Asus Striker Extreme is the GOD of mobo's ..... NOT!

[BarrettF77]

I bought one of these boards and was in the process of buying ram. I called corsair and Asus to make sure of compatability. Corsair was very informative and so I then called to get Asus side.

First, this board is over $400, second the competition is at 250 on newegg, and third, I am buying 2 EVGA GTX KO cards. So the lvl 1 rep could hardly speak engrish. He could hardly understand what I was explaining to him about the voltages and running 4 sticks of ram and getting over 800 mhz with also overclocking the FSB. He gives me a case number and sends me up to his lvl two tech. The lvl 2 tech states that they cannot run the ram and speeds like I am wanting. I explain to him that EVGA can on thier top board. He states that I should get on the asus forums and speak with other people on there about my problems as they cannot help me any further and the guy just proceeds to hang up on me.

Result, The board has been returned to Compusa, a new order has been placed today for the 122...... 1A revision from EVGA that allows Quad core overclocking with stability. I also called EVGA, thier reps spoke clearly, they use thier own product, asus does not, and they can give you informed answers that make sense.

I am a EVGA fanboy now!

[Madpistol]

The Striker Extreme is a waste of money. It's just ASUS touting their name and saying "buy our board. We're better than they are."

the 680i is very capable, and the eVGA version is almost a clone of the reference board that nvidia developed. Thus far, I've had no problems with mine.

However, there are people on here that have been ranting about what happens to theirs if you clock it to high. You might want to check that out.

[BarrettF77]

Will do. I also am trying to find out what memory I should run. I want to run 4 gigs of corsair, however, that would require 4 sticks. The guy at EVGA said that it would be better to go with a pc6400 type ram and OC it to 1066. Will the XMS Pro with the led's oc that high with 4 sticks and allow me to oc the cpu, the cooler I got is the zalman 9700.

[Madpistol]

Ram and CPU are not dependant on each other. In this case, your main factor is going to be thermal dissipation (that zalman will work fine) and your FSB speed.

Faster ram will help, but the board only requires 800mhz DDR2 to run at full capacity. I'd say getting 1066 will work too, but it may be overkill as the ram may not overclock to that with 4 sticks of it in the motherboard.

[Xion X2]

I'm one of many who's had very bad luck with the 680is. I had 3 of them fail on me in a period of 3 months.. and not under what I would consider *heavy* overclocking. No FSBs over 400 on any of them. None of them lasted longer than two weeks.

But I know there are lots of people out there who like them and report no problems. It seems to be one faction in one camp and the other faction in another. Hopefully yours will be one of the good ones.

[BarrettF77]

I recall reading your reports on the mobo, and they just released a new version of the board the A1 which is meant for OC the Quad core cpu's. I think this may fix the problems people have been complaining about.

[Xion X2]

I think you may have misinterpreted my comment. I probably should've been more clear. I never ran over a 400FSB not because the board wouldn't do it, but because it wouldn't have benefited me. My ceiling on my Conroe was at 3.6gHz. I had to push too much voltage through it to get much higher than that.

I was just trying to say that my boards were never under heavy stress as far as overclocking goes. And yet they all still died on me.

I'm aware of the Quad FSB fixes, but the 680is were and are still capable of reaching FSBs in excess of 400 on dualies. Perhaps with this new revision board they will fix many of the reliability issues they've had so far to go along with it.

I won't be finding out, because I'll never be touching one again.

[Zelda_fan]

The striker is not a bad board.... it is just absurdly expensive for what it offers. You can get a better performing board for $200 less.

[BarrettF77]

Originally Posted by Xion X2

I think you may have misinterpreted my comment. I probably should've been more clear. I never ran over a 400FSB not because the board wouldn't do it, but because it wouldn't have benefited me. My ceiling on my Conroe was at 3.6gHz. I had to push too much voltage through it to get much higher than that.

I was just trying to say that my boards were never under heavy stress as far as overclocking goes. And yet they all still died on me.

I'm aware of the Quad FSB fixes, but the 680is were and are still capable of reaching FSBs in excess of 400 on dualies. Perhaps with this new revision board they will fix many of the reliability issues they've had so far to go along with it.

I won't be finding out, because I'll never be touching one again.

I just noticed in your sig what you are using in your rig right now. I think part of the problem as to why you went through the 680's so fast is the liquid cooling. It is just a guess, and I agree, there have been a few that have had man problems with the board. Anyway, I appreciate your thoughts on the stuff and hope that new board treats you better. Crossing my fingers on my build. Only problem is I would like 4 gigs and with corsair I dont know which modules to buy. If i get the PC8500, will I be able to clock the ram up to the 1066 and still play with my cpu which is a qx6700 on a Zalman 9700 cooling it in a Lian Li V2000 case off of a PC power cooling 1kw psu. Thoughts? The case should stay cool.

[buffbiff21]

Originally Posted by Zelda_fan

The striker is not a bad board.... it is just absurdly expensive for what it offers. You can get a better performing board for $200 less.

exactly

Originally Posted by BarrettF77

I just noticed in your sig what you are using in your rig right now. I think part of the problem as to why you went through the 680's so fast is the liquid cooling.

tell me: how on earth would liquid cooling the cpu and gfx cards affect the mainboard?

[BarrettF77]

Here is my logic to this. The nb is passively cooled. If you are not using the supplied fan possibly, then there is less air flow over the cooler that would normally be supplied by the cpu fan. Made sense to me, but there again I could be wrong.

[buffbiff21]

ahh gotcha. that is what i thought you probably meant.

but im pretty sure Xion knew what he was doing and used the fan.