Asus X58 Rampage III Extreme Motherboard Review
Overclocking and Power Consumption
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Overclocking
is not an exact science. For example, every processor is different and
just because your friend's Core i7 processor hit 4GHz on air doesn't
mean that yours will, even if using the same settings and hardware.
Many factors can influence what a processor is capable of. These
factors include complementary components like the motherboard, memory,
power supply and cooling. In addition, user experience definitely comes
into play as there is an abundance of modifiable settings within the
BIOS.
;)
We achieved a higher base clock with the Rampage III Extreme than the other two boards we tested. With additional tweaking, we're certain the Classified could produce similar results as the Rampage III Extreme, but its clear the automatic BIOS settings are superior on the Asus boards.
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And finally, throughout all of our benchmarking and testing, we monitored how much power our test systems consumed using a power meter. Our goal was to give you all an idea as to how much power each configuration used while idling and while under a heavy workload. Please keep in mind that we were testing total system power consumption at the outlet here, not just the power being drawn by the processors alone.
Even though the RIIIE was not able to produce a significant increase in performance over the Rampage II, it still showed a higher power consumption. In an idle state, the Rampage III Extreme based test system used 254W, and 445W during load.
