Home | Forums | Article Search | Subscribe & Shop | Contact Us | Log Out Asus Striker II Extreme Email This Print This View My Personal Library Heavy Gear June 2008 • Vol.8 Issue 6 Page(s) 30 in print issue Add To My Personal Library Asus Striker II Extreme Striker II Extreme $469 Asus www.asus.com CPU Rating: 4 Specs: Socket LGA775; nForce 790i SLI Ultra; Max memory: 8GB (DDR3-1333); Slots: 3 PCI-E x16, 2 PCI-E x1, 2 PCI; Ports 6 SATA 3Gbps, 12 USB Nvidia’s long-awaited nForce 790i SLI chipset is finally here, and it brings with it a wealth of new technology for gamers and performance enthusiasts alike. The 790i SLI also offers official support for Intel 1,600MHz FSB processors, such as the new Core 2 Extreme QX9770. In addition, the chipset has more than enough horsepower to handle substantial DDR3 overclocking. Although it “officially” only supports DDR3 speeds up to 1,333MHz, the 790i SLI should easily handle data rates up to 2GHz, depending on the motherboard manufacturer. The Asus Striker II Extreme is the second coming of its Striker series, part of its Republic of Gamers family of motherboards. The original Striker Extreme was based on Nvidia’s 680i SLI chipset, and the feature-packed board was a hit among high-end users. In short, Asus builds on or updates all of the Striker Extreme’s primary features and benefits and combines them with a complete platform refresh: 790i SLI Ultra. Asus’ Supreme FX discrete ADI 19888B high-def audio PCI-E x1 card is back, aptly dubbed Supreme FX II on this board. Beyond that, the feature list goes on, with support for 3-Way SLI, as well, and native PCI-E 2.0 links in the northbridge; there’s no need for Nvidia’s NF100 PCI-E 2.0 bridge chip. Performance-wise, Nvidia’s new DDR3-infused chipset competes favorably with Intel’s X48. It was on par and even slightly ahead in some of our tests, such as PCMark Vantage’s Overall score (5853). by Dave Altavilla Benchmark Numbers Asus Striker Extreme II 790i Ultra SLI Intel X48 Express PCMark Vantage Overall 5853 5576 Productivity 5475 5124 Communications 4992 4854 Music 5280 5482 Gaming 5862 5482 TV And Movies 4402 4229 Memories 5131 4819 Cinebench 10 Multithreaded 10801 10911 POV-Ray* 2628 2636 Sony Vegas** 192 191 3DMark06 CPU 4309 4376 *Pixels per second **Lower is better  User Reviews Be the first to write a review of this product Want more information about a topic you found of interest while reading this article? Type a word or phrase that identifies the topic and click "Search" to find relevant articles from within our editorial database. Enter A Subject (key words or a phrase): ALL Words (‘digital’ AND ‘photography’) ANY Words (‘digital’ OR ‘photography’) Exact Match ('digital photography'- all words MUST appear together) Home      Copyright & Legal Information      Privacy Policy      Site Map      Contact Us Copyright © 2010 Sandhills Publishing Company U.S.A. All rights reserved.