On the 27th of September this year, ASUS India held their 4th pan-India Enthusiasts meet on Mumbai. More than 30 geeks and tech enthusiasts were invited from all over the country for introduction to new products, feedback and suggestions, knowledge base and experiencing latest products.

I am from Kolkata and there were other two enthusiasts who stay in Kolkata also. ASUS India booked flight for us(both for going and return) and also arranged us a 5 star hotel in Mumbai namely Novotel. All expenses were paid.

We went on the 26th of September and reached Mumbai around 6:30 and finally checked in on the hotel at around 7 pm. We chatted that day and went to Juhu beach for a view.

On 27th morning, we were picked up from the hotel by a car arranged by the company and in no time, we reached ASUS India head office.

The day started with meeting and greeting tech enthusiasts, presentations of latest products like motherboards, monitors, routers etc.

ASUS Country Head, Mr. Vinay Shetty introduced the entire ASUS India TEAM and a brief about the company.

There was an online chat session as well with Jack Cheng who works at motherboard design division at ASUS and he gave us a lot of valuable information related to Asus OC socket and X99 new features.

Then we tried the latest products hands on. Got to see the latest motherboards, GPUs, monitors etc live!

Finally, the awesome overclocker Shatul Durlabhji did some overclocking on Liquid Nitrogen and we were lucky to experience it live.

Here are some photos of what went down at the meet.

Airport:

Before landing in Mumbai:

Hotel room:

Juhu Beach:

Inside ASUS Head Office:

Presentation room:

Our gift bag:

ASUS India team being introduced by Vinay:

New product arrivals to be experienced by us and demo systems:

DDR4 system:

4K monitors:

Enthusiasts in the demo room:

The genius Moksh Mridul sir, preparing the motherboard for LN2 overclocking:

The guru of overclocking, Shatul Durlabhji sir also preparing motherboards for LN2 overclocking:

ASUS Chromebox:

Lets pour liquid Nitrogen:

We enjoyed a lot. The hospitality was amazing. Also met with a lot of fellow enthusiasts.
Looking forward to the next enthusiasts meet as well. 🙂

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With the launch of X99 Motherboard lineup, Asus has also introduced something new i.e. the OC Socket. This patent-pending(as of now) OC Socket will feature some extra pins compared to the reference LGA2011-v3 grid patten. As per Asus it offers some good Overclocking benefits and Compatibility wise, its compatible with the newer generation Intel LGA2011-v3 socket based CPUs. The following X99 motherboards from Asus will feature the OC Socket :

• ROG Rampage V Extreme
• ASUS X99-Deluxe
• ASUS X99-Pro
• ASUS X99-A

What is OC Socket?

Haswell-E (Intel Core i7-5960X, 5930X and 5280K) processors actually have more pads than the reference LGA2011-3 socket design, so ASUS added extra socket pins to tap this resource. OC Socket is an enhancement based on the reference LGA2011-3 design, so for users not overclocking or tweaking voltages in the BIOS, OC Socket does not activate. However for those that do overclock and tune performance, there’s significant benefits.

Here are some comparisons between Reference Socket, OC Socket and the Haswell :

As per Asus other benefits of the OC Socket as follows –

Very Tiny Voltage drop :

Per Core Finetuning :

Even more DD4 performance :

Source : Asus

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Asus X99-Deluxe Tops this range and comes fully loaded while the 2 little siblings viz. X99-Pro and X99-A are designed for Budget conscious enthusiasts and gamers with a little feature reduction compared to X99-Deluxe. The X99-Deluxe is now available while X99-A will follow up in stores shortly and X99-Pro will show up at the end of September. All of them support Quad channel DDR4 with over 3Ghz+(OC) frequency support.

The Deluxe comes loaded with :

• 802.11ac 3×3 (3T3R) WiFi adapter
• Crystal Sound 2 with DTS
• Hyper M.2 X4 PCI-Express card for dual 32Gbps M.2 SSD support
• Fan extension hub with 3 extra 4-pin fan connectors

X99-Deluxe Gallery :

Source : Asus

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So now we have the price and the ability to buy it on retails channel.

First up on the list in the big brother : Maximus VII Hero priced at around  Rs 18100 as suggested by Asus.

then comes the next one… MAXIMUS VII Ranger priced at around 15000

And last but not the least Maximus VI Gene priced at around Rs 16800.

Expecting them to be stocked by the retailers by next week.

And wait for our reviews on the two big boys : Hero and Ranger.

The post ASUS Introduces Three Intel Z97 based ROG Motherboards appeared first on OCFreaks!.

 Lets check out what in the box, shall we?
The motherboard comes in a black big box with a sleek design with special mention of the five way optimization that Asus brings to table with this generation.

Other prominent features of the board such as the Wi-Fi GO!, Turbo App, Crystal Sound 2 and Turbo LAN are highlighted at the rear of the packaging.

Looking inside the box we see a nice package including

• The Motherbaord
• The user Guide
• A brochure highlighting the main features
• Sli Bridge
• 6x Sata Cables
• Q-Connectors
• I/O shield
• 1x Wi-Fi/Bluetooth antenna

The post Asus Z97-Deluxe Review part 1 appeared first on OCFreaks!.

Asus today announced the launch of AM1M-A motherbaord for Kabini APU’s in India.
Priced at around INR 2400 the motherboard boasts of ASUS 5X Protection.
It also includes ASUS DIGI+ VRM (voltage-regulator module),over current protection to prevent short circuits,ESD guards etc.
On the software side we have the well-known UEFI bios of Asus which is among the most user-friendly bios around and AI Suite 3 for system tuning and overclocking.
It’s good to see that Asus is implementing almost all the software feature set on the lower end of the spectrum too.
The product page can be found here

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ASUS today launched professional 31.5” 4K UHD Monitor PQ321QE in India. The monitor has 31.5-inch 4K display with ultra-high definition (UHD) 3840 x 2160 resolution and 140 pixels per inch (PPI) for impeccable visuals. An anti-glare, LED-backlit IGZO display delivers crisp, precise images with energy efficiency with an ultra-wide viewing angle. The monitor is thinnest 4K UHD monitor ever with DisplayPort and built-in 2W stereo speakers.  It also has a unique wall mountable design with tilt, swivel, and height adjustments.

The ASUS PQ321QE True 4K UHD monitor has 10-bit RGB panels that deliver more natural transitions between different hues and offer a more flawless image than ever before. It features an anti-glare Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide (IGZO) panel rather than traditional amorphous silicon. The IGZO panel supports much smaller transistors than amorphous silicon, which allows for much smaller pixels and much better detail. Coupled with ultra-wide 176-degree viewing angles on both vertical and horizontal planes, it delivers a pristine image from virtually any angle. The IGZO panel also supports increased pixel transparency and reduced current leakage for increased energy savings.

The suggested pricing is around INR 2,35,000 excluding taxes which is about USD 3900.

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Asus just released some information about the availability and specifications of the new Matrix R9 290X and GTX 780 Ti GPU’s.

Both the cards come loaded with Asus standard fare stuff on both hardware and software side like the DIGI+ 14 phase VRM,single push bios change,LN2 jumper and Asus GPU tweak.

Prices are stated at 54K for the 290x and 60K for the 780Ti for now.

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Introduction
Sandy Bridge E remains an interesting topic of discussion. Introduced in Q4 2011, this was camp blue’s enthusiast platform, offering the crème-de-la-crème for the crowd who didn’t mind paying a premium. Now, in 2014, when the mainstream segments have already passed two generations (Ivy Bridge, Haswell), Intel hasn’t updated the enthusiast platform in a similar way. Even with the introduction of Ivy Bridge E, the next step in processor architecture, we are still seeing no new chipsets being launched. The existing X79 boards are getting BIOS or firmware upgrades to work with the newer batch of processors, alongside the launch of a handful of new boards. So before Haswell E arrives (Q2 2014?) the enthusiast platform remains X79, now two and a half years old.

Asus are the forerunners when it comes to motherboards, both in terms of features and revenues (motherboards sold in million units). They have diversified their entire motherboard range in a few distinct sections, each trying to cater to a different crowd, keeping a couple of base features which are enforced on every segment to make sure they retain the same quality, and then according to the segment, adding couple of brownie points. So we have their Republic of Gamers range, the TUF (The Ultimate Force)range, and their mainstream range (Pro/Deluxe/WS), each coming with different color schemes (red/black for ROG, black/gold for mainstream, grey/army green for TUF). Asus also uses different VRM circuitry/audio components and/or software tweaks on certain products to differentiate them from others in their huge array of motherboards.

For ROG, the differentiation runs deep – even in names. While Maximus is the name given to mainstream ROG boards, the enthusiast chipset ROG boards get a more intimidating Rampage moniker. The rest remains the same – Gene for Micro ATX, Formula as their top-dog gaming solution with premium audio in terms of SupremeFX, and Extreme as the flagship enthusiast/benching/uber-high end gaming motherboard (additions to this range are Hero – the budget ATX board and Impact – the mini ITX ROG board, introduced in the Z87/Haswell range). For Ivy Bridge E, however, Asus has introduced a single ROG motherboard (X79-Deluxe being the only other motherboard released), and we have it today in our labs for testing.

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Intel likes to update their processor architectures every couple of years. This however comes in two forms, which Intel likes to call ‘Tick-Tock’. Tick basically gives the present architecture a die shrink, adds a couple more features and optionally new instruction sets, while the more evolutionary Tock represents a new micro architecture.

Let’s look back at the last couple of years before we delve into today’s review.
With Sandy Bridge, Intel introduced a major architectural change, probably their best barring Conroe, and shook the market quite a bit. Ivy Bridge, the die shrink to Sandy Bridge, didn’t meet with as much enthusiasm as its predecessor due to the heat issues and a new chipset almost forced upon consumers besides providing near identical performance as comparable Sandy Bridge parts. All this time, Intel really did not have any true competition on hand. With AMD focusing on mobile parts and APU solutions and receding themselves into value oriented markets, they probably didn’t need to. Enter Haswell – Intel’s newest Tock, featuring a 22nm process, and a plethora of other options including the voltage regulators now being on die and not on motherboard itself. With it, Intel has also introduced a chipset in the form of Z87 (as is obvious).
With Haswell though, Intel’s focus is clear – providing the same/better performance with much better thermals and power consumption. It might not look important for the average Joe, but when you consider mobile space, and Ultrabooks or tablet hybrids like the Surface Pro, the advantage becomes really apparent.
Z87 as a chipset is going through same iterations from motherboard manufacturers – most of them have today a consumer range, a gaming range, and an enthusiast range.
Asus is no different. With Republic of Gamers, Asus already has probably the best branding in their hands, and it is divided into the following categories –

1. Impact – Mini ITX ROG board introduced in Z87, best for SFF gaming systems.
2. Gene – Micro ATX suited for best bang for the buck systems.
3. Hero – Entry level ATX board introduced in Z87.
4. Formula – Prosumer gaming board with best on board audio.
5. Extreme – Geared mostly for LN2 overclockers and enthusiasts.

These boards range from $195 to $380 depending upon your choice/preferences.

We are looking today at the Maximus VI Formula, priced at a hefty $300. Asus puts the Formula as their crème de la crème Gaming board, and equips the board with a set of overclocking and gaming features which they say are significantly better than others. The main one among them is what they call SupremeFX Audio. ROG shield also debuts with the Formula, with a plastic/metal sheath covering the board also seen in their Sabertooth series. So is this the best gaming board that you have been looking for? Let’s take a look.

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