Intel Core i9 10980XE and ASUS ROG Rampage VI Extreme Encore Review
Up Close – Detail
Keeping such a beefy power section cool brings a multitude of benefits from stability of overclock through to simple longevity of components. Vital when you’ve made such a big investment. Like the Zenith the Rampage Extreme Encore has two active fans to push cool air across the MOSFETs and reduce the possibility of your overclocking efforts becoming thermally limited.
We never grow tired of the movement of the CPU power inputs to the right hand edge of the PCB. It not only makes cable management easier, but if you’re stuck with a case that requires you to build the motherboard inside it rather than on a separate tray then the reduction in skinned knuckles is worth the price of admission.Â
For most of us we’ll only use the ATX24 pin here, the connection of which always makes us turn into Frankenstein; “IT LIVES!!!”. But if you’re a heavy overclocker or have the accessories on hand you’ll appreciate both the voltage monitoring points as well as the RGB and Addressable headers.
Considering that cases are probably the part of our setup that we change the least, maybe even less than our PSU, most people will find the USB 3.2 Gen2 front panel connectors left empty. The extra bandwidth and ease of connectivity that they bring means you owe it to yourself to put the Rampage VI Extreme Encore into something which can make full use of its connection options.
Whilst the Extreme Encore might be stuffed with the latest technologies there is always room for some old favourites and to this end we find a USB 3.0 front panel header sitting alongside eight SATA 6Gb/s ports for all your storage needs. You can also see the finish applied to the chipset heatsink.
Such has been the increase in the features that modern motherboards are expected to have the bottom right corner of your motherboard is no longer host to nothing but the case connectors. With this being a ROG board there are even more options, so we have dedicated pump and fan headers alongside water flow monitoring points, RGB and addressable headers and even the ASUS proprietary node header.
Lastly on the lower edge we find the onboard controls for power and sorting out BIOS issues if you’ve pushed the board a little too far, alongisde those switches that are dedicated for those of you with copious supplies of liquid nitrogen.
