The DFI board comes packaged in a very cleanly designed box, just enough words to tell you what's inside.

The layout of the board is quite neat, and I believe that there should not be any issues like blockages, etc. when it comes to installing and removing components.

Seen here is the Intel X48 chipset. X38 and X48 chipsets come with an IHS. A riser-type push-pin heatsink is included in the package. There is no northbridge heatsink attached by default for obvious reasons.

The spacing of the upper two PCI-E x16 slots is well thought out. There would be ample breathing room for cards in Crossfire mode.

Also available on this board are the power and reset buttons. Makes things much easier for overclockers/tweakers/enthusiasts who run open-air systems. Gone are the days of shorting pins with a flat-head screwdriver.

The PWM heatsink extends to the edge of the board for improved cooling performance. Heat is able to escape directly via the I/O shield and not circulate around the CPU area.

DFI has not only kept the legacy PS/2 ports, but also has 6 USB ports, 2 LAN ports, and a firewire port too.

The DFI LanParty LT X48-T2R is retailing for a comparatively cheaper price of only $399.

The large attractive package ASUS has been using since the Blitz and Commando days. The board comes packed in a hard plastic holder, while all accessories and documents are packed in a separate flat box.

The Rampage Formula is identical to the Maximus Formula. Well, both boards use the same PCB. The only change we could find is an updated 'Republic of Gamers' logo found on the southbridge heatsink. It is understood that the Rampage Formula has undergone some BIOS tweaking as well.

The board runs on an 8-phase PWM, and sports ASUS EPU technology, which helps to conserve power. The heatsink network on this board are actually two separate blocks. The MOSFETs are cooled by one heatsink block, while the northbridge and southbridge are cooled by the other block.

Please note the space clearance on this board's CPU socket area. The heatsinks on this board are not small to begin with, and may cause some mounting problems with extremely large CPU heatsinks.

We have two PCI-E x16 slots for CrossFire, two PCI-E x1 slots and two PCI 2.2 slots on this board. There are buttons designated for power and reset functions on this board itself.

Similar to the DFI board, the heatsinks extend all the way to the edge of the board for better cooling.

As with all later ASUS motherboards, they dropped the PS/2 mouse port, but retained the PS/2 keyboard port.

Not only does the Rampage Formula offer users six USB ports, two LAN ports and a Firewire port, it also provides a coaxial S/PDIF audio output and an optical output.

A very handy feature is the 'Clr CMOS' button located at the back.

This board isn't cheap. It retails for $539. It has an excellent passive cooling system, great board layout, and is feature-packed. Not only that, it carries on the tradition of high overclockability on RoG boards. So is it worth your money? Probably it would be a resounding 'yes' from the enthusiast/overclocking community, but if you are already using the Maximus Formula, you might like to think twice before purchasing the Rampage Formula.

All the cards that we see here are based on nVidia's reference design. What separates the different cards are the software bundle, and yes, the packaging and the design sticker on the card. It's just like the 8800GTS and 8800GTX days where you 'buy the card that has the nicest box'. Heh. Well, at least I did, and I told others the same too.

Inno3D's package looks pretty much smaller than Leadtek's.

If not for the stickers, you wouldn't know which brand your card came from!

However, we note that there are no more side vents on the reference cooler itself. All hot air is ducted directly to the rear and out through the PCI vents. On the earlier 8800GTS and the 8800GTX, the side vents would allow hot air to re-circulate into the casing, introuducing more heat, but that wouldn't be a problem if you have adequate cooling to force the hot air out.

Two DVI outputs and the exhaust vents - similar to the 8800GTS and 8800GTX. You get a pair of SLI connectors on the card for Tri-SLI capability.

The Inno3D GeForce 9800GTX 512MB is priced very competitively at $485. 

Let's move on with the Leadtek card. The same box design of white-and-orange has been used since the 8800 days, but you get a pretty cool looking figure on the box this time!

The Leadtek 9800GTX 512MB card itself.

Unlike the 9800GX2, which requires both a single 6-pin PCI-E cable and a single 8-pin PCI-E cable, the 9800GTX needs two 6-pin PCI-E cables. No 8-pin PCI-E cables are required. This is similar to the older 8800GTX.


The Leadtek GeForce 9800GTX 512MB goes for $519. It's a bit steep comparatively at the moment, but I'm sure pricing will go down soon.

Not featured here (oops, stocks already ran out for this card during mid-week, but new shipment is arriving) is the XFX GeForce 9800GTX 512MB, which is also retailing at $485 (with a nicer box, if that matters to you, heh).

Well! What do we have here? An overclocked edition of the 9800GX2. This is XFX's XT variant of the GeForce 9800GX2. XFX has all along been providing two other higher clocked variants of their higher-end base models, for example: GeForce 8800GTX, 8800GTX XT and 8800GTX XXX.

This card is clocked at a nice 640MHz on the core.

Hey wait, that's not all. We have here also the 9800GTX XT from XFX. This card is clocked at 720MHz on the core, up from the default 675MHz.

The boxes are the same as the default-clocked versions, so the only way to tell is by the product label on the base of the box, or by the XT/XXX round sticker, and the core speed label.

Extreme Edition cards from XFX. (The XXX variant of the XFX GeForce 9800GTX 512MB should be on its way to the shelves. It is clocked at 740MHz core.)

The XFX GeForce 9800GTX 512MB XT is priced at $519 and the XFX GeForce 9800GX2 1GB XT is priced at $935. The standard versions are at $485 and $899 respectively.

Intel's latest and fastest quad core desktop processors - Core 2 Extreme QX9770 and QX9775. It is based on Intel's latest 45nm process, and clocks in at 3.2GHz with a large 12MB of L2 cache to go with it. This processor, sporting a 1600MHz system bus itself, was meant to be released together with Intel's X48 chipset, which officially supports a 1600MHz system bus. The QX9775 has similar specifications, but is meant for the higher end Skulltrail platform that supports SMP Dual Processor and Fully Buffered DIMM (FBDIMM), and sits on a LGA771 socket instead of the LGA775 for the QX9770.

This processors comes with a really hefty price tag of above SGD$2000! As for the exact figures, we'll leave it to you to call and enquire. The processors are available at Chamoxa Office Automation and Cybermind Computer House. 

Enermax Modu82+ is Enermax's latest line of modular power supplies. It is available in 525W and 625W configurations. One of the selling points of this power supply is its very high efficiency rate of 84-88%.

The 525W and 625W power supplies retail at $209 and $239 respectively.

Looking for a compact router or access point? Buffalo has an answer to that for only $59.

We placed a name card next to the mini router. Yes, that's how small the router is.

New on the shelf is Creative's Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio Notebook. Now you can enjoy X-Fi technology on your laptop via an ExpressCard solution.

The Xtreme Audio Notebook solution supports 5.1 and 7.1 channel output. Here is the output dongle to connect your audio devices.