ASUS' miniaturised mATX X58 mobo - pictured in the flesh.
ASUS have had a lot of mobos in their Republic of Gamers branding scheme, but so far they've not had anything quite so small and powerful as the Rampage II Gene.
It's based on the X58 chipset, but has been compressed down into a mATX form factor while still managing to retain all the features (bar only a few) of their higher-end boards.
Created for use with Intel's Core i7 chip on a LGA1366 socket, the Gene II can handle up to 12GB of DDR3 memory in the six available slots, as well as running Crossfire or SLI in the two PCIe 2.0 X16 slots.
Storage isn't a problem either, as the seven included SATA ports provide plenty of options (and there's even an IDE port for those still hanging on to older tech).
ASUS also have "SupremeFX X-Fi Onboard" printed on the box, but as you'll see in the gallery there's no Creative X-Fi chip (like the one used in the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude that we loved) anywhere on this mobo at all - just a sticker covering up what's really underneath.
Speaking of the gallery, head into it at the top-right to see lots more of the board, and see some more of the features.
Issue: 109 | February, 2010