Asus Outs ROG Rampage IV Black Edition X79 Motherboard

After a long wait, Asus has finally launched its ROG Rampage IV Black Edition X79 motherboard. This motherboard is intended to be used with Intel's HEDT CPUs, in this case the Ivy Bridge-E CPUs that go wild in the LGA2011 socket.

The motherboard features four PCIe x16 3.0 slots, two PCIe x1 slots, and a total of eight memory slots for a grand total of 64 GB of RAM.

The special features of the board include VRM circuitry, SupremeFX Black audio technology, as well as the speedy Intel Gigabit Ethernet.

The VRM circuitry is built using NexFET MOSFETs, 60 Amp chokes, as well as 10k black Japanese-made capacitors. All of this is cooled by a hefty black heatsink. 

SupremeFX Black is effectively a Hi-Fi audio card onboard. It features ELNA audio capacitors and high-quality DACs and op-amps, making for a stunning 120 dB signal-to-noise ratio. It also supports Asus' ROG Sonic Radar, which is an on screen overlay for games, that will visually show you where the sounds in the game originate.

Of course, the motherboard also has support for CrossFireX as well as up to 4-way SLI. Users can also use Asus' ROG OC Panel. Almost all of the standard kit featured in the X79 chipset is also present.

While Asus gave no official MSRP, the motherboard is available for pre-order on NewEgg for $499.99, and will ship beginning November 19.

Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

  • pills161
    Wow now that is a sexy looking board! I don't need/use that many ram slots nor PCI-E slots so it would be cool if they murdered out other boards as well. I'm going to be buying a VI Hero soon and man would that look awesome in full black.
    Reply
  • wikiwikiwhat
    Needs more SATA ports....
    Reply
  • lp231
    Hmm... $500 for a single socket board or spend $30 more and go with a dual socket?
    Asus Z9PE D8-WS
    Reply
  • getochkn
    11924190 said:
    Needs more SATA ports....

    looks like it has 10, how many more do you want?
    Reply
  • lp231
    11924229 said:
    11924190 said:
    Needs more SATA ports....

    looks like it has 10, how many more do you want?
    More the better.
    X79 Deluxe has 12 internal SATA ports


    Reply
  • NuclearShadow
    Hey Niels you forgot the post the part of your article that says Tom's is going to give away one to all of us long time members.
    Reply
  • meowmix44
    FINALLY!
    An all black based motherboard. I hated the gold schemes, get back to the basics ASUS.
    Reply
  • lp231
    11924722 said:
    FINALLY!
    An all black based motherboard. I hated the gold schemes, get back to the basics ASUS.

    It's not entirely black because that power button is still red. :P
    For the gold scheme, Asus did that before with their P5Q, those heatsinks that look like the Sydney Opera House. Well it's more of a yellow/copper than gold, but the color scheme looks similar to one another.

    Reply
  • eddieroolz
    11924190 said:
    Needs more SATA ports....

    As a guy with 6 internal hard drives, I wholeheartedly agree.
    Reply
  • Pummel
    Why would you need more than 10 iternal SATA ports? With 500MB read/write SSDs you're already at a bottleneck when using more than 3.

    The combined through put of all internal SATA ports is always at around 1.3GB
    Reply