ASUS 680i SLI Striker Extreme Motherboard Review :: ASUS 680i SLI Striker Extreme Layout

The layout of the board is quite intriguing. The Southbridge is covered by a metal plate with the Republic of Gamer's logo on it. A heatpipe leads out to the two heatsinks, one on the right hand corner of the board one on the top right corner of the board. The Northbridge is covered by a heatsink with a heatpipe leading to the two heatsinks as well. This arrangement surrounds the CPU area leaving the CPU area completely free of obstacles.

Northbridge

Southbridge

Heat Pipe

8-pin power

24-pin power

USB Headers

Firewire

The 8-pin EPS12V power connector is on the top right of the board, allowing for the user to snake the cable directly from the power supply to the connector. Likewise, the 24-pin power connector is located on the bottom of the board next to the IDE and Floppy drive connectors. Two USB headers and an IEEE-1394 header bring the total on the board to 2 Firewire ports and 8 USB ports maximum.

three buttons

Front Panel IO

P-ELJ1

Opt Temp1

Capacitors

This board has a new feature not found on previous motherboards, three buttons, Power, Reset and Clear CMOS. This allows you to turn on the computer without putting the connection into the front panel IO, reset the computer and clear the CMOS without using a jumper. I hope that in the future all motherboards would come with this feature, as it is most useful. The Front Panel IO is labeled, but not color coded. The Q-Connector in the bundle is labeled and color-coded. A VIA VT6308P chip controls the Firewire on the board. An ITE 8712F chip controls the Floppy disk.

Opt Fan 1

Opt Fan 2

CPU Fan

The 680i motherboard from ASUS is built on a 6-layer rather than a 4-layer process. The normal motherboard design has a signals layer on the top, power, ground and more signal layers on the bottom of the board. The 6-layer board has two extra layers in the middle of the board, allowing for optimal power delivery to the board and a more stable board than most 4-layer boards would have.

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