ASUS Announces the Inaugural Motherboard in the Republic of Gamers Series

ASUS today debuts an all-new product series; Republic of Gamers (R.O.G). As the name suggests, all R.O.G products are made to provide the best performance for serious gamers and overclockers. The inaugural product of R.O.G is the Crosshair motherboard, which has innovative features for tweaking settings providing players and overclockers with more freedom when building their power systems.

LCD Poster is an excellent feature for system tuning and upgrades. Most hardcore users and engineers install a debug card, which displays a two-digit code that enables them to recognize which part of the system is responsible for hanging the system during boot-up.

LCD Poster, located at the back I/O, displays the names of each boot-process instead of using codes. If the system hangs due to a faulty connection or configuration, the LCD Poster will freeze on the displayed process name that caused the hang up, allowing users to know exactly what needs to be fixed. Other features tailored for building a PC are EL I/O, onboard LED, onboard switches, Q-Fan Plus and Q-Connector. Please visit the Crosshair webpage for more detail information.

8-Phase EL Cap-less Power design removes the bulky cylinder-type capacitors and replaces them with chip-style polymer aluminum electrolyte capacitors (which are used in server level systems) for better spacing and thermals. In addition, unlike the conventional EL capacitors, which are susceptible to leakage and blowups, the new design eliminates capacitor damages once and for all.

The so called 8-phase design delivers a steady power supply for the CPU by generating less heat than conventional power solutions and providing a cool computing environment for stable performance and much higher overclocking margins. It reduces input ripple current and output ripple voltage, preventing the CPU and power modules from the stress when running at high power.

Today's gamers demand more than good performance. They demand features that are tailor made for their own personal use. The Crosshair comes with EL I/O, an impressive feature that simplifies connecting devices by lighting up the back I/O panel for convenient connections in dark environments such as LAN Parties. No more jamming accessories into the wrong sockets!

The SupremeFX audio card is designed to provide the best gaming audio experience available. With 24 bit/192kHz full sampling in all surround channels, whether you're listening through headphones or 7.1 surround speakers, all the games sound effects will be loud and clear.

The audio card is supplemented with the bundled Array Microphone. While competing in game tournaments, the microphone receives only the sound coming from its reception cone and ignores the sound coming from other directions, eliminating outside ‘noise’ such as reverberations and other people! The board also features “Echo Cancellation Technology”, which eliminates the annoying echo present in many audio and voice applications.

The Crosshair bundles 3DMark 06 Advanced Edition - the most popular and authoritative 3D benchmark application used by professionals around the world. 3DMark06 is the latest version in the popular 3DMark series, including advanced SM2.0 and HDR/SM3.0 Shader graphics tests and now including single, multiple core and multiple processor CPU tests as part of the 3DMark score! For accurate performance and image quality diagnostics, 3DMark 06, designed for DirectX9.0c, provides all the information you need to build the most powerful pc available.

Specifications Summary:

• AMD Socket AM2
• NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP
• Dual Channel DDR2 800/667/533
• 2 x PCIe x16, support NVIDIA SLI at full x16, x16 speed
• 8 x SATA 3.0 Gb/p including two external ports / 1 x Ultra DMA
• Dual Gigabit LAN
• SupremeFX sound card featuring ADI 1988b High-Definition Audio with 8-channel surround sound.

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