ASUS GENE Sneak Peek at [H]

The more I look at this board, the first that pops out to me is, is that ram modules need to start getting smaller.
 
Methadras said:
The more I look at this board, the first that pops out to me is, is that ram modules need to start getting smaller.
Click to expand...

They could start implementing SO-DIMMs onto desktop boards. Though I think that just replaces length with height.
 
What would be twice as sweet as HardOCP reviewing this board is if HardOCP reviewed it alongside the DFI mATX X58 board.
 
Methadras said:
The more I look at this board, the first that pops out to me is, is that ram modules need to start getting smaller.
Click to expand...

Now I'm not saying that RAM shouldn't get smaller (I think that's always a good thing), I think the video cards need to shrink first.

The size of ram has grown relatively slow compared to video cards.


I hope these perform well and will be priced much lower than normal boards.
 
Thank you for putting something under the poor motherboard. It's not that I'm worried you'll scratch the table, it was that sound that irritated me. :)

What's the "Gene" there stand for? Anything interesting?
 
Zap said:
What would be twice as sweet as HardOCP reviewing this board is if HardOCP reviewed it alongside the DFI mATX X58 board.
Click to expand...

I actually just bought the DFI board because it was $30 cheaper at time of purchase. About the only difference I could see in the specs was the Asus came with a possibly better on-board sound chip. Not exactly a big deal to me though since I play on picking up one of the Xonar's for my system.
 
Jack Hammer said:
Thank you for putting something under the poor motherboard. It's not that I'm worried you'll scratch the table, it was that sound that irritated me. :)

What's the "Gene" there stand for? Anything interesting?
Click to expand...


Yeah, enough of you have complained about the noise on the table.


No clue what GENE stands for if anything....Asus internally refers to the board as R2G.
 
I'm considering getting this motherboard, but have a question regarding the PCI-E slots. If I just want to use one graphics card, do I have to use the top slot, or can I use either PCI-e x16 slot?

I'm looking to build a smaller system that has a RAID card, an ASUS Xonar PCI-e soundcard, and a video card, and the only way that could work is if I use the bottom PCI-e slot for graphics.
 
qkool said:
Now I'm not saying that RAM shouldn't get smaller (I think that's always a good thing), I think the video cards need to shrink first.

The size of ram has grown relatively slow compared to video cards.


I hope these perform well and will be priced much lower than normal boards.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Video cards are getting ridiculous now.


Motherboard looks nice!
 
video cards have gotten pretty huge. based on the gt300 rumors, the next nv card will be monstrous.
 
looking foward to the review. One thing i noticed on mine was the memory slot closest to the socket was missing the little metal retainer clip thats inside the lever less side of the socket.
did you're review sample have all the clips?
 
I really like the layout of the mATX board. The design of the memory slots is quite innovative and shows that Asus is actually listening to their customers. Even if it did take them several years to fix the issue. :p
 
GuruX said:
I'm considering getting this motherboard, but have a question regarding the PCI-E slots. If I just want to use one graphics card, do I have to use the top slot, or can I use either PCI-e x16 slot?

I'm looking to build a smaller system that has a RAID card, an ASUS Xonar PCI-e soundcard, and a video card, and the only way that could work is if I use the bottom PCI-e slot for graphics.
Click to expand...


I was thinking of doing the same in order to use a X-Fi PCI Express sound card by using the second PCIe 2.0 x16 slot for the video card until I read this in the Asus GENE manual -


“In single VGA mode, use first the PCIe 2.0 x16_1 slot for a PCI Express x16 graphics card to get better performance.“



Why using the second PCIe 2.0x16 for single VGA use would cause reduced performance is a mystery to me?
 
Kyle, do you think there's any chance companies will release x58 boards that space out slota so that they'd be usable if your using double slot video cards?
 
Bad A$$ little board! Been running it for 5 weeks with a 920/CO @ 4.2, 1.32 vcore on air...
It'll do everything it's big brother will do... :p
 
King of Heroes said:
They could start implementing SO-DIMMs onto desktop boards. Though I think that just replaces length with height.
Click to expand...

I don't have a problem with that. You could fit 2 or even 3 so-dimms in the space of a couple of dimm slots. And so-dimms aren't all that tall anyway. I'm just saying that it's time for ram modules to start getting smaller.
 
qkool said:
Now I'm not saying that RAM shouldn't get smaller (I think that's always a good thing), I think the video cards need to shrink first.

The size of ram has grown relatively slow compared to video cards.


I hope these perform well and will be priced much lower than normal boards.
Click to expand...

That is very true. Ram sizes in terms of form factor have remained nearly the same for almost 2 decades while increasing in capacity and lowered voltages while video cards have just gotten gargantuan in size. Space isn't the final frontier. Shrink space on a motherboard is. :D
 
GuruX said:
I'm considering getting this motherboard, but have a question regarding the PCI-E slots. If I just want to use one graphics card, do I have to use the top slot, or can I use either PCI-e x16 slot?

I'm looking to build a smaller system that has a RAID card, an ASUS Xonar PCI-e soundcard, and a video card, and the only way that could work is if I use the bottom PCI-e slot for graphics.
Click to expand...

djt said:
I was thinking of doing the same in order to use a X-Fi PCI Express sound card by using the second PCIe 2.0 x16 slot for the video card until I read this in the Asus GENE manual -


“In single VGA mode, use first the PCIe 2.0 x16_1 slot for a PCI Express x16 graphics card to get better performance.“



Why using the second PCIe 2.0x16 for single VGA use would cause reduced performance is a mystery to me?
Click to expand...

Unsure as to the lower performance, but I had a situation where I was not able to use a PCIe RAID card in the PCIe x 16 slot.
The computer (Shuttle SB86i - Intel 915G chipset) would not even boot.

It might be worth talking to Asus tech support to get a commitment one way or the other.
Asus doesn't have their HDAV model in PCI flavor, but D1 or D2 are available in PCI.
That'd allow you to use the 2nd PCIe slot for the RAID card and the PCI for the Xonar.
 
All these x58 boards reviews makes me wish I had the money to get a Core i7 system right now :p

Such system is still very expensive here where I live, not just the i7 920 but the x58 boards and DDR3 ram too. and not to mention the PSU and graphic card that will do such system justice
 
seen the stuff before.

I got a DFI Lanparty JR 790GX M2RS.
2X 4870X2 crossfired.

you should have reviewed that stuff a year ago, still however, it looks kick ass, good layout and nice memory stuff :)
 
Can't wait for a review as this will be the heart of my upcoming mATX i7 build :D
 
Really nice looking board, the layout seems good and lacks nothing essential. Performance should not differ from larger boards, and hopefully the same goes for overclocking. I think I must pick one of these in the summer.
 
I love that the SATA headers aren't anywhere that could be obstructed by the video cards. I have an ASUS P5E-VM HDMI and it fails because 4 of the 6 headers are blocked by a full-length video card.

At ROGCon, I asked ASUS if they were making ROG motherboards in a micro-ATX format and they took an impromptu poll of the audience there and seemed surprised that so many of us would be interested in that. I'm glad they're putting stuff out for those of us who like making SFF systems and don't want to sacrifice performance for size.

Yeah, yeah... that's what she said. :p
 
looks like an good board - I'm still debating when I'm going to take the plunge into i7.
 
Had this board for a couple of weeks, and so far it's running fantastic. I love the layout. Fits a Thermalright HR-01+, HR-05, and HR-09 with ease. Vid cards don't block the sata, and the ram slots don't have a bottom clip so they aren't bumped by the vid card. My only wish is that it had integrated wireless, but I bet it was too crowded to fit it on.
 
Regarding prices:

I got mine at Ewiz with a coupon and live cashback:

MB-RAM2-GE $236.99 $236.99
Sub Total $236.99
Tax $0.00

Coupon Saving -$20.00
Shipment method: UPS Ground Shipping & Handling $11.57

Total $228.56

Cashback is $11.00 bucks or so. While the s/h factor wasn't great, it wasn't a deal killer. So for an out of pocket cost of $217.xx I don't think I could have done better given the caliber of this board.

IMHO it's worth checking out Ewiz and their coupon savings on Twitter (their prices and free shipping offers fluctuate like mad) along with ZipZoomFly with a Google $10.00 checkout discount (that was there several weeks ago, so ymmv) along with the Egg, eventually it'll hit a price point that one is comfortable with. I don't think you can go wrong with this board at the above price point.
 
Ive been running my GTX285 in the bottom x16 slot... seems fine to me, although I never tried it in the top spot. I would be interested in seeing/hearing what Asus has to say about this, or if its something that a BIOS update negated anyways. I think they should just can the last PCI slot and put another PCI-1x or 4x there. I would have loved that.

I love mine overall. It overclocks over 4.2GHz easily on water... but my biggest complaint if anything would be that with watercooling, the rest of the board gets hot... very hot... so you MUST put a block on that NB. Luckily the same blocks by EK and Swiftech that fit the Rampage 2 Extreme also fit on this board... while allowing you to keep the heatpipe on. This leaves the southbridge... its cramped and isnt linked to the rest of the board via heatpipe or anything, and its stock sink is tiny. I am going to try a low-profile Koolance block on it, but I dont think the block is large enough since the SB chip looks pretty large. I might have to make something custom for this board just for the SB... I know it sounds nuts but since I keep the i7-920 at 3.6GHz most of the time, the SB gets HAWT!!! Im open to any suggestions here as well.
 
When Kyle was pushing that stick of ram in the slot one-handed i had like this vision of his hand slipping and ripping the ram slot off the board with the stick still intact lol.
 
nightwalker said:
When Kyle was pushing that stick of ram in the slot one-handed i had like this vision of his hand slipping and ripping the ram slot off the board with the stick still intact lol.
Click to expand...

Had the huge ass HD camera in the other hand. :)
 
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