Christmas hardware wishlist – motherboards

If you’ve been around to the shops recently you’ll have noticed that the Christmas decorations are in full swing.

You’ll also have noticed the amount of people running around trying to get last minute presents sorted, buying whatever has been marked up to nearly double the price and having it wrapped up by the bored looking promotional attendants who can only stand so much holiday cheer.

If you’re shopping for yourself or a loved one who is into hardware, there are enough choices to drown a small village, which can make narrowing things down and choosing the right gift a little tougher this year.

While we can’t make the choice for you, we can tell you what’s on our wishlist, and we’ll do just that with 12 days of Christmas hardware.

Each day will be dedicated to a specific component, where we’ll list our top choices (a not-so-subtle hint for Santa). So without further ado, let’s get into it with our first hardware component – motherboards.

Asus Rampage IV Extreme

The Asus Rampage series of motherboards shouldn’t brand itself as “aimed at gamers”, it should brand itself aimed at those who want the ultimate performance and are willing to pay whatever is needed to get there. Like previous Rampage boards before it, the Rampage IV Extreme is a world record holder (3D Mark 11) and is used by many of the world’s best overclockers as the base for their high performance systems.

The board has all of the “normal” features found on enthusiast-level boards, including 8 x DDR3 2,400MHz RAM slots, 4 way SLI/CrossFireX, 10 SATA channels and 20 USB ports (8 of which are USB 3.0). However, it also features custom overclocking features, including the Republic of Gamers OC Key, which plugs into your system and gives you a new level of real time monitoring and control over aspects such as temperature, voltage and frequency.

A full OC kit, including Subzero sense, VGA hotwire and liquid Nitrogen (LN2) mode, round things off, making sure the board is fully prepared for all the extreme hardware shenanigans you have planned.

Asus Rampage IV Extreme

ASrock Z77 Extreme4-M

The flash glamour of a high-end motherboard is great if you can afford it, but for those that can’t, there is another champion – the ASrock Z77 Extreme4-M.

ASrock boards have improved in leaps and bounds over the last few years, to the point where they are a legitimate choice for gamers who want a decent, feature-rich motherboard that will stand the test of time (or at least last until it’s time for your next upgrade).

Featuring everything that a gamer is looking for, the board makes space for Quad CrossfireX/quad SLI (when using dual GPU cards), supports dual channel DDR3 at speeds of higher than 2,800MHz, has an array out video outputs including HDMI, VGA and DVI, and sports ASrock’s own Xfast and virtu universal MVP software, which improves speed and responsiveness in games and high intensity applications.

It does all of this for around R1,500 locally, now that’s Christmas wishlist material.