ASUS Commando

[PAGETITLE=Introduction] As the market heats up with the continual hardware launches specifically aimed at each and every one of our inner gamer, it’s easy to get optimistic about the future of PC gaming. That’s not to say however, that the hardware has never –not- been there, but rather that we are now seeing more and more gaming oriented hardware coming out all the time. After all, it’s the gamers who are more than willing to line up and pay the premium price for the ultimate frame rate. That’s not to say that the more mainstream products are bad. In fact, companies make the bulk of their money at the budget level but it should also be said that bragging rights are won and lost in the enthusiast trenches that are more often than not completely filled with us gamers. One company that is leading this charge is the always trusty Asus. With the announcement of their gaming oriented line of motherboards, the Republic of Gamers, or RoG, they have captured the attention, and wallets, of gamers everywhere. Long have they, and most other companies for that matter, produced high quality, high performing motherboards. Now though, we have a product line to call our own. With the Republic of Gamers, we can now be in elite company. Is this true or could it just be marketing at its best? With RoG, Asus themselves offers "the best hardware engineering, the fasted performance, the most innovating ideas, and we welcome the best gamers to join in." Strong words to say the least. Today, we are taking a look Asus’ latest addition to the RoG lineup, and their third overall. Based on the Intel P965 "mainstream" chipset, the Commando is a welcome addition to the RoG series of motherboards as it’s priced considerably less than the Crosshair and the Striker Extreme. Since the platform first came out, there was been quite a stir about the overclocking capabilities of the P965 chipset. For most, it was obvious that Asus would eventually through their research and development might behind this chipset and bring a gaming oriented motherboard to market. That board is the Commando. Throughout the past month, we have put the Commando through its paces, run it up against two other motherboards, both using different chipsets and worked to obtain our max overclock. Speaking of overclocking, Asus claims to have reached an astonishing 575MHz front side bus. This seems like an absurd frequency for the FSB but there are screens on the Asus webpage verifying this feat. Could we get that high with our E6600 and how did the Commando stack up against the 975X based DFI Infinity 975X/G and the DFI ICFX3200-T2R/G? As we get into the review we will see how the Commando performed but first, let’s get a look at what the latest addition to the RoG has to offer. Specifications The spec sheet for the Commando is rather lengthy but we will cover what we feel is the most important. LGA 775: Handles Intel Core 2 Extreme, Core 2 Duo, Pentium Extreme, Pentium D, Pentium 4, Celeron D as well as the latest Quad Core 2. Intel P965 / ICH8R with Intel Fast Memory Access Technology. FSB: 1066 / 800 / 533. 4 x DIMM supporting a max of 8GB of DDR2 800, 667 and 533 MHz, non-ECC, un-buffered memory. 2 x PCI-E x16 slots (x16 and x4 mode) 4 x PCI 2.2. Southbridge offers 6 SATA 3.0 Gb/s and Intel Matrix storage technology that supports RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10. One UltraDMA PATA slot. Dual Gigabit LAN. SupremeFX Audio card using the ADI 1988B Codec. 2 IEEE 1934a ports (one on the back and one on the motherboard via pins) 10 USB 2,0 ports (6 on the motherboard via pins and 4 on the back) One thing to note here about the specs is the limited support for ATi’s CrossFire. Originally not intended to support this technology, the chipset, and sub sequentially, the Commando, now support CrossFire, even if it’s crippled on paper. Aside from that, the Commando’s support for quad core CPUs is noteworthy as well. The parallel port for most optical drives and Ultra ATA hard drives is provided by JMicron as the P965 chipset does not natively support this quasi-legacy technology. This, to me is a welcome sign of things to come. While I still have many Ultra ATA drives, optical and disk, the cables are a pain and SATA is so better in every single way. [PAGEBREAK] [PAGETITLE=Packaging and Bundle] Moving onto one of the main things that make a Republic of Gamers motherboard a Republic of Gamers motherboard. We of course would not be talking about the performance of the board, that for a little later in the review. No, this line of boards has built a name for itself thought the extras that come with it as much as it has based on how the board works. Arriving in its retail packaging, the first thing that we notice of the size of the box that it came in. Coming in a large, motherboard width box, we can tell from the start that this is a RoG motherboard. This notion is reinforced with the large RoG eye logo in the upper left hand side of the box. Also, we see that it not only ships ready for Windows Vista (a much bigger issue at the time of release, more so than it is now) but it also comes with a full version of Futuremark’s massively popular 3D Mark ’06 and Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. It’s always a welcome sight when a piece of hardware ships with a game and is certainly a breath of fresh air when that game is a quality AAA game such as GRAW. Moving to the back of the box, we see an assortment of features that the Commando ships with. These include the popular back lit LCD readout on the back of the motherboard (though not near as impressive as the other RoG boards), an HD audio card based on the 1988B codec and the popular title GRAW. Once open, we see that the Commando comes wrapped not in the usual anti-static bag that most all other motherboards come in, but rather in its own plastic housing. There is another separate box that houses the extras of the bundle. Once into the bundle, we first see the documentation. Asus has always impressed me with their thorough manuals and the Commando’s does not disappoint in this regard. With information spanning well over 100 pages, the manual provides all the vital information that is needed to not only piece together your PC as well as minor troubleshooting walkthroughs as well. Also shipping with the Commando is a quick start guide and a manual that contains a CD with various media applications. As promised, the Commando included a retail version of Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, as well as a driver disk containing 3D Mark ’06 and the necessary drivers. For good measure, there is also a disk containing various drivers known to work with the latest Microsoft OS, Vista. We found, in our testing that Vista detected all of the hardware itself and we did not need to use the disk once. However, each persons experience might vary so rest assured, the needed drivers are included in the Commando’s plentiful bundle. Also included is a small fan that is to be mounted on the heatsink that sits on the voltage regulator on the motherboard. In theory, the heat from both the north and south bridge will travel up the heatpipes and into the heatsink. This fan should only be used by those that do not cool their CPU with air. With a heatsink, air should travel across this heatsink, keeping it cool. With water however, air will not be moving across the heatsink. This is where the fan comes into use. To expand the amount of USB and FireWire ports on your PC, Asus has included a pair of PCI bracket ports. These plug into the appropriate pins on the motherboard and fit in an open PCI slot on the back of the PC. While nothing new, the 4 ports on the back of the motherboard might not be enough for some people… me included. To connect your SATA hard drives to the Commando, Asus has bundled 6 SATA cables. Three have a 90 degree bend in the connector and three are the standard straight. For those of you who might not have the appropriate power connectors on your power supply, there are 3 4-pin to SATA power adapters included. Each of these can power 2 SATA drives. One of my favorite additions to the Commando, and many other Asus motherboards, is the Q-connector. I can only assume that Q is short for quick and that’s exactly what these pieces make your installation. Instead of fumbling around in your case to connect the power, reset and activity headers, you simply plug those same cables into the Q-connector and then place it on the motherboard. It’s one of those things that make you ask yourself "Why didn’t I think of that?" Not only does Asus include one for the power headers, but there is also one for your USB and FireWire connections as well. Rounding out the bundle is the I/O shield, a pair of cables for IDE and floppy drives, an Asus case badge and an apparently empty plastic bag. Seriously, this bag includes some clear zip ties for those of you concerned with how their cables look in the case. This is a simple addition but one that most people can instantly appreciate. While not an extremely over the top bundle, it is certainly one of the better ones you can find. It’s obvious that Asus is taking the RoG line of hardware very seriously. [PAGEBREAK] [PAGETITLE=Board Layout] Looking at the board as a whole, the layout is solid and clean. The board itself is dominated by a copper heatpipe running through the center. This not only looks good, but also helps to transport heart away from both the southbridge and northbridge as well as the voltage regulators. As stated earlier, when an air cooler is used, air will be pushed across the top heatsink to help keep everything cool. When water cooling is used, the included fan is needed to keep your system temps in check. Covering the southbridge is a small, almost passive heatsink with the RoG logo on the top. This is where the heatpipe starts its journey upwards. Directly to the side of the southbridge, places exactly where they should be, is the...

ASUS Commando

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