madness777
New member
Hey guys!
You might have noticed a rather weird title. Well, it's because I've been messing about with some mouth watering hardware lately. To begin, I've been around hardware since 2011, going through bits and bobs but I've always felt there was a big part missing from my whole experience. A few months ago, I suddenly got the urge to head back to the LGA775 days, that I never got to live, since I started with 1156, not 775. I don't really know why I got this sudden urge, maybe that's where the big answer lies. But I must say, I really haven't had this much fun with hardware for so long. I didn't know where I was heading or what to expect, so I tried out my skills with these two bad boys!
The Rampage Extreme and Maximus Extreme. I've been oozing over these two for months now, I just couldn't resist them! They've given me so much energy and power, you can't even imagine! The motivation I got from them is overwhelming.
Firstly, I got the RE about a month before the ME, so I got a good feel for the socket and what it's capable of. Secondly, they both surprised me beyond imagination. To get into it, I knew the RE is an amazing board to start off, before I even had it, and it blew my mind with that mentality. Never was a board that would mash my mind like this one did. To top everything off, the ME was even more amazing with the hardware I had installed on them. I'm still mind boggled by the two.
While I take a breath, I'm going to blabber about the RE. It's the most solid board I've ever held and used. There wasn't a single misread voltage, strange temperature or even weird spikes in voltage, temperature, frequency readings. Everything was rock solid, even with so much hardware going in and out. (I've tested at least 5 CPUs in it in 2 days). This board held on like a champ, with any setting, you knew weather it's stable or not, and what you need to change or configure to make everything run stably. It's really amazing how 1MHz BUS is the difference between a perfectly stable machine and a not-posting machine. It has so many settings build into it, you can't just look at the name Extreme and go ''heeh that's just for show''. Extreme is present with this one.
But, while I'm saying all these amazing things about the all mighty, it's not perfect. I don't know if there were compatibility issues or there's a serious hardware error, but with my Xeon 3065 (the only really capable 775 processor I have at the moment) and G.Skill 2x2GB 1600MHz memory, memory didn't work when set to 1600MHz (or XMP) in dual-channel (single channel worked though). It just wouldn't post no matter what. I was thinking it was the CPU not supporting the speed, when it's rated at 1333MHz. But when I set it up on the Maximus Extreme, it worked! Everything worked like a charm! Is it the X48? I really don't know.
Mentioning the Maximus. It's a little slippy on the ''keeping all the readings in check'' side of things, but I guess it can post with 2000MHz memory speed. Yep, it definitely can, sadly it won't boot to windows, I'd have to find a better processor for that! I'm also a little worried about the settings, since the readings are not matching them. As an example, the memory voltage is set to 1.6v, the reading shows 1.68v which is off by a FAIR bit. That's really the only thing about this board that I consider as a minus. Everything else about the two boards is pretty much the same, the overclocks were the same, they both achieved the same BUS speeds with every processor, they both amazed me.
I'll be doing a little build with the ME pretty soon, that's gonna be a blast as well!
To end this post. I certainly haven't finished messing with both of them, I still have lots of processors to test and overclock, even a little Quad core fun soon!
I guess there really is a little soul in every component that can bring a little smile on someones face and give him something to live on for a little while!
You might have noticed a rather weird title. Well, it's because I've been messing about with some mouth watering hardware lately. To begin, I've been around hardware since 2011, going through bits and bobs but I've always felt there was a big part missing from my whole experience. A few months ago, I suddenly got the urge to head back to the LGA775 days, that I never got to live, since I started with 1156, not 775. I don't really know why I got this sudden urge, maybe that's where the big answer lies. But I must say, I really haven't had this much fun with hardware for so long. I didn't know where I was heading or what to expect, so I tried out my skills with these two bad boys!



The Rampage Extreme and Maximus Extreme. I've been oozing over these two for months now, I just couldn't resist them! They've given me so much energy and power, you can't even imagine! The motivation I got from them is overwhelming.
Firstly, I got the RE about a month before the ME, so I got a good feel for the socket and what it's capable of. Secondly, they both surprised me beyond imagination. To get into it, I knew the RE is an amazing board to start off, before I even had it, and it blew my mind with that mentality. Never was a board that would mash my mind like this one did. To top everything off, the ME was even more amazing with the hardware I had installed on them. I'm still mind boggled by the two.
While I take a breath, I'm going to blabber about the RE. It's the most solid board I've ever held and used. There wasn't a single misread voltage, strange temperature or even weird spikes in voltage, temperature, frequency readings. Everything was rock solid, even with so much hardware going in and out. (I've tested at least 5 CPUs in it in 2 days). This board held on like a champ, with any setting, you knew weather it's stable or not, and what you need to change or configure to make everything run stably. It's really amazing how 1MHz BUS is the difference between a perfectly stable machine and a not-posting machine. It has so many settings build into it, you can't just look at the name Extreme and go ''heeh that's just for show''. Extreme is present with this one.
But, while I'm saying all these amazing things about the all mighty, it's not perfect. I don't know if there were compatibility issues or there's a serious hardware error, but with my Xeon 3065 (the only really capable 775 processor I have at the moment) and G.Skill 2x2GB 1600MHz memory, memory didn't work when set to 1600MHz (or XMP) in dual-channel (single channel worked though). It just wouldn't post no matter what. I was thinking it was the CPU not supporting the speed, when it's rated at 1333MHz. But when I set it up on the Maximus Extreme, it worked! Everything worked like a charm! Is it the X48? I really don't know.
Mentioning the Maximus. It's a little slippy on the ''keeping all the readings in check'' side of things, but I guess it can post with 2000MHz memory speed. Yep, it definitely can, sadly it won't boot to windows, I'd have to find a better processor for that! I'm also a little worried about the settings, since the readings are not matching them. As an example, the memory voltage is set to 1.6v, the reading shows 1.68v which is off by a FAIR bit. That's really the only thing about this board that I consider as a minus. Everything else about the two boards is pretty much the same, the overclocks were the same, they both achieved the same BUS speeds with every processor, they both amazed me.
I'll be doing a little build with the ME pretty soon, that's gonna be a blast as well!
To end this post. I certainly haven't finished messing with both of them, I still have lots of processors to test and overclock, even a little Quad core fun soon!
I guess there really is a little soul in every component that can bring a little smile on someones face and give him something to live on for a little while!