Reviews for Asus Striker Extreme Desktop Motherboard - nVIDIA nForce 680i SLI Chipset - Socket T LGA-775

Memory Issues

Strengths: Many nice features; Asus' top gaming board

Weakness: Memory issues

Experienced, have built a number of systems. Not a noob. Selected a well know supplier of tested mother board combos (that I have used before) and selected the Intel E6700 and 4 GB of memory. We have tried Supertalent 1024mb CAS-4 DDR2-800 and Crucial Ballistix 1024mb DDR2-800. Done all the usual things (bios update, voltage changes, timing changes). Sent it back to the supplier tech support - they are working with Asus now.

** Installed BIOS just released that deals with memory issues and 4 memory sticks. Will adjust rating if this works.

*** New Bios solves issue with support of 4 memory sticks.

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Overclocker's Dream

Strengths: Excellent layout. Plenty of configuration options.

Weakness: Stablity issues and price. Support is lacking from Asus.

I had some problems right off the bat. The system would load up and then halfway through it would crash. I checked on various forums and it seemed to be a bios issue. I also removed 2GB of memory (I started with 4GB). I also replaced my 600W Antec PS with an 850 Antec PS. I haven't finished rebuilding it, but I shouldn't have any problems this time. Just ensure you check on the forums and stick with the products and settings that work, it will save you a lot of time and money. Overall a good board, but you might want to wait till the price drops.

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Asus Striker Extreme - Sweet!

Strengths: Looks Real Cool! It has blue lights on the board to light the inside of case, LCD post screen, fan-less, 2 full PCI-E 16X and a PCI-E 8X Slot. SLI ready, has 2 network ports, SPDIF out & 2 eSATA ports

Weakness: needs a BIOS update to be more compatible with Some memory and newer processors, Does cost a lot.

Had to use some lower performance RAM to get it to post(luckily had some slower OCZ Gold chips laying around), Updated the BIOS and the OCZ Reaper Memory worked perfect (best looking memory for this board i believe with its heat pipes that match the ones on the MB). I heard higher speed processors have the same issue, but once you get the BIOS updated it seems to be a great board. System runs smooth, no problems. Read Forums and reviews to check compatibility issues and tips. Most issues are probably resolvable and are from people not reading other peoples tips on what to do when they encounter an problem.

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Awesome Board

Strengths: Speed, Layout, Quality, Wealth of SATA Ports, 2 full speed pci express slots, and oh yeah, plenty of bling - when it works.

Weakness: Price, Tempormental, lack of support from Asus. Buggy bios and drivers. No Parralel Printer Port. Very touchy, don't look at it funny or it will crash.

Edit

Wow, after a year of working with this board, I've finally had enough.

The first one I bought died when I put in a new processor. I didn't hold it against the striker since I could have shorted the board. Fine, newegg exchanged it for me. The second one, got that up and running but always had some sort of problem with it.

The bios never reported the right temps on my processor, sound -- had to download a driver for a different board just to get it to find all my speakers. The bottom pci slot never worked.

But I was somewhat happy with the board, it overclocked well. But the final straw happened when I installed a new hard drive and got stuck at cpu-init. It refused to post dispite my best efforts. I have had enough! I moved to the MSI P6N Diamond (which was the board I really wanted but wasn't available).

Really, don't buy this board. It's buggy, tempormental, and there is no support from Asus on it. If you really want an NVidia based board, wait for the new 780I boards to come out 1st quarter 08, they will support the new Yorkfields!


Before you buy this board, do your homework. I spent 2 months reading the forums and all I could about this and other 680i boards. Most of the problems are not Asus problems, but nVidia problems since the chipset is so new. At least you will know the problems and possible fixes.

Next, prepare to spend lots of time with this board. If you want a board that posts from the box, or a board the doesn't need much adjustment, look at a different board. And make sure you have the back pannel button on, the system won't power on if this is off. Kind of stupid actually.

Before buying this, I was on the Asus forum everyday reading and following peoples problem. I was prepared to have nothing but heartache with this board. I got it installed, turn on my box and bam...it posted the first time with no problem at all! What did I do to get this success? Everything I have other then the power supply, case and board is old stuff. 533mhz memory, 3.2 p4, ati x600 video card. I know the board works, and will do well as I upgrade the rest of the system.

Also, have an awesome powersupply. I heard that even some people have problems even with a 1000+ powersupply. Mine is the thermaltake 850w and it works very well with this board. I think the powersupply problem is where everyone gets the cpu init errors from.

This board runs much cooler then I thought it would. Heat pipes are awesome. Placement of the sata ports are well thought out. On this issue, I don't like where the ide bus is, right behind the power supply. This board has a ton of fan connectors and even includes 3 thermal sensors! The front panel connectors were real easy to do for a change. Didn't get anything in wrong for once. And now, alot of things seem to run much faster for me. The dual network is making my browser scream.

My only problems now are driver issues. Not use to the audio set up on this board, and have yet to get my 7.1 speaker system set correctly. You will almost have to do a clean install, especially if your old board is not an nVidia chipset board.

I can't wait to get my e6600, couple of sataII raid drives, some 800mhz memory, and oh yeah the 2 8800gtx cards I want. This board can handle it all. And as the bios matures (which Asus has been putting out on a monthly basis) it will OC very well.

In short, if you want something you don't have to modify much, tweak, or you just don't want to mess with, go with something else. Otherwise, check out the board, you'll like it. It will support todays hardware and well into tomorrow for a change.

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The Throttled Robot

Strengths: Excellent layout - blasts through many apps and games phenomenal for Digital Video processing. 2x eSATA conn - 6x SATA conn RAID supporting 0,1,5 & JBOD

Weakness: Caution - DIMM voltage selection is off voltage by as much as 10% and will cause problems with low end memory including BSOD, freezing and BUGs (bios upgrades).

My build:
ASUS STRIKER EXTREME
Intel Quad Core QX6700
2x Corsair TWIN2x2048-8888C4FD 4 Gig (run@1066MHz)
BFG BFGR88768GTXWCE GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB Water Cooled PCIe Video Card
ASUS PhysX P1 Processing Unit
Enermax Galaxy 1000W Power Supply 2007 EPS12V compliant
2x WD Raptor 150G SATA 1.5 (RAID 0, 300G )
3x Seagate 750G SATA II (RAID 5, 1 TB)
Thermaltake VE1000BNS Mozart TX Full Tower Case
Thermaltake CL-W0077 Symphony Liquid Cooling System (CPU)
Thermaltake CL-W0076 Bigwater 745 (Video)
M-Audio Delta 1010LT 10-In/10-Out PCI Virtual Studio
HP Internal ATA CD/DVD Lightscribe Drive
External eSATA CD/DVD Lightscribe Drive
4x Thermaltake Silent Wheel 130mm Case Fans

A/V processing is a breeze - games? forgettabouit!
C ya!

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Asus Striker Extreme Motherboard

Strengths: Excellent design. Runs cool even when overclocked. Full of features. It has every option available for overclocking.

Weakness: Way overpriced. It has stability issues. Sever overclocking limitations (possible due to bios issues).

I am running this board with:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600
Crucial Ballistix Tracer SLI-Ready 2x1GB DDR2-1000 EPP
BFG Geforce 7800 GT video card
Antec True Power 3 550 PSU
WD 250GB SATA II
WD 160GB SATA II
3D Mark 06 score: 4636
PC Mark 05 score: 8308
In my opinion Asus is an excellent motherboard manufacturer, but they released this board too soon. They did not do enough testing. This board has the potential to be the best gaming board but was rushed into production. Many of their early bugs were fixed with bios updates. We can only hope the other bugs will be fixed with the next bios release.
Frequently after the computer stops responding and a reboot is required, during the initial post the board reports voltages are too high. I am required to cut power for a few seconds then it will post normally.
If you really want this board wait for the next hardware version.

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Great Board!

Strengths: Looks great, keeps cool, a huge list of neat features. Built in blue led lights are great!

Weakness: A bit pricey.

Unlike the other reviews posted, i have had no problems with this board. It runs great and as stated, has a ton of great features. The LCD on the back is helpful and the built in blue led lights are just downright cool. Not at all a fan of the soundcard that comes with it. I have the updated bios and have no problems.

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Think about It!

Strengths: Well laid out design,ez to assemble, lots of extra's, lcd display is very cool, as is the lights, witch only come on with the back panel switch!

Weakness: Price, very... I mean very buggie bios! Very hard to recover from abios crash or even an bios flash can leave you a sitting duck!!! no vista drivers, none! happy downloading.

After all the bios headaches, Even a bios replacment from a well known vender, this board was done, lcd display sat at cpu int. you have to use certain DDr2, asus supplies a vender list ? even if the ram meats certain spec's? you may see very unstable results. locks up . Overall I think once asus is able to overcome bios problems this will be the best board ever..

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asus striker motherboard

Strengths: these boards absolutely rock!!we build a lot of customs and this one is absolutely the top of the line.i see no weakness with this baby,keep on coming asus.nothing wrong with the bios either!!

Weakness: none!!!

1010 watt power supply
qx 6800
8 gig mem
6-150 raptors
2-8800 gtx/sli
1-"killer nic"
liquid cooled/20 degree celcius!!
duo boot set up/pro & vista ultimate
microsoft office 2007
BAD TO THE BONE & I MEAN BAD TO THE BONE!!

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don't believe the hype!

Strengths: 680i chipset, quad-core support, SLI, pretty fast

Weakness: the extra heatsink is not necessary. CANNOT OVERCLOCK!!!

I went and got the best motherboard because I thought I could overclock this mobo and I didn't know about the p35. my board will not overclock. it can't get to a 1333 FSB on a Q6600/ Go with the p35 chipset. It's faster, no SLI, but who needs it, you can wait for the X38 coming out soon but if you are doing SLI save yourself $100 and DON'T get this board

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Amazing looks with performance to back it up

Strengths: Best looking board on the market. Super overclocking abilities. Many adjustments possiblilities. Even runs on ram not listed on chart. Nice board layout.

Weakness: Price (but the best usually cost a pretty penny)

I absolutely love this board. I had another 680 board, but went with this one just for the looks. It is sweet looking with a clear sided case with all the fancy dress-ups I am using (cable covers, lighted fans, UV lights, etc). The performance is awesome also. I had bought ram before the board and it wasn't on the list, but works fine. I can't wait to try overclocking my 6600 even more:) Next will be a faster processor and another 8800 ultra overclocked (not that I need it). Great board, worth the price if you are into performance and the best looking build available:)

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Best 680i Board Out!

Strengths: Extremely good BIOS! Gets my QX6700 Screaming to 3.5Ghz without a hitch. So many fantatic features. One Button CMOS Clear. Asus Continues to update BIOS constantly.

Weakness: None.

This board is not for noobs. People having problems must be experiencing a thing called "user error" and must not know what they are doing. I have 2 these and both have been a dream to work with.

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Overclocks much less than expected

Strengths: LED poster, on-board switches, backpanel eSATA

Weakness: VERY unstable unless you have the latest BIOS; power, floppy & IDE headers still on top of the board (should be on the edges to improve cable management); disappointing overclocking.

The BIOS is VERY critical to this board's stability. I'm on my second board; my first came with BIOS v0901, and simply would not POST. Tweaking is my hobby, and I tried to fix it myself - initially, to no avail. A second board shipped with v1305, and runs extremely well. (Later, I discovered an online service that can send you an EEPROM pre-flashed with the BIOS of your choice, so you can change out your own BIOS chip when yours is currently un-flashable. With that, I was able to make the first board POST with BIOS v1305, as well.)

There seems to be great variability in one's ability to overclock this board, and many professional web reviewers are questioning Asus's quality control. One site will report that the reviewer was able to get a 2GHz FSB, whereas another won't have any success pushing past 1.2GHz. My board seems to be in the latter (poorer) group; even with a phase change cooler on my CPU (QX6700), I'm only able to overclock the CPU to 3.2GHz, and the board to its rated (stock) max of 1333MHz. (I should note that I can get the system to boot into Vista at a CPU speed of 4GHz, but that it is completely unstable when tested with Prime95.)

I'd have to recommend against this board; it definitely doesn't live up to the hype. The onboard switches and LED poster are its best strengths. If you run an SLI setup, then I'd recommend the Striker 2 or some other 790i board; if you're not running SLI, then pick something with an Intel chipset.

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ASUS Stiker

Strengths: its has a lot of good stuff, it can handle alot to

Weakness: the first one i got was bad, the memory slots were damaged ASUS tolled me, i did like that at all

well so far its working out pretty good, its just i had that first bad one and i hope this 2nd one does not give me any trouble, but it does come with a three year warrenty, so thats better then nothing. its comes with a great sounds cards and other items, its pricey but your buying for the future

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Striker Extreme

Strengths: Fast, easy to setup and nice layout

Weakness: Price

Well I bought this board and so far everything is working great, updated the bios and everything is stable and seems to run apps and games pretty fast, I went with the 2.4 Duo processor and 4 gigs of OCZ ram

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Asus Striker Extreme

TestSeek.com has collected 26 expert reviews for Asus Striker Extreme and the average expert rating is 85 of 100. The average score reflects the expert community’s view on this product. Click below and use TestSeek.com to find all ratings, product awards and conclusions.

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