If performance is what drives you and you don't have a problem spending a fortune on a motherboard then the Asus Rampage Extreme is the board to get your hands on. Based on Intel's meanest and best chipset for LGA 775 processors, the X48, the board simply oozes with raw power and literally begs to be tweaked.

The board supports a maximum of 8 GB of DDR3 memory running at 1600 MHz, which can further be overclocked to 2000 MHz. Overall layout of the board is the best we have seen till date. Everything in and around the board is perfectly laid out so much so that even the labels on the board can be viewed without the need of a magnifier. The chipsets as well as the surrounding area of the CPU are well cooled using a mixture of copper and aluminium. If water cooling is your domain then you definitely won't be disappointed. The water block (Fusion Block System as Asus call it) placed on top of the northbridge allows you to further cool it using a water cooling kit.



Besides, if you don't have a water cooler the Fusion Block can be replaced with a slick heatsink included in the package. Even the heatsink that cools the voltage regulators can either be replaced or you can simply attach the fan supplied. The Rampage sports a 16-phase power design that provides steady power to the CPU for unmatched efficiency and stability at ultra high settings. To make things a little more interesting, a 3-phase as well as a 2-phase power design has been added for the northbridge and memory. Since the Rampage is all about extremes, the multilayer polymer capacitors ensure that you don't end up frying your CPU, memory and northbridge at high voltages, saving you a lot of money.