ASUS brings out their flagship gamer grade motherboard

Asus lately brought out their latest technology show-off enthusiast class motherboard, The Striker Extreme, with all bells and whistles a motherboard can have, even built in power button... on a motherboard, surprised?? The monster board is a bit more advanced than 'Asus P5NE 32-SLI PLUS' with nforce 680SLi chips on both north and south bridge. Cooled with a roller coaster like copper pipes with radiators on 3 sides of processor slot, its a marvel for the eyes too. Lot of accessories and cables and even some fancy stuff is bundled with the machine and one copy of Ghost Recon: Advanced War Fighter too to fill in the value. Even more, the board sports 3 PCI-X slots; 2 normal x16 slots for SLi configuration while the third X8 slot is for future proof, physics card! To even elevate the luxury, the board features LEDs around for finding the right port or button in the dark and the back ports are lit too. There is even an LCD display among the back ports for troubleshooting if any problems come up. The board's layout is astounding which nothing comes in the way while assembling, and moreover the components of the board are best available like highly accurate processor thermal detector in it. There are 6 SATA ports on board which is placed horizontal to the board; a very good tactic by asus indeed. Another feature is the high over clocking capability unmatched by boards around.




Sadly the board is highly priced which would be a dream for average gamers which goes even higher than a high-end mother board! But a refreshing thing is that if u just want performance, go for 'Asus P5NE 32-SLI PLUS' motherboard which has near or equal performance as of the Striker Extreme. If you are looking for an enthusiast class high quality motherboard go for it.

Specifications

CPU LGA775 socket for Intel Core2 Extreme / Core2 Duo / Pentium Extreme / Pentium D / Pentium 4 / Celeron D Processors Intel Quad-core CPU Ready Chipset NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Support SLI-Ready Memory Technology Front Side Bus 1333 / 1066 / 800 / 533 MHz (available when CPU's supporting 1333 MHz FSB) Memory Dual channel memory architecture 4 x DIMM, max. 8GB, DDR2-800/667/533, non-ECC and un-buffered memory SLI-Ready Memory @ 1200MHz Expansion Slots 2 x PCI Express x16 slot, support NVIDIA SLI technology, at full x16, x16 speed 1 x PCI Express x16, at x8 speed 1 x PCI Express x1 2 x PCI 2.2 Scalable Link Interface (SLI) Support two identical NVIDIA SLI-Ready graphics cards (both at x16 mode) ASUS PEG Link Storage 1 x Ultra DMA 133 / 100 / 66 / 33 6 x Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s NVIDIA MediaShield RAID supports RAID 0, 1, 0+1, 5 and JBOD span cross Serial ATA drives Silicon Image 3132 SATA controller supports 2 x External Serial ATA 3.0Gb/s port on back I/O (SATA On-the-Go) LAN NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI built-in dual Gigabit MAC with external Marvell PHY Support NVIDIA DualNet technology High Definition Audio SupremeFX Audio Card ADI 1988B 8-channel High Definition Audio CODEC Support Jack-Sensing, Enumeration, Multi-streaming and Jack-Retasking Noise Filter Coaxial, Optical S/PDIF out DTS Connect ASUS Array Mic IEEE 1394a VIA6308P controller supports 2 x 1394a ports USB Max. 10 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (6 ports at mid-board, 4 ports at back panel) Overclocking Features AI NOS (Non-delay Overclocking System) AI Overclocking (intelligent CPU frequency tuner) ASUS AI Booster Utility O.C Profile ASUS C.P.R.(CPU Parameter Recall) BIOS 8Mb Award BIOS, PnP, DMI2.0, WfM2.0, SM BIOS 2.3, Multi-Language BIOS Manageability WOL by PME, WOR by PME, chassis Intrusion, PXE Special Features LCD Poster EL I/O Onboard LED Onboard Switches: Power / Reset / Clr CMOS Q-Connector Q-Fan Plus ASUS EZ Flash2 ASUS Music Alarm ASUS MyLogo3 Back Panel I/O Ports 1 x LCD Poster 1 x PS/2 Keyboard port(purple) 1 x PS/2 Mouse port(green) 1 x Optical + 1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Output 2 x External SATA 2 x LAN (RJ45) port 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 1 x IEEE1394a port 1 x onboard LED switch Internal I/O Connectors 3 x USB 2.0 connectors supports additional 6 USB 2.0 ports 1 x Floppy disk drive connector 1 x IDE connector for two devices 6 x SATA connectors 8 x Fan connector: 1 x CPU / 1 x SPS / 3 x Chassis / 3 x Optional 3 x thermal sensor connector 1 x IEEE1394a connector 1 x S/PDIF output connector 1 x Chassis Intrusion connector 24-pin ATX Power connector 8-pin ATX 12V Power connector 1 x EL I/O Shield Connector System panel connector Accessories SLI bridge ASUS Array Mic ASUS Optional Fan 3 in 1 ASUS Q-Connector Kit UltraDMA 133/100/66 cable Floppy disk drive cable SATA cables SATA power cables 2-port USB2.0 module IEEE1394a module EL I/O Shield Thermal sensor cables Cable Ties ROG key ring User's manual Software Ghost Recon InterVideo Media Launcher Asus Striker Extreme Support DVD: Futuremark 3DMark 06 Advanced Edition Kaspersky Anti-Virus Form Factor ATX Form Factor, 12"x 9.6" (30.5cm x 24.5cm)