We'll all be familiar with ASUS's ROG packaging by now, the vibrant red box with the motherboard's name printed in bold across the top. It makes for a very attractive packaging, oozing with style. The Republic Of Gamers logo gives it a sense of exclusivity and premium quality ASUS has become renowned for. The size of the box itself is tiny in comparison to the Rampage III Extreme's packaging. Measuring at 28 x 26.5 x 8cm, it is dwarfed by the 36.5 x 32.5 x 12.5cm volume of Extreme's box. At the bottom, we can see that the board supports Intel Core i7 LGA 1366 CPUs, Nvidia SLI and ATI CrossFireX.


Turning to the back of the box, ASUS lists some of the specifications that was detailed two pages back. These are neatly tabled for easy reading and on the left, some of the key features are shown with illustrations. The board's unique aspects are the ROG Connect feature, which we will cover later on, the GameFirst application and the SupremeFX X-Fi 2 chip supporting 8-audio channels.


A closer look at the back and it becomes clearer what each feature does. If the size of the box wasn't enough of a give-away, the specifications makes it clear that the Gene is a micro-ATX motherboard spanning 24.4 x 24.4cm.


Each side of the cuboid box has the Rampage III Gene name emblazoned on.


As we have seen before, the front of the box makes use of a flap to accommodate more information on the board. Each feature is followed with by a short description to inform users how each will benefit their experience. Under the tweak-ability tab, the board offers the ROG Connect and Probelt feature for remote overclocking and more accurate voltage probing. The latter was also a feature on the Rampage III Extreme and Maximus III Extreme reviewed here. For performance, the motherboard has CPU Level Up which can instantly overclock the processor to clock speeds of higher SKUs. Of course, the ROG motherboards fame themselves on providing a number of ways in overclocking the CPU and the Rampage III Gene is no exception to this philosophy. At the top, ASUS have kindly written what exactly makes the Republic Of Gamers products superior to other competing solutions. We'll have to see for ourselves if their words hold true.


Rather than using a clear Perspex to showcase the motherboard inside, ASUS lists even more features below the flap, this time telling users how the Gene can deliver the best gaming experience with its superior sounds quality and GameFirst application. Kaspersky Anti-Virus is also bundled for users to take advantage of.