Asus Rampage V Extreme Motherboard Review

Titanfall next and we have a slightly different story, though not a bad one. With Smugglers Cove flying along in the 100 FPS average, Angel City and Outpost 207 generate a decent 50 FPS average during full chat.

All results can’t be argued with, and with a GTX970 you will have no issues in 2015 in the FPS department. Drop in either an i7-5960x or i7-5930k and have multi-GPU fun with no PCI Express lane worries.

Conclusion

So what did we make of the ASUS flagship? Well, it is not exactly a trusting friend. It is capable of stunning configuration but in part this is its downfall. When you buy a motherboard like this you need to expect a weekend of reading, and you really should learn about this motherboard before you judge it, and use it. As we have said, configuration wise, its superb, a tribute to ASUS’s dedication to its loyal Rampage fan base. This is the but – our samples configuration was so out of sorts we had the distinct feeling it was pre-owned. We haven’t thought that before about a motherboard and that surprised us.

If we take a step back to receiving the motherboard we were in love. The branding, packaging, bundle and presentation are gob-smacking. You are in the presence of the geek bling god as you open and empty the contents out. The motherboard itself is beautiful, and begs you for at least two graphics cards and a i7-5960x. You will think about selling your body parts and family members to acquire them, and when you do, you won’t look back.

So whats the problem? We can’t help but think that it should have been a little more intuitive to set up for beginners. You may argue that a beginner with this motherboard has more money than sense, and we would agree in part, but there are people out there that save their hard-earned cash for this type of thing, and they maybe put off and never really get the best out of their flagship Rampage Extreme.

You will forever be in the realms of EZ Modes and wizards wishing you could use your expensive mistake, forever being the elephant in the room. At the time of publications this motherboard is £331.19 in the UK from Scan. Have you picked yourself up off the floor yet?

We didn’t like the Wi-Fi performance and although this can be flaky for many reasons, it was hard to give it the benefit of the doubt. We could have benefited form a KillerLAN too,  though we had less to grumble about with the Intel LAN. We didn’t get to grips with the OC Panel, it was a little on the gimmicky side and when installed, we hardly looked at it, we were too busy setting up the BIOS!

We didn’t really understand the need for the X-Socket II supporting LN2 cooling, it is a little to extreme! Yes we know it is called the Extreme but who LN2 cools their daily driver? All overclocking experts will have several motherboards for this, though now they could all be Rampage Extreme V’s. If your OC set-up uses the X-Socket II then all’s good, but it will probably remain in the box. We didn’t like some of the software bundled, it was a little buggy and caused some errors when using it.

We also had some quality issues as the picture below demonstrates. Our sample had some marks like this throughout, not only on the chip but the PCIe slot has what appear to be acid etch marks at the top left, not what we would expect from ASUS.

So what are you left with? You need to learn this motherboard and make sure it’s a quality sample. The configuration and quality issues stopped this from getting Editors Choice, but it is Recommended.

We have been reviewing and testing this motherboard for six weeks now and because of its stellar performance and issues we have decided to add a new measure to our review score, Consumer Experience. For us, the Asus Rampage V Extreme Motherboard will always be related to this measure created especially for it, which is a shame. How can we still recommend this, well at its heart it’s a Rampage Extreme. At this level you are buying into an elite club and almost a no expense spared motherboard. Also at its heart is an excellent performer, something you will be forever trying to get just that little more out of that maze of a BIOS.

Final Thoughts

How can an overall score of four get a recommended? The Consumer Experience rating really brought the final mark down, just imagine what this would have been if there had been a little more consumer experience thinking. We haven’t tested every aspect or feature of this motherboard, there is so much crammed in it wasn’t possible. We stuck to the performance and the main features but you really need read and try to understand the full feature set that comes with this motherboard, it’s insane. We think this is very much a part one, with some performance and overclocking articles coming in the next few months. We will also explore some other features. It is still true to itself it just needs to focus a little, fortunately this is something you can do for it and keep some of the toys in the box.

Asus Rampage V Extreme Motherboard