Published: July 30, 2016 | Source: ASUS | Author: Tom Logan

ASUS Rampage V 10th Anniversary Edition Review

Conclusion

There are a few sections of people who read our reviews here at OC3D, but for the purposes of this particular review we’re going to split them into two types. If your eyes first see the price and then decide if the product is for you, then the benefits of the Rampage V Edition 10 are somewhat more difficult to express. If you just see that it’s another model in theÂ Rampage line, wahoo, then obviously cost is less of an issue.

Let’s get the, non price related, slight niggle out of the way first. If you already have hit the boundaries of your CPU, despite plentiful tweaking, then it’s unlikely that the Rampage V will get you a noticeable bump in performance and most certainly make your life easier and more interesting. Maybe the ASUS X99 A_II was already fantastic, maybe I put way too much time into extracting every possible Mhz from that CPU and board combo. Either way in absolute CPU performance benchmarks there isn’t much to choose between the two models.Â

That is, fortunately, where the similarities end.

One of the most difficult things to do is to find a motherboard that is capable of maximising your CPU overclock whilst also getting the most out of your expensive DDR4. The Rampage V Edition 10, with its seriously high quality power components, easy to use BIOS and ASUS OC Socket produce some exceptional results. We had 3400MHz Cache, 3400MHz DDR4 and 4.4GHz CPU running quite happily alongside each other and the performance benefits were clear in the benchmarks that took advantage of them. All of this is at lower volts than we might need to achieve similar results on other motherboards we’ve tested and stupidly low volts compared to other manufacturers. If you plan on going extreme with your cooling then the ASUS Rampage V will definitely not be the limiting factor. We test so many motherboards that you get a feel for such things, and the Rampage, even at our overclocked settings, felt like it was twiddling its thumbs with boredom waiting for us to give it a real overclock.

Away from the performance side the aesthetics and technologies in place are spectacular. Everywhere you look on this 10th Anniversary Edition you find one of the latest high-bandwidth solutions. It doesn’t matter what you want to use it for, you can plug it into the Rampage and it will make the most of it. Let’s take a single example for demonstration purposes, the ES 9018 K2M DAC. Very much at the audiophile end of the spectrum, it’s arguably the best DAC on the market at the moment and is over $60 alone (just for the actual chip). Suddenly that hefty price tag at the top of the page makes a lot more sense.

If you just want a motherboard then almost any X99 will suffice, and the ASUS X99 A-II we used in our test of the latest Broadwell-E CPUs is a fantastic choice and still features the Asus OC socket. If, however, you want the very best, premium components used throughout, no expense spared, all-singing all-dancing motherboard that will make your jaw drop whenever you look at it and is guaranteed to make you the envy of your friends then the ASUS Rampage V Edition 10 is unquestionably that product. Accept no substitutes. The King is dead, long live the King.

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