Half a decade ago, when you wanted a high performance system on the cheap, you would grab an nForce board with an AMD CPU. Those were the days when single-threaded computing was the only option (let's not call up SMP fans here). Not too long later, during the Athlon 64 and X2 era, the overclocking enthusiast found themselves with only one choice again. This time, it was still an nForce option. Since the T-Bird of yore, things have changed hands; today we're calling the discrete graphics solution company "A" with a "MD" rather than a "Ti." Naturally, the spiteful 680i is one outdated chipset for it's time. NVIDIA slaps a new tag on the old silicon, and this 2008 we're on something called the 780i.

Asus Strikes

The original Striker was one of the first "Republic of Gamers" motherboard targeted at the enthusiast market. It even had one scandalous association with one of it's lower end brethren - the P5N32SLI. Today's Striker II is a different story, or so it seems on the outside. In truth, the 780i is an updated package of chipsets rather than a fresh new device from the fab. Essentially, the Striker II is a Striker revised for Triple SLI. Same story with how reference 780i boards like those retailed by XFX are effectively 680i boards with new tricks up the sleeve.

When we say new tricks, it means more than just a driver revision. The 780i package includes an additional x16 PCIe slot for maximal texture transfer. Two PCIe 2.0 x16 slots along with one PCIe x16 slot makes up the total count of graphics optimized expressways. On with the pictures!

Oh! It comes with COH!

I tried to bluff the Editor into believing that this was all that Asus had sent. He was too sharp for my cowpiss, and I ended up with "Will Work for Gameplay" on my IM for the next two days. =X

Distinctly Asus, with RoG style heatpipes and ego-logos.

Zoomin' On Me Now

Functionally, there is little to differentiate one motherboard from another one running the same chipset. Only when one bothers to dig up the details do we see differences in implementation. Asus's expertise at engineering motherboards, and their rosy track record is what will set the Striker II apart from just any run-of-the-mill reference NVIDIA 780i board.

I/O ports are pretty standard. No more legacy connectors, unless you count the lone P/S2 port. The CMOS can be reset with the flick of a button, very nifty for an enthusiast board that's likely to go through a lot of tweaking, in, and out of the case.

The convenience extends to some very pretty power/reset switches. These switches are lighted and a boon to use when benchmarking in the open. Best of all, the HDD activity indicator LED is integrated onboard and dropped right beside the two switches. When you're trying to break the clockspeed-limit and it all blanks out, you'd still have a pretty good idea of whether the machine's still accessing the HDD.

SATA2 ports on the Striker II are the angled sort. Mighty useful when you're going to be running long cards like the 8800GTX/Ultra. You get to route them discreetly into the rear of the motherboard tray too, if you happen to be a neat-freak on RAID.

The Marvell duo handles Gigabit network duties, allowing teaming on the Striker II.

FireWire 400 courtesy of VIA. 1394b would have been nice!

Triple SLI bridge card alongside the Analog Device based sound module known as the SupremeFX II. The SupremeFX II logo lights up cool blue on the module top, a "wow" factor for windowed cases. The AD1988 actually has a separate power regulation circuit, with low ESR, high temperature Nippon Chemicon KZE and Rubycon solid polymer capacitors lacing the PCB. Not too shabby!

8 phase power regulation for the CPU. 8 phases, 8 large inductors, and a whole bunch of low ESR Fujitsu aluminum cans.

2 phases of power is offered for Vmem regulation. Fill in all the RAM slots with no fears of the Vmem VRM conking out.

Test Bench Setup

The 780i with it's triple x16 slots screams to be in a 3-Way SLI setup. We dug around, and begged about for the hardware so as to bring you some geek pornography. The cast for today includes the Intel QX9650, Transcend AxeRAM, Inno3D 8800GTX (Not one, but three. Yes, you got it right, it's T-H-R-E-E.), Scythe Andy and a slew of 7200.7 Seagate Barracudas.

Of course, none of these would have run without the Silverstone Olympia 1200W PSU. Sounds like Athens? It sure has the muscle with 90A on the single 12V rail.

Here is the CPU-Z summary of the setup, on default clocks.

BIOS was 0501, with Windows Vista x86 as the operating system of choice. 169.25 Forceware and 9.46 nForce drivers took duty for the benchmarks.

Power Consumption

Attempting to power four CPU units and a total of 384 Stream Processors isn't going to be green by any standards. Here's the power consumption numbers with a nifty power meter.

Idle

Idle power consumption in Vista was already over 300W. Let's see how it does when we load all 3 graphics accelerators and a CPU core.

Load - 2560x1600 Canyon Flight 8xAA

Canyon Flight isn't known to be a multi-threaded Game Test within 3DMark06, but it loads all the GPUs at once in 3-Way SLI. Power consumption hovers around the top end of 500W, peaking a little over 600W at times.

In Futuremark's 3DMark06, the industry would normally look at the GPU and CPU scores separately as a gauge of subsystem performance. On the 3-Way SLI setup, GPU scores scale alongside CPU clockspeeds at default settings and resolutions.

For the graphical killer Crysis, the internal batch file was used for GPU benchmarking. Using 2560x1600 resolution with Medium settings, framerates were actually playable. The raw graphical power does matter.

In Unreal Tournament 3, the default clocks measured 97.16FPS while the overclocked setting did 110.49FPS. We standardized Level 5 for detail settings on DX10 with 2560x1600 resolution. More than enough horsepower to run the flyby.
CPU Influence On SLI Performance

Regardless of your subscription to Darwin's beliefs, in any computing setup, a system always has it's weakest link. For an implementation as powerful as 3-Way SLI, the bottleneck ultimately shifts to the CPU and the associated components responsible for shifting the data through all those Stream Processors.

In the previous page, we compared the performance between a 4.4GHz overclocked QX9650 and a default 3GHz one. The difference in framerates were stark, showing how all but the latest games are currently CPU limited.

Invest in a fast CPU where possible when running existing generation multi-GPU setups. Extra memory would help too, as would a fast hard drive that dumps textures fast enough. When we're talking about a highend computer running on 3-Way SLI, compromise is definitely not an option when you want to squeeze your dollar for the ultimate in computing experience today.

On the Software

Optimising 3-Way SLI, or SLI for that matter, involves a fair few tricks from a fair few places. First of all, software has to be up-to-date for SLI to run nicely. Get the hotfixes for Vista and install them. Keep updated with the latest chipset and graphics drivers.

The PCIe Overclock

When you're shifting triangles all around the Striker II, you've got to ensure that textures are running on the expressways and not banging into alley walls. In theory, there should not be any bandwidth bottlenecks on the PCIe system. In truth, you can improve graphics performance via higher PCIe frequencies.

Look carefully at the GPU scores, and see how the frequency boost has improved the 3-Way SLI setup. On GT2, the fireflies flew some 6FPS faster with the PCIe frequency raised. Free framerates, anybody? =P

Overclocking

The RoG series of motherboards are designed to be overclockers' salvation. The Striker II is no exception, with an extensive range of BIOS options and some really thoughtful engineering behind it. We took it for a centrifugal spin to separate the cream-of-the-crop from the rest of the losers.

BIOS Options

Throwing in every BIOS page is boring, so here's just the overclocking options.

I know it looks cool, but the VR-Zone watermark isn't part of the BIOS background. =P

The Actual Process

Yes, that's 456MHz FSB on the QX9650. On the X38 Maximus Extreme, only 440MHz FSB was reached. Much of the vast difference could be attributed to the GTLref voltage adjustment for the CPU. It actually works on the Striker II where it didn't on the Maximus Extreme. The overclock put the CPU on enough steroids to break the 20K mark in 3DMark06 without a single tweak or graphical overclock.

Indeed, the Striker II is a fuss-free overclocking motherboard. One which could hold the RoG tag high and proud where other RoG boards fall short.

Stability & Functionality

During the course of benchmarking, the Striker II Formula did not exhibit any quirks detrimental to system stability. That said, all the benchmarks ran normally without glitches. There was, however, a major issue regarding the 0501 BIOS. After changing the BIOS settings and saving the parameters, the board often refused to POST. Luckily, the BIOS still retains the parameters after power has been interrupted. Occasionally, our USB Everglide T-1000 would be lost in the BIOS pages too.

Asus dispatched the 0901 BIOS which solved the abnormalities mentioned. Performance appears to have improved too. It made the half-step CPU multiplier work, though not all the time. There's a chance a 9.5X settings boots up as a 9X setting. The half-step multiplier is rather useful for maximizing performance-per-CPU clock, through higher FSB usage. The way Asus's existing BIOS occasionally forgets it's half-step setting is indeed a letdown. Hopefully by the time this review is published, Asus would have worked on the half-step multiplier issue.

Blast From The Past

3-Way SLI is a novel concept that successfully increases the fillrate of the graphics subsystem. Where implementation is concerned, NVIDIA has done a great job with the drivers. Current WHQL drivers are already doing well for hardware this new. Asus, as a solution provider, has done a great job breathing new life into the jaded SPP/MCP combination. CPU clocking wise, it does extremely well for "old" silicon. Thanks to an effective CPU GTLref adjustment, the Asus Striker II actually does very well with Quad Core overclocking on the FSB front. The 456MHz FSB wall we achieved on the QX9650 via the Striker II is a fair lot higher than the 440MHz achieved with the Maximus Extreme. If not for the lack of DDRIII support, the Striker II would have easily matched up the performance of current top-of-the-line Intel X38/X48 motherboards.

Who Buys It

If you've got a cupboard full of performance DDR2 memory, and just itching for a Quad Core to overclock, the Striker II may not be very far away from your wishlist. Due to memory bandwidth limitation, the Striker II with it's DDR2 memory will not be able to trounce the best of X38/X48 DDR3 motherboards in the mainstream market. However, given the price of DDR2 memory today, along with Vista's RAM-hogging tendencies, you'd be safe investing in a truckload of memory with a 64-bit OS. If you're running a High Definition display and just itching to play your games on 3-Way SLI, look no further. This board smells of Asus reliability all over. The BIOS quirks and lack of DDR3 support takes a good few points off an otherwise stellar product. Keeping the limitations in mind, the Asus Striker II is a buy indeed.

Much thanks goes to Mr Hoi of MCP Computers for supplying the Inno3D 8800GTX graphics accelerators for this review. You lucky buggers won't get to see steamin' 3-Way action right here if not for his help! ;)

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