ASUS has been in business since 1989, so you better believe that we have some fun pieces of history packed up carefully in storage. We’ve been pushing the limits of PC hardware for a very long time, and that’s especially apparent with our Republic of Gamers sub-brand. ROG kicked off in 2006 with a bang through game-changing tech that gave the growing community of hardware-obsessed gamers more overclocking prowess, more control, and more style. Weve been prepping for our upcoming ROG 20th Anniversary celebrations, and in the process we unearthed two of our classic boards. To celebrate the occasion, we decided to give these gaming veterans a photoshoot.
Why were we digging up classic ROG motherboards from our storage facilities? Good question. Glad you asked. And we sincerely apologize, but you’ll have to wait just a little longer for the answer to that question.
To tide you over, let’s go on a little trip back to a formative moment in PC gaming history. In 2006 and 2007, gaming was having itself a moment. The enduring influence of the games from those years can’t be overstated. We’re talking about titles like World of Warcraft, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, and BioShock. The classic Orange Box bundle from Valve containing Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episode One, and Half-Life 2: Episode Two that managed to throw in Portal and Team Fortress 2 as fun little extras. The first Witcher. All those “but can it run Crysis?” memes? You can thank 2007 for those.
The possibilities for gaming were growing at such a fast clip that PC hardware went on an absolute tear to keep pace with gamers’ desires for ever-higher frame rates, more realistic graphics, and faster gameplay. The war between AMD and Intel to win over the hard-earned dollars of gamers led to legendary CPU lineups. The modern graphics card took form, along with the ability to outfit your PC with more than one thanks to SLI and Crossfire technology. Many of the main players in today’s ecosystem of PC parts, displays, prebuilts, laptops, and peripherals emerged or rose to new heights during this time period.
In the midst of that revolution, we dropped the ROG Crosshair and the ROG Striker Extreme motherboards. Don’t think for a moment that these boards were representative of the era. They stood out. They made a statement. We made no bones about our intentions to elevate PC hardware to new levels of performance, control, and luxury, and we proved it through product designs that aimed higher than anything else on the market.
Let’s take a closer look at the specs of these two game-changers. It’s been a while since their product pages were live on our website, but you can still get all the details from their original user manuals, available on our support page.
| ROG Crosshair | ROG Striker Extreme | |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Socket AM2 Athlon 64 X2 Athlon 64 FX Athlon 64 Sempron | Socket LGA775 Core 2 Extreme Core 2 Duo Pentium Extreme Pentium D Pentium 4 Celeron D |
| Chipset | NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP | NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI |
| RAM | Up to 8GB DDR2 | |
| PCIe | 2 x PCIe x16 1 x PCIe x4 3 x PCI 2.2 | 2 x PCIe x16 1 x PCIe 16 (@x8) 1 x PCIe x1 2 x PCI 2.2 |
| Networking | Dual Gigabit LAN | |
| Storage | 1 x Ultra DMA 6 x Serial ATA 3.0 GB/s |
|
| Audio | SupremeFX Audio Card | |
| Rear I/O | 2 x PS/2 1 x Optical S/PDIF 1 x Coaxial S/PDIF 2 x External Serial ATA 2 x LAN 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 1 x IEEE1394a 1 x Onboard LED switch |
|
| Special Features | LCD Poster Onboard LED Q-Connector |
|
The ROG Crosshair has a special place in our hearts as the very first ROG motherboard. Arriving in 2006 with support for dual-core Athlon 64 processors for Socket AM2, it delivered the very latest technology in a tweaker-friendly package loaded with thoughtful features and indulgent extras.
Much of the ROG Crosshair’s appeal came from its incredible support for ambitious overclocking. PC enthusiasts knew that AMD’s 90-nm silicon had more to offer, and they were willing to roll up their sleeves, install an aftermarket cooler, and go to work in BIOS to extract its full performance. But this motherboard wasn’t just for veterans. By exposing esoteric overclocking options in a user-friendly BIOS, the Crosshair gave newcomers an accessible entry point to the world of PC performance tuning.
Motherboard aesthetics changed a lot in the years that followed. The original ROG Crosshair still had one foot in classic PC component design, as seen in its cheerfully colorful expansion slots, headers, and DRAM slots. That copper, though. The tall copper heatsinks and heatpipes made a statement even as they empowered aggressive overclocking through their exceptional cooling characteristics.
These days, multi-GPU gaming is largely in the rear-view mirror. Folks are still installing and running multiple graphics cards, but that’s mostly to accelerate their ambitions in content creation and AI through vast pools of VRAM. But in 2006, gamers loved the idea of dropping two graphics cards into their system, or at least the idea of effortlessly boosting their PC down the road by adding a second card to the mix. The Crosshair’s wide-ranging expansion slots and NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP chipset made it possible.
Launched in 2007, the ROG Striker Extreme had the benefit of another year of ROG engineering innovation. This work is nowhere more noticeable than in the incredible VRM and chipset cooling built into the board. Copper heatsinks and heatpipes surround the Intel LGA775 socket, making sure that owners of a top-end Intel Core 2 Extreme processor could push it to the limits.
Part of the challenge of running an SLI rig back in 2007 was that the chipset in charge of the process could get a little toasty. ROG did far more than most to mitigate this concern. Dedicated heatsinks connected into a board-ranging cooling solution help tame temperatures. The subsequent ROG Striker II Extreme went even further by giving builders the option to connect the Northbridge heatsink into a custom liquid cooling loop.
Even in 2007, ROG was still figuring out parts of its identity. Rather than the “Fearless Eye” logo which graces modern ROG hardware, both these boards featured a cubic G logo that paid homage to the Republic’s origins in “Project G,” the working name of the group of engineers and enthusiasts within ASUS who were inspired to start the work that led to the launch of ROG in 2006.
Both the ROG Crosshair and ROG Striker Extreme are remarkable for how they set the bar for subsequent generations of motherboards. Their laser-focus on cooling kicked off an ongoing series of innovations. They established PC components as things that you might want to look at sometimes, not just hide inside a chassis. They put power in the hands of PC builders, entrusting them with versatile connectivity options and granular controls. And they made a clear, unambiguous connection between superior hardware and elevated gaming experiences.
There’s a lot more to say about ROG’s history, and there’s a lot more to come in this our anniversary year. For a broader look at our story of relentless innovation over the last twenty years, check out this seven-part retrospective. To be among the first to hear about our latest announcements, subscribe to our newsletter using the widget in the upper right hand corner of this page.