Asus Rampage II Extreme X58 vs. Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 X58

VortX

VortX

VortX

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Which is better?

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-319-AS
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-229-GI

MB-319-AS_400.jpg
MB-229-GI_400.jpg


Finding a review for the ASUS Rampage is easy. Finding one for the UD7 is quite difficult as the bored is relatively new. Plus one review isn't really anything to base a conclusion on, I like to get an overall perspective from multiple reviews down to the obvious reasons of fanboyism and the off chance that someone ends up with an amazing/awful bored and bases their entire review around that experience.

The one thing I have heard separating these 2 boards is that the Rampage doesn't suffer from Vdroop at all, whereas the UD7 does. Another difference I spotted was that the ASUS Rampage is overclock friendly, i.e auto overclock is reliable, when in comparison to the UD7 you have to do it all yourself and the auto overclock features aren’t as reliable. I don’t mind this though as I am more than capable of doing it myself.

One worrying thing I heard regarding the UD7 is that the USB 3.0/ SATA 3.0 controller actually runs off PCI-E lane, which in turn degrades graphics performance - can anyone verify this?

I have also heard that the NB on the ASUS Rampage II is prone to overheating?

I'm not particularly bothered about the USB 3.0/SATA 3.0 as I can just get an expansion card if need be.

Has anyone had experiences with either of these boards and if so what were they?

What I want out of a bored:

Good OC potential.
Stable.
Good gaming performance.
High amount of features.
Capacity to add watercooling components (mofsets etc)

Thank you. :)
 
If you check this forum, you would seldom hear any issues concerning Asus Rampage II Extreme boards. Overclocked GPU's with inadequate cooling plus 12 gigs of OC'ed memory are usually causing north bridge temps to go higher. I used 6 gigs RAM and an OC'ed Asus GTX 285 on an Antec 1200 and i'm not having any problem so far.

Good OC potential.
Stable.
Good gaming performance.
High amount of features.
Capacity to add watercooling components (mofsets etc)
Click to expand...

Best in UK PC MOD by RJK is using this board on a dual/triple RAD set-up.
 
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dont know about the gigabyte but i have had my rampage 2 since first week of release and its rock solid,a great motherboard with no problems whatsoever
 
The UD5 is excellent. I'm seeing mixed reviews of the UD7, it's occasionally described as the UD5 but with extra little bits which don't work very well.

"suffer from vdroop"? Either you mean vdrop, the difference between voltage selected in bios and that in windows (mainly calibration), which doesn't matter as cpu-z is generally trusted anyway and you can use a multimeter to be sure. Or you mean vdroop, which vanishes for better or for worse on either board if load line calibration is enabled. I like vdroop and will leave it be, lots of people don't like it so disable it. Interestingly the UD5 now has dynamic vcore, when idle it dials vcore down (user adjustable) to save power. I haven't experiemented with this myself.

My last board was a P5Q premium. I loved it dearly. It died, gracelessly killing the cpu, and the Asus rma experience was not a good one. Ten weeks in the retailer generously replaced it with a Gigabyte UD5. I'm not touching Asus with a stick until I see convincing evidence that their rma process is no longer a shambles. A shame, as I'm sure I'd like their x58 boards very much indeed.

Either can be watercooled with equal ease, neither group void warranties if you remove the heatsinks to attach waterblocks. Not that I value the Asus warranty, but still.
 
VortX said:
I have also heard that the NB on the ASUS Rampage II is prone to overheating?
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure this is only an issue with the Rampage II Gene, the m-ITX version of the board. If you wanted to do any serious overclocking, you would do well to have either a custom sink fitted or use a top-down CPU air cooler.
 
hola!

the rampage is the better clocker
and far more stable
the ud7 is a gigabyte X58Extreme with tickbox features

the rampage has the best selection of full cover watercooling blocks too
if you dont need the usb3 and sata3 then dont bother

otherwise the rampage 3 is supposed to still be on the cards if you can wait.

i would personally go for the more established platform

put it this way, i have used every X58 board there is
owned a p6t deluxe, biostar tpowerx58 and a R2E
considered the following for my system:
classified
gigabyte extreme
asus WS revo

but the rampage is by far the most user friendly and feature rich [even though the biostar outclocks it by miles]

by feature rich i dont mean things like usb3 etc, i am talking about useful things such as xfi support, improved qpi dram voltage regulation over other x58s

basically if you know what you are doing you can get your voltages very low on the rampage whilst retaining stability

and its a gem when its watercooled doing high clocks 24/7
 
rjkoneill said:
hola!

the rampage is the better clocker
and far more stable
the ud7 is a gigabyte X58Extreme with tickbox features

the rampage has the best selection of full cover watercooling blocks too
if you dont need the usb3 and sata3 then dont bother

otherwise the rampage 3 is supposed to still be on the cards if you can wait.

i would personally go for the more established platform

put it this way, i have used every X58 board there is
owned a p6t deluxe, biostar tpowerx58 and a R2E
considered the following for my system:
classified
gigabyte extreme
asus WS revo

but the rampage is by far the most user friendly and feature rich [even though the biostar outclocks it by miles]

by feature rich i dont mean things like usb3 etc, i am talking about useful things such as xfi support, improved qpi dram voltage regulation over other x58s

basically if you know what you are doing you can get your voltages very low on the rampage whilst retaining stability

and its a gem when its watercooled doing high clocks 24/7
Click to expand...

Thanks for such a informative reply :) Do you have any idea as to when the Rampage 3 is coming out? Any details at all would be nice :)
 
Sorry, earlier than September. :)

I can't confirm when stock will arrive, but the R3E will be shown off at Cebit with roughly a March release depending on the production schedule.
 
those usb and sata3 addon cards are very handy and all but why do they always make them so damn ugly. same with raid cards and wireless cards.... BLACK pcbs please not tacky green or naff red.
 
I wouldn't bother getting the rampage 2 just yet, the rampage 3 is coming out by the end of this month anyway :).
 
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