ASUS, a technology-oriented company blessed with one of the world's top R&D teams, is well known for high-quality and innovative technology. As a leading provider of 3C (computers, communications and consumer electronics) total solutions, ASUS offers a complete product portfolio to compete in the new millennium. In 2006, the company shipped 55 million motherboards, which means one in three desktop PCs sold last year was powered by an ASUS motherboard. Our 2006 revenues reached US$16.5 billion, and is expected to garner US$23 billion in 2007. ASUS products' top quality stems from product development. It's like learning Chinese Kung-Fu; one must begin with cultivating the "Chi" and inner strength. Besides innovating cutting-edge features, ASUS engineers also pay special attention to EMI (electromagnetic interference), thermal, acoustics and details that usually go unnoticed to achieve complete customer satisfaction. ASUS notebooks are the first TCO'99-certified notebooks worldwide. The requirements for this honor include radiation emission control, energy (battery consumption), ecology (environment friendly) and ergonomics. To succeed in this ultra-competitive industry, great products need to be complimented by speed-to-market, cost and service. That's why all 100,000 over employees of ASUS strive for the "ASUS Way of Total Quality Management" to offer the best quality without compromising cost and time-to-market while providing maximum value to all customers through world-class services. With unyielding commitment to innovation and quality, ASUS won 2,168 awards in 2006, meaning on average, the company received over 5 awards everyday last year.

Asus A8V revision 2.0: Exploring Max HTT Adventure

---

(clickable)

Above image is of course not the car that brought us to this Cebit 2009 convention in Hannover, but the car that was shown at the Asus booth this year to visually explain why Asus choose Lamborghini as partner in their new high-end notebook series. However, instead of boring you hardware fanatics with untweakable laptops, here's what we found at the Asus stand this year.


(clickable)

Before you all get overexcited: this Marine Cool LGA775 P45 motherboard is not going to be released on the market; it's more of a concept design, hence why Asus decided to implement So-Dimm memory on the motherboard. The backplate you see on the left is supposed to be attached to the back of the motherboard to decrease the overall temperature of your system.


(clickable)

The very cool looking northbridge heatsink


(clickable)

We have a new player on the µATX overclocking market; next to Dfi's JR series we now have the Asus Maximus II Gene, a P45 chipset based motherboard which allows frequent visitors of LAN parties to have a small, yet very powerful and tweakable system. We already noticed this motherboard a couple of days before the Cebit convention and already have requested our sample to compare it the Dfi JR series, which is the proof that µATX doesn't not equal µOC.


(clickable)

This picture would seem meaningless to most of you readers, but what if I told you this is a picture of the socket of the Rampage II Gene, the small X58 motherboard? And what if I pointed out that the really interesting part is located four times around the socket? Yes, correct, Asus now also has added LGA775 mounting holes; exactly like the Bloodrage we reviewed in our X58 motherboard round-up. It's not really original, but who cares: it's handy!


(clickable)

This is the G-Panel, which is a small box something in between the overclocking software in windows and the Tweak-It. It's completely hardware-level, so one doesn't need a special software packet to be installed, but it's a lot more user-friendly than the Tweak-It utility. This product will be sold separately and should be working with any ROG product of Asus.

We secretly tested this on Cebit and made the system crash live on Cebit!


(clickable)

Oh yes! Amongst the new product releases of this year's Cebit convention we have found numerous P55-based motherboards. The P55 is the chipset for the new mainstream product series of Intel, which will be called the i5 ... after the i7. Although this motherboard looks pretty much ready for launch, we were assured that the final design was not yet ready, which could explain the awful looking PCB of this board, which very much reminds me of the P5K motherboard series, the very first P35 motherboards of Asus. In all fairness, the board may have not been the eye-candy we're used to at the moment, but the board definitely was a very decent overclocking motherboard. I distinctively remember my very first LN2 session on this motherboard, making 630FSB with my old E6300 seem so, so easy. Let's hope Asus' new P55 motherboards will bring the same overclocking joy!


(clickable)

Moving on to the video cards of Asus with first of all the new Matrix series. Asus presents these cards as thé card for the energy-saver and overclocker, which does seem a bit contradictory. However, it's not. Asus implemented the same EPU-features as on their motherboard series on the these videocards, which means that the different phases of the videocard's power management area will be switched off when the card is in idle mode, making it use less voltage (and thus less heat). Next to that, Asus also installed a new method of fan control. Instead of raising the fan speed when the core hits a certain temperature, the fans spin up when the card requires more voltage. This overcomes the issue of the fan speed being raised either too late or too sudden: since the fans spin harder from the moment the card needs a higher voltage to work (for instance, in 3D mode), the technology anticipates the heat increase.


(clickable)

A lot less spectacular is the design of the new vga coolers. Some might find the design extraordinary and super fancy, others may dislike it ... it's a matter of personal taste. As you probably know, the previous sentence clearly is just a euphemism used by me to say that I don't really like the new design


(clickable)

This is the new 4870X2 cooler design; three coolers for two cores ... I wonder why the specifications only mention the temperature and not the noise.


(clickable)

This is actually the only real novelty at Cebit: the new GT250. Well, new ... let's just say that Nvidia is pleased to announce that they've come up with a new name, again.

| Next ->>

Quick Page Jump: 1 - Asus2 - Biostar3 - MSI4 - Asrock5 - Gainward6 - Gigabyte7 - Sapphire8 - DFI9 - Others

More reviews in this category can be found below:

Gigabyte TweaKING Overclocking Event Paris Fall 2009

MSI MOA 2009 Grand Final: European domination

F1 Overclocking Competition Takes Off!

OC Contest Done Right: MSI MOA 2009 EU Finals

LN2 Overclocking At Alternate – Hello 8Ghz CPU!

Gigabyte Overclocking Competition, European Finals Live!

Gigabyte Overclocking Qualification Round 1

Motherboards and Video Cards at Cebit 2009

A look at DDR2, DDR3 and SSD Products At Cebit 2009

CPU, VGA and Laptop Coolers At Cebit 2009