BIOS

ASUS' BIOS design has not changed. Using the Award Modular BIOS in tab menu form as we like to call it, it resembles the same BIOS look as the Intel desktop boards. Under the Advanced tab you get your overclocking options in the Jumperfree menu which is the same setup as the older boards.

Buses

FSB Frequency: 200 - 800 in 1MHz Increments

PCIE Frequency: 100 - 150 in 1MHz Increments

Voltages

CPU Voltage: 1.1v to 2.4v in 0.0125v increments

CPU PLL voltage: 1.1v to 3.0v in 0.02v increments

Northbridge voltage: 1.25v to 2.05v in 0.02v increments

DRAM Voltage: 1.8v to 3.40v in 0.02v Increments

FSB Termination Voltage: 1.2v to 2.0v in 0.02v increments

Southbridge Voltage: 1.05v to 1.225v in 0.05v increments

SB 1.5 Voltage: 1.5v to 2.05v in 0.05v increments

Overclocking

With our overclocking results, we were extremely impressed with ASUS' DDR2 X48 offering. While we have seen better overclocking boards using DDR3 compared to DDR2 offerings based on the same chipset, ASUS has managed to squeeze every last drop out of the Rampage Formula to get a healthy 525MHz FSB. Thanks to its GTL ratio adjustments we were able to get this speed extremely stable; way to go ASUS.

Important Editor Note: Our maximum overclocking result is the best result we managed in our limited time of testing the motherboard. Due to time constraints we weren't able to tweak the motherboard to the absolute maximum and find the highest possible FSB, as this could take days to find properly. We do however spend at least a few hours overclocking every motherboard to try and find the highest possible overclock in that time frame. You may or may not be able to overclock higher if you spend more time tweaking, or as new BIOS updates are released. "Burn-in" time might also come into play if you believe in that.