Asus OC Station ROG Controller

 

The box is a clone of the ROG design used on most other Asus ROG motherboards utilised a matt blood red background and the ROG font displaying the product title. The rear of the box explains in brief detail the features of the OC Station.

 

 

Inside the box, the compartmentalised innards are well structured to ensure that none of the included accessories move around, potentially damaging the polythene wrapped main unit. A data cable, Driver disk, installation screws and a quick installation guide are all you get on the accessory front. The included accessories are sparse but I cannot think of anything else you could want apart from maybe an interchangeable faceplate to match a silver case as the units face is gun metal grey in colour.

 

 

The main unit is double DIN in size and will take up two 5.25 bays in your case. Rather than opt for a cluttered front panel, Asus have employed just three silver button with a volume control/main knob. This could mean one of two things, either the controller is not very flexible or the product is controlled via menus. Hopefully it is the latter.

 

 

The OC Station requires a standard Molex connector to power the unit and consumes a total of 5A. Next to the Molex connector is the data cable port which connects the unit to the ROG motherboard. Note that only the Rampage II (Extreme + GENE), Maximus II GENE and Crosshair III motherboards support the OC station at the time of writing the review. The remaining connectors are 3-pin fan headers allowing up to four fans to be controlled. 4-pin CPU fans also work fine.

 

 

The unit can be used out of the case should you not have room with the only limiting factor being the length of the data cable which is apx 2 foot long. Asus provide a rubber foot for this purpose. A neat little feature is the ability to tilt the front fascia by 30 degrees which is achieved by simply pushing the faceplate once, and once again to return it to stock configuration. The plastic used to protect the unit is sturdy but I wouldn’t think it would take any abrupt shock so I won’t be throwing this out of a window to test it’s shock absorption properties today I’m afraid.

 

 

Let’s fire the unit up and see what it has in store for us…