The Asus Rampage III Gene Motherboard is similar to the Asus Rampage III extreme but in a micro ATX form factor. The Asus Rampage III Gene is an LGA 1366 CPU socket motherboard with Core i7 extreme and core i7 processors support. The motherboard's main key features are SLI, CrossfireX, and windows seven ready. It has a bunch of Asus republic of gamers features, including ROG connect. So that means you can hook it up to another PC and tweak a bunch of hardware settings, that way, it has a pro belt which is your voltage readout points. It has a CPU level up, a one-button overclocking method you probably aren't using. If you're buying a rampage motherboard, it has a game first, which is a LAN priority. Lan priority is an application; you can set it so that your incoming and outgoing packets are prioritized to either games media streaming VOIP or file sharing, and you've got high-end onboard audio. It includes Kaspersky antivirus also.

Let's have a look at the included bundled accessories. First, we have a look at the Asus Rampage III Gene Motherboard. I like the look of Asus Rampage series motherboards; these days, they look just amazing. So first, look at the accessories provided in the motherboard package. There is an IO shield next to some cable ties for managing your wires and an SLI bridge; their front panel connector enables you to connect all your front panel buttons and then plug the whole thing into the board. There is a USB cable for the ROG connect, two SATA-6 gigabits per second cables, and then six SATA-3 gigabits per second. Then there is also the user's guide which includes a driver DVD, a republic of gamer sticker, some labels for your SATA cable, and a side window case sticker.

So let's start the main motherboard circuit inspection. First, there is a CPU socket in the middle of the motherboard, and that is LGA 1366 CPU socket with eight-phase power, which means it gets a micro ATX form factor. We're seeing many manufacturers moving towards larger than ATX size PCB boards. You can imagine there's a lot of electrical routing that needs to go on with these high-end motherboard designs. There are six DDR3 RAM slots; you can see that it's got clips on one side and no clips on the other. So these are those easy insert style slots that support triple channel memory. On the top right side of the motherboard is the onboard battery for the CMOS for stores all of your bios settings. If you take that out, the motherboard will lose the bios settings. A little bit down, there is a 24-pin power connector and its ideal location on the right-hand edge, and then there is an eight-pin power in the connector, its ideal location up at the top left of the motherboard. You only have to plug in a four-pin connector, but I recommend using eight, especially if running overclocks.

Next, there are two SATA-6 gigabits per second ports and six SATA-2 three gigabits per second ports. On the Lef side of the SATA ports is the iROG chip, which is for all of the republics of gamers overclocking features. Here's your south bridge, a very cool-looking heatsink covers that, and then the north bridge is also covered by a similarly styled heat sink. I like what Asus is doing with their heatsink designs. They're going after practicality in terms of putting fins, heat pipes, and everything on them, but they also have a very different angular look. I think it looks pretty cool these days, and this is probably a more practical design.

Just the straight fins with a heat pipe through it, but that's going to be doing a lot of the cooling and not only for the voltage delay for power delivery for CPU. It is also for the north bridge because that heat pipe connects them. Down at the bottom of the motherboard, we have one PCI slot. Many motherboard PCI slots are located like this, but many people still have some PCI peripherals that they need to plug in. There are also two PCIe 16x slots. These will run at full 16x and then one PCIe 4x slot. If you're using two dual-slot graphics cards, you will not be able to install any additional cards on this motherboard. It's just a limitation of the micro ATX motherboard. There are also onboard start and reset buttons, a couple of USB 2.0 front panel headers, and a firewire front panel header.

Let's have a look at the back panel connections of the Asus Rampage III Gene Motherboard. There is our PS2 keyboard port (from top to bottom). Six USB 2.0 ports, a CMOS clear button, and my favorite place on the motherboard's back panel is ideal. There is also optical audio out firewire gigabit ethernet ROG connect button, two USB 3.0 ports, and what appear to be gold-plated 7.1 audio ports.

Thank you for checking out my review of the Asus Rampage III Gene Motherboard. Check the download button below if you need Asus Rampage III Gene Motherboard Schematic or Boardview file.

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