ASUS Striker Extreme (NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI)

Introduction

The Republic of Gamers (R.O.G.) motherboard series marked a move away from lifestyle computing for ASUS (the AI Proactive and AI Life product lines) into the realm of enthusiasts and gamers exclusively. Their very first and flagship board, the ASUS Crosshair was launched for the AMD AM2 platform using NVIDIA's nForce 590 SLI chipset. The Crosshair was an innovative motherboard in terms of usability for enthusiasts with strategically located connector LEDs, intuitive POST debug display and of course, incredibly extensive BIOS and the usual ASUS mix of performance and reliability. Now, moving ahead of the Crosshair, we will be taking a spin at the latest R.O.G. motherboard, the new ASUS Striker Extreme.

The Striker Extreme is the Crosshair's counterpart for the Intel platform and is based on the spanking new NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI chipset. Like all ASUS premium motherboards, the Striker Extreme comes with a very rich packaging and heavy promises. ASUS has also expanded on its software bundle in a bid to attract the gaming community. While the Crosshair previously bundled 3DMark06, the Striker Extreme adds the full retail version of UbiSoft's strategic shooter, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter as well.

Here is the full list of its features and packaging contents:-

• 6 x SATA data cables
• 3 x SATA power converter cables (dual plugs)
• 1 x 80-conductor Ultra ATA data cable
• 1 x 40-conductor IDE data cable
• 1 x floppy drive data cable
• 1 x SLI bridge
• IEEE 1394a port bracket
• USB 2.0 (2 ports) bracket
• ASUS Array Mic set
• ASUS Q-Connector set
• Optional heat-pipe fan
• EL I/O Shield
• Thermal sensor cables
• Cable Ties
• R.O.G. key ring
• Drivers and support CD
• Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter (full game)
• Futuremark 3DMark06 Advanced Edition
• InterVideo Media Launcher Suite (OEM)
• User guide

Features

The ASUS Striker Extreme is the first nForce 680i SLI motherboard to arrive at our labs that isn't based on the NVIDIA stock design. With our recent focus on the chipset, you should already know its main advantages and features. Proper Core 2 processor support, DDR2-1200 support, future 1333MHz FSB compatibility, triple PCIe graphics, MediaShield RAID, dual Gigabit LAN, FirstPacket, LinkBoost, SLI and extreme overclocking are all native chipset features available to the Striker Extreme. Like the Crosshair before it, onboard audio is based on the ASUS SupremeFX add-on card powered by an ADI 1988b HD Audio CODEC. A VIA VT6308P controller provides two FireWire-400 ports and there is also an extra Silicon Image SiI3132 SATA controller onboard, but it is included to provide dedicated eSATA ports only, without any internal connectors. The only feature missing from its repertoire is WiFi connectivity, but what makes the board different though are the distinctive R.O.G. features built into its design.

The first thing anyone would probably notice about the Striker Extreme is its cooling setup, which is an even more elaborate heat-pipe than any of ASUS' previous boards. The new cooler almost completely surrounds the CPU socket area with multiple short heat-pipes forming an intricate weave around the three main heatsink blocks. With this design, each block has at least two heat-pipes going through it to balance out the load. The design is also multi-directional in nature, which means that the board can be mounted in any way, even upside down if that's what your setup calls for, and the chipset cooling will still work. If you need further cooling, there is a bundled fan attachment you can use.

ASUS has also taken cues from Gigabyte using only solid capacitor throughout the board for the Striker Extreme, enhancing its lifespan and reliability. However, its PWM circuitry makes use of a different 'cap-less' design. This not the same as the digital PWM last seen on Foxconn's 975X7AB-8EKRS2H though, you can see the resistors surrounding the socket.

The Striker Extreme is geared towards enthusiasts and gamers who constantly tweak their PCs for better performance. And like all boards in the R.O.G. series, ASUS designed the board with some very intuitive features. The rear panel LCD Poster is an extended POST debug code display that shows intelligible text like "PCI INIT" for PCI bus initialization or "DET DRAM" for memory detection instead of the usual two digit LED display that requires for cross-referencing. Of course, since it's located at the rear panel, you've got to have ready access to see the codes for them to be any help, which unfortunately is a real hassle and a letdown of a possibly very helpful device.

Clearly marked connectors, headers and strategically located LEDs help you troubleshoot in dimly lit areas and large power and reset buttons on the PCB are greatly welcomed as well. There are a total of eight fan headers onboard and three dedicated thermal sensors that can be used to practically detect and monitor the temperature of any thing you want. The huge CMOS Reset button can be a little dangerous though if accidentally triggered. We would have preferred it if it was a little more discreet. These and the Q-Connector are many of the small things that make the board very intuitive and a joy to work with from a D.I.Y.'ers point of view.

Layout

The Striker Extreme is a very well panned out motherboard and ASUS has done an exemplary job on design again. Most of its components are well lined up with decent spacing. Main ATX power and storage connectors are located up front, while optional components like additional USB headers are tucked further back. The most heavily laden area will definitely be the heat-pipe network, but despite its size and setup, there is actually enough clearing for a 120mm cooler. Of course, due to its nature, there will be some coolers that may not fit on the board, so users should be careful when selecting third-party CPU cooling solutions with this board.

Overclocking
 

• FSB Settings: 166MHz to 750MHz (533MHz to 3000MHz QDR Mode)
• DDR Settings: DDR2-400MHz to 2600MHz
• PCIe 1/2/3 (GPU lanes) Frequency: 100MHz to 200MHz
• SPP/MCP HT: 200 to 500MHz
• SPP/MCP LDT Frequency: 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x (default), 6x, 7x, 8x
• CPU Voltage Settings: 0.83125V to 1.90000V (in 0.00625V steps)
• CPU VTT Voltage Settings: 1.20V to 1.55V (in 0.05V steps)
• Memory Voltage Settings: 1.850V to 3.425V (in 0.025V steps)
• DDR2 Controller Ref. Voltage (DDR2_Vol/2): -30mV to +30mV (in 10mV steps)
• DDR2 Channel A/B Ref. Voltage (DDR2_Vol/2): -30mV to +30mV (in 10mV steps)
• SPP Voltage Settings: 1.20V to 2.75V (in 0.05V steps)
• MCP Voltage Settings: 1.50V to 1.85V (in 0.05V steps)
• HT Voltage Settings: 1.20V to 1.95V (in 0.05V steps)
• Multiplier Selection: Yes (CPU dependent)

The Striker Extreme has its own BIOS, which is a mix of NVIDIA's nForce 680i SLI BIOS and ASUS' own Extreme Tweaker extension. Besides a few additional memory timing options, the Striker Extreme basically offers much higher top range voltage and frequency options than the standard NVIDIA BIOS. For example, FSB allowance goes all the way up to 750MHz (3000MHz QDR) and DDR2 memory up to 2600MHz. CPU voltage can be adjusted to 1.9V and memory to 3.425V. ASUS also allows pushing the SPP/MCP HT multiplier to 8x. Talk about being ambitious, but how well will the Striker Extreme actually do under overclocking?

All our previous attempts in overclocking an Intel Core 2 platform have hit a ceiling at around 490MHz with both the Intel P965 chipset and NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI OEM boards. The ASUS Striker Extreme is the first board in our labs to hit the magic 500MHz FSB, requiring only a boost to SPP voltage. We managed to POST all the way up to 515MHz with insane amounts of voltage to the SPP, MCP, HT and CPU VTT, but even then, the board wasn't stable in the very least. In the end, our maximum stable overclock with the Striker Extreme was a 'modest' 504MHz (2020MHz QDR).

Test Setup

Overclocking is certainly the Striker Extreme's forte, but now its time to see how well the board performs in our battery of benchmarks. The performance comparison table will be the same as our previous two nForce 680i SLI boards reviewed, so you should be able to gauge the board's relative performance against the competition.

The following test bed configuration will be used for all boards in this article unless explicitly stated:-

• Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor (2.93GHz)
• 2 x 1GB Kingston HyperX DDR2-800 @ 12-4-4 CAS 4.0
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB SATA hard disk drive (one single NTFS partition)
• MSI GeForce 7900 GT 256MB - with NVIDIA ForceWare 91.47
• NVIDIA nForce 9.53 driver set (for NVIDIA chipset boards only)
• Intel INF 8.1.1.1001 and Intel Matrix Storage (AHCI) 6.1.0.1022 driver set (for Intel chipset boards only)
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 (and DirectX 9.0c)

Additional Notes
 

• LinkBoost and GPU Ex features are disabled for the Biostar TF680i SLI Deluxe in our benchmarks.
• The MSI P965 Platinum defaults to CAS 3.0 even if CAS 4.0 is selected in the BIOS, though we've noted minimal impact on performance results.

Benchmarks

The following benchmarks will be used to gauge the performance of the ASUS Striker Extreme:-

• BAPco SYSmark 2004
• Futuremark PCMark05
• SPECviewperf 9.0
• Futuremark 3DMark05
• AquaMark3

Results - BAPco SYSmark 2004

The Striker Extreme sneaked in just under a point in the Overall Ratings to outperform both OEM nForce 680i SLI boards from Biostar and ECS. The board showed a significant improvement in the Office Productivity workloads over the older ASUS P5N32-SLI Premium, but the abit AW9D-MAX still holds the record for this benchmark.

Results - Futuremark PCMark05

Looking at the results from PCMark05, the Striker Extreme performs very well compared to the rest of the boards. CPU scores were mostly on par with each other, and while the ECS PN2 SLI2+ showed an incredible burst memory performance, the Striker Extreme had the highest and most consistent scores. Interestingly enough, all the NVIDIA boards outperform the Intel based boards in this particular test.

Results - SPECviewperf 9.0

In terms of memory subsystem performance in SPECviewperf workloads, all the boards were mostly on par with each other. This can best be seen in the memory intensive pro/ENGINEER tests. On the other hand, the Striker Extreme was the slightly weaker board in more graphics intensive tests like 3dsmax, a test where the Intel based boards were more proficient in.

Results - Futuremark 3DMark05

In 3DMark05, the Striker Extreme performed similarly in all resolutions with the competition. There were no obvious anomalies with system or graphics performance and stability, but it seems confirmed that 3DMark05 is more optimized for Intel chipset platforms as our CPU rendering scores have been very consistent for all the past boards we've tested.

Results - AquaMark3

The Striker Extreme showed a strong graphics subsystem performance in AquaMark3, matching our Biostar TF680i SLI Deluxe reference board. However, do note that all three nForce 680i SLI boards posted slightly lower CPU scores than the P5N32-SLI Premium, which is an nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition board.

The Fat Lady Sings

The ASUS Striker Extreme has been one of the most highly anticipated nForce 680i SLI motherboards since the launch of the chipset. Some have even touted it as the ultimate gaming motherboard, and after our time with it, we dare say it comes mighty close. ASUS has done an excellent job as usual and the board is a hallmark of quality engineering. Planning a board that is feature-rich is one thing, but making it work is another. We've got almost no complaints at all about the board design and layout. Components are well positioned, well spaced out and easily reached when needed. The onboard LEDs, EL I/O, lighted switches and clear connector markings really make installation and upgrading so much easier. These should have been standard features on all boards instead of the usual requirement to fumble with the manual just to see if you've got connectors in the right pins. The LCD Poster is an interesting gimmick for sure, but its usefulness at the rear is pretty much zero.

As for features, the nForce 680i SLI chipset certainly speaks for itself by now, but the additional functionality like eSATA and FireWire are already common sights on high-end motherboards. They warrant a nod, but nothing to be overly excited about. The ASUS SupremeFX audio add-on card is becoming more of a familiar feature on their premium boards and although the ADI 1988b CODEC offers DTS Connect, S/PDIF and good all round audio performance, Creative still has a choke hold on gaming audio no thanks to the wide support for EAX. Performance-wise, the Striker Extreme matches up to the other nForce 680i SLI motherboards we've tested and also does well against competition from the Intel 975X Express and Intel P965 chipsets. If you were expecting something phenomenal, that's the hype speaking.

The real 'gaming' value in the Striker Extreme beside SLI graphics is its immense overclocking potential. ASUS really went all out to provide a rock solid and robust overclocking BIOS, strong chipset cooling and PWM with the board. When NVIDIA launched the nForce 680i SLI chipset, reports have been floating around the net of over post 500MHz overclocks; now, we're finally able to confirm it firsthand. The Striker Extreme now holds our Intel platform overclocking record at 2020MHz PSB (504MHz base FSB), a 90% increase over its stock 1066MHz PSB for Intel Core 2 Duo processors. All this on stock cooling alone; we didn't even use the optional heat-pipe fan add-on during overclocking. With ultra high top-end frequencies and voltages up to 3.425V for DDR2 and 2.75V for SPP, the Striker Extreme is the hardcore enthusiast's playground.

Design, build quality, features, functionality, performance, overclocking, stability, ease of use; The ASUS Striker Extreme excels in all areas. Of course, everything comes at a price and the Striker Extreme notches up another first by possibly being the most expensive motherboard out in the market. We all know the nForce 680i SLI chipset alone is nearly half the cost, but with all the board's bells and whistles, not forgetting its deluxe software bundle, you're looking at a whopping US$385 price tag on average. Graphics cards have been bundling games and gaming software for as far back as we can remember, but a motherboard? One has to wonder how much does it factor into an already overpriced product. All in all, we believe the Striker Extreme certainly does not justify its cost, but since when was luxury products' pricing ever justified? If you can pay US$500 for a certain brand's fountain pens, you can pay US$380 for the ASUS Striker Extreme. If you want the best nForce 680i SLI motherboard today, this is it.

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