asus choices - advice needed

[nedjinski]

thinking about building a new system and was going to go with an ASUS Rampage Formula but noticed that the egg has the ASUS Rampage Extreme for $160.

seems like an obvious choice to save the $$$


any reasons not to go with the Extreme over the Formula?

 

[spacegoast]

A Rampage Extreme for $160? Sounds like an open box price to me, and open box items that are priced far less than the normal priced ones usually dont come with the accessories. I would get it though. I bought my Asus P5E open box for $99 and it came with nothing but the board. I went to Asus' e-store and bought an IO shield and got the dirvers off the Asus website. I think it would be worth it, but there is a chance you get a bad board. The Rampage Formula is also a great and is, or was $149 as an open box item.

 

[krnmastersgt]

No real reason to get the Rampage boards unless you intend to go Crossfire.
P45 boards are solid overclockers and quite a bit less than the X48 boards, only difference being the X48's get loads of Crossfire options. And if Crossfire is an option you're looking into, some of the premium P45 boards come with basic 2 slot Crossfire.

 

[spacegoast]

Originally posted by: krnmastersgt
No real reason to get the Rampage boards unless you intend to go Crossfire.
P45 boards are solid overclockers and quite a bit less than the X48 boards, only difference being the X48's get loads of Crossfire options. And if Crossfire is an option you're looking into, some of the premium P45 boards come with basic 2 slot Crossfire.

Well the P45's will CF at X8 instead of X16 like the X38 and X48 chipsets. However there is no siginificant difference between x8 and x16 lanes with a CF set up. So a P45 is a good bet as well. The P45's are solid overclockers as well, but the Asus boards actually OC quite well.

nedjinski: What CPU are you going to use with this mobo?

 

[nedjinski]

due to cost limitations I will use a Q6600.

 

[spacegoast]

If you want to cut costs even more, I would recommend this Gigabyte board:
LINK

It will save you some money and should overclock just as well, if not better than the Rampage. Someone I know sold his Rampage Formula to pick up one if these instead and now has his Q9550 at 4.0ghz. It is well worth it and has been an awesome overclocker for the price you pay.