Package and Contents

The box the Rampage ships in is very red. This is not to say it is unattractive, it is just very red. ASUS has made sure you know the name of the product, though. That is splashed across the front in large letters. There is also a Windows 7 Ready logo along with the words "Designed for Overclocking". This plus the row of smaller logos across the bottom let you know right away you are looking at a high-performance board.

Under the front flap you get a glimpse of the Rampage III Extreme (we will call it the RIIIE moving forward). It is clearly a nice looking board. Along with this view you also get some additional and specific information about the product. Here you can read about the Extreme Engine Digi+. This is ASUS' combination Digital and Analog power management feature. It combines the best of both of these implementations to give you the best possible power management (we will talk about this later).

The back of the box has a few more shots of some of the features you get with the RIIIE along with a abbreviated specification list in seven languages.

Once you get past the outer shell, you can dig into the goodies inside. Here we find that, once again, ASUS has not gone light. You have SATA II and SATA 3.0 cables, a thermistor, a Northbridge fan, a Tri-SLI bridge, a Crossfire bridge, Bluetooth Connect module and much more.

The Bluetooth module is primarily intended for the BT Connect feature. However, ASUS has made sure it can still function like a standard Bluetooth module. This means that you can still setup a BT personal area network for short range file transfer, or if you want, use a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard combo.

Included in the pile of loot is also a nice fan for the Northbridge. This is a handy little extra if you are planning on overclocking the RIIIE and let's face it; if you bought this board the chances are you are going to overclock it. The fan will not work out for everyone as we found out, much to our disappointment.