After the basic benchmarks we proceed in the overclocking tests, which seems to be the interesting part of each article according to the feedback we receive.

Asus claims that Asus Rampage Extreme motherboard is built for overclocking. We noticed that the motherboard needs some fine tweaking and tuning in order to get the best possible results. This means that the Auto modes did not work very well in all cases, at least with the v0501 BIOS installed. Although the board is user-friendly, it requires you to invest some time before getting familiar with all its settings. There is already a newer (beta) 0601 BIOS that can be downloaded over here. This page may also give you some tips on overclocking performance and most importantly on how to deal with the manual settings.

For our tests we followed the easiest overclocking procedure. We left the voltage settings in the "Auto" mode and pushed each motherboard as high as we could. Each motherboard had to make its own adjustments and give us the highest possible performance.

Getting the Asus Rampage Extreme 0501BIOS work with the Intel Q9300 and the Auto settings was a problem. The motherboard didn't work very well and gave a stable operation at 3.18GHz with a low FSB of just 425MHz:

Apparently something was wrong here so we tried to manually set several settings but still with no success. Getting the newest 0601 beta BIOS helped a lot and we finally got a very high score of 3.60GHz (480FSB). Most importantly, we had the memory running at the highest 1:2 divider that resulted to a 960MHz with CL8 @ 2.00V! Click on the picture below for more information:

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So in order to achieve good results with a Quad core processor we suggest you to use the following settings and mostly, install a good cpu cooler:

• CPU FSB: 480
• DRAM Divider: 1:2 @ 1920MHz
• DRAM Command Rate: 1N (or 2N) what's more stable for your memory
• DRAM Timings: What's more stable for your memory
• DRAM Voltage: ~2.0v
• CPU Voltage: 1.36~1.37V
• CPU PLL: 1.60V
• CPU FSB VTT: 1.35V
• NB Voltage: Auto
• SB 1.50 Voltage: 1.62v
• SB 1.05 Voltage: 1.11v
• GTL Ref v (0 thru 3) Voltage: +50mV
• GTL NB Voltage: +40mV
• Turn Off/Disable both Load Spectrums

The above settings will give you a stable system with a quad core processor. Again you can further experiment with the voltages until you get a totally stable system. It seems that the manual settings get you really high.

Let's now try to overclock a Core2Duo processor, in our case the Intel E8600. This time we had very good results with BIOS Ver 0501 and the " Auto" settings. The motherboard scaled perfectly and after several attempts we got a result of 4.20GHz. The FSB reached the 420MHz :

Time we use manual settings. We only changed the Vcore to 1.45V and we pushed the motherboard up to 450MHz. The overall overclocking result of 4.50GHz was really impressive, considering that our memory was running at 900MHz with CL7 @ 2.00V.

Again be advised to use very good CPU cooling solution because the temperatures are significantly rising:

Click To Enlarge!

In an effort to define the limits of this motherboard, we lowered the internal CPU multiplier of the Intel E8600 down to x6.0 and we started to increase the FSB under the "Auto" settings! We started from the 500MHz and we continued to climb until we reached the 615MHz! That's really impressive ...Getting a615MHz FSB with "Auto" settings on air its not what every motherboard on the market can do!

Concluding these tests, two things are clear in our minds. First of all, the Asus Rampage Extreme has very high overclocking margins. Whatever processor you might have (C2D or C2Q), it will take it to the highest possible frequency maximizing the memory performance with the 1:2 Divider. Secondly, using the "Auto" modes require some extra from users. Especially if you are using a Quad core, you will have to manually set the most important settings. This may not be the most amateur- friendly motherboard we have tested, but it's not advertised as such after all.

- Overclocking stability

We have not much to say here. The Asus Rampage Extreme is a solid rock motherboard under overclocking. We synced the memory with the processor and lowered the cache latency as much as possible and again, the system was completely stable.We are more than happy with the results. In case the overclocking procedure goes wrong, the system will post back nicely asking you to change the settings. In case things are not repairable, just hit the CMOS reset button . On the other hand, we feel that Asus should improve the AI Suite. The GUI is not good since you cannot make changes on-the-fly under Windows and most importantly, the voltages/settings are not accessible.