been big fans of the Thermal Armor and the Zenith II doesn’t change our opinion. The gaps between PCI Express 4.0 slots lends itself better to a pair of dual slot coolers on your GPU rather than the four dual slot offering we saw on the Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme, but such is the power of current high end GPUs one is usually more than enough. Additionally the Threadripper is unquestionably designed for those who spend just as much, if not more, time creating as they do gaming.
Around the back we find all the connectors we showed you on the first page, for the 10G LAN, GigaLAN, Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200, as well as the plentiful USB 3.2 ports that ensure even the most peripheral rich user won’t be left swapping out items dependent upon their current game of choice. If, like us, you have your tower in a dark corner then you’ll appreciate the LED lit audio jacks for the SupremeFX S1220 audio.
