The Asus Blitz Extreme motherboard is one out of three new motherboards under the “Republic of Gamers” (ROG) brand – along with the Asus Crosshair and the Asus Striker Extreme. Unlike “Republic of Gamers” may sound like (some mystical gamer country…), it is in fact just the brand name for Asus’ premium motherboards.

Here are the stats for the Asus Blitz:

- Support Intel® next generation 45nm Multi-core CPU
- Intel® Quad-core CPU Ready
- Intel® Core™2 Extreme / Core™2 Duo Ready
- Intel® P35/ICH9R
- Dual-channel DDR3 1333/1066
- Fusion Block System
- Crosslinx
- Extreme Tweaker
- SupremeFX II
- LCD Poster
- EL I/O

With the Asus Blitz Extreme you have many options when selecting what processor to use. As well as the new 1333mhz Intel core 2′s, it is also backwards compatible so it will take any Intel CPU back t othe LGA775 Pentium 4.

The Asus Blitz Extreme has four DDR3 sockets and can handle upto 8GB of DDR3 memory.

The motherboard itself visually is very appealing, and unlike the Asus Crosshair, which had strips of LEDs, have not been included in the Blitz.

The CPU is easily accessible for CPU cooler/heatsink installation, with plenty of room around it.

The LCD display for POST information can be removed from the board itself and mounted ontop of your case with the provided stand, which means you can now easily read the display.

On the back of the motherboard you can find the analogue audio outputs on a seperate daughterboard. There is no PS/2 mouse socket (the PS/2 keyboard socket is still there) – the space has been replaced with a USB port. Not that that really matters – I’ve been using USB mice for years now. There are a total of six USB ports on board the Asus Blitz Extreme.

The northbridge heatsink is a copper waterblock, however it is fine (according to Asus) to use it with just normal air cooling. The Asus Blitz Extreme is one of only a few motherboards that comes pre fitted with water cooling facilities. The Blitz comes with all the attachments required for connecting a water cooling system, including a 3/8in ID and 1/2in ID adaptors.

The six internal SATA ports and EIDE port are found on the right hand side of the motherboard and are easily accessed and makes the insides of your case a little bit more tidy.

All in all this motherboard is of very high quality, and even at £185 if you want to overclock and water cool your PC this is the ideal motherboard for you at the moment. Rating: 9/10 and we give it the Best Overclocking Motherboard – Mid 2007