Product Application:

 Intel Motherboard

Product Provided by:

 Asus

Available at:

 NewEgg.com

Estimated MSRP:

$469.99

Availability:

Now

Review by:

 Paul

Edited by:

 Scott

Review date:

 April 15th, 2008

 
 

 

Packaging and Contents

    

     The Asus packaging is always nice, but the Striker II seems to have a little extra thrown in.  The box has a flip top that, when opened, gives you more details about the contents and a few openings so you can actually see what you are buying.


Power & data cables.

I/O cover panel
   
 
     The I/O panel looks a little odd at first glance.  The first thing that catches your eye is a power cord coming off of it.  The I/O panel is backlit to help you find the port even at the darkest LAN parties.  The coolness factor just went through the roof.  The Q-Connector allows you to connect or disconnect chassis front panel cables in one easy step with one complete module. This unique adapter eliminates the trouble of plugging in one cable at a time, making connection quick and accurate.  The Striker II also includes two different SLI connectors, depending on how many video cards you're going to use in your SLI setup.
 
   
 
      The Striker II includes three temperature sensors that you can place around your system.  The motherboard provides the headers necessary for the board to read them.  It also comes with the Supreme FX II sound card.  This card is powered by the ADI19888 chipset and supports 8 channel audio.  Lastly, the Striker II is bundled with Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts.  Yes that's right, a motherboard is bundled with a game.  This is the first time I remember a motherboard bundled with a game and it's pretty cool.  The board is also bundled with the full retail version of Futuremark's 3Dmark06 and Kaspersky Anti-Virus.  These titles alone are valued at around $80USD.  Maybe that will ease the pain of the motherboard price.
 
 
     If you plan on water cooling, Asus has provided a fan that mounts to the Fusion Block for extra cooling.  Do Not use this fan if you are air-cooling the CPU.
   
 
     Yet another kewl feature of the Striker II Extreme is the LCD poster.  This device connects to the motherboard and monitors the POST.  If you experience any problems during boot, you don't have to listen for beep codes, you don't even have to look for LCD codes on the motherboard.  The LCD poster tells you exactly what's wrong in plain English.  Of course this is only used during bootup, but the BIOS lets you configure a custom user string to display on the LCD screen while your computer is running.  If you don't want a custom string, the default is to display the current time.  The connector goes through a hole in the I/O shield and you can place the LCD poster where ever you like.  I customized a faceplate so I could put mine on the front of my case.
 

 
     
Page 1:  Intro & Specs
Page 2:  NVIDIA 790i Ultra SLI Chipset
Page 3:  Packaging & Contents
Page 4:  Board Layout Part 1
Page 5:  Board Layout Part 2
Page 5:  BIOS Part 1
Page 6:  BIOS Part 2
Page 7:  BIOS Part 3
Page 8:  Overclocking & Testing
Page 9:  Gaming Performance
Page 10:  Conclusion