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Some questions on Rampage VI Extreme, water cooling, RGB, TBolt, etc...

DJLTY
Level 7
Hi all,

First post here, but been using ROG stuff for years. Loved my G75VW laptop, and my Maximus VII Hero has given me no problems for years & years. Finally retiring it & building a new machine, but it's been a while & I have some questions about configurations that I can't seem to google correctly (or find in the manual).



1) I have a couple Samsung 960 pros, a 512gb which I intend to use as the boot drive, and a 2tb for storage (both nvme 2280s). I'd like them to run at max speed pcie 4x, but not sure how that works...I see on the MB there's 2 places to mount them; one is the DIMM.2 slot next to the RAM that holds 2 m.2s, the other is a single slot covered by the shroud on the motherboard itself. I've just heard some difficulties from people booting from m.2s, but am I correct in the assumption that the single m.2 socket in the center of the MB is the bootable one? Or does it not even matter in the bios, like sata drives?

2) I have some RGB corsair fans (3 120mm & 3 140mm), along with 4 corsair LED strips that all connect to a lighting node pro. This has a 4pin cable coming off of it, and the Rampage has 3 different headers for RGB - 2 are Aura RGB headers, and the other is an "addressable RGB header". Again, am I correct in assuming that the 1 cable from the Corsair lighting node pro goes to one of the Aura headers, & you just manage the lighting from corsair link program in windows? The lighting node pro has a usb 2 & both sata and molex power, so I don't think there will be much draw as far as amps from one header on the motherboard, but...? Damn.

3) I will be putting in an EK P360 watercooler for the CPU, & this board has...quite a few different headers on it, many more than the 3-5 chassis fan ones I'm familiar with lol 😄 Among them, 2 are labeled "4-pin W_PUMP+1; 4-pin W_PUMP+2", and a few labeled "Water in, water out, and water flow connectors (2-pin W_IN; 2-pin W_OUT; 3-pin W_FLOW)", and finally one labeled "Water Block connector (9 pin WB_SENSOR)". This is the first non "all in one" watercooling setup I've done, I'm hoping EK is pretty detailed with their instructions, but can someone maybe clear up a little bit of this for me? Are some connectors optional or not needed? The watercooling kit has a combination pump/reservoir, it's an EK-XRES 140 Revo D5 PWM with a combined pump/reservoir. I'm trying to look up youtube videos on this stuff as well, but so much of it is just ads ads ads. Ugh.

4) What thunderbolt version does this board have? The board also has both USB 3.1 Gen 1 & Gen 2 expansion slots, as well as a thunderbolt one, does anyone know of a good front panel (either 3.5 or 5.25 bay) that has any combination of 3.1 Gen 2 type A, type C, and thunderbolt? I'm honestly a little stunned how hard it is to find one. I'd rather have a front panel for ease of connection than cards on the board and more ports in the back.

5) Is there any device that connects to the ROG Extension connector other than the ROG front base, or the "OC Panel"? I can't seem to find much here, I'm hoping Asus doesn't abandon this connector.



Sorry for the gauntlet of questions, but I'm really stoked on this new build and I'd just like to do it right the first time, since I know what a pain in the ass it is to jump back in and tinker with things (especially with the water cooling lol).

If you can help with any or all of these it'd be much appreciated! Thanks guys!
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2 REPLIES 2

GEEKCPA
Level 8
There are some things in your questions I'm not sure of...yet...because I've not set my R6E up yet, but I'll give it a shot.

1) I believe you can boot from a Samsung NVMe drive in either of the slots--except a Raid 0 bootable array cannot be made using Samsung drives. Using Intel NVMe's and VROC is the only way to get a bootable Raid 0 config. I bought the Intel Pcie x4 900p card that is supposed to be OK for OS install and boot. I'll put two 960 Pros on the DIMM.2 card and try to create a Raid 0 data drive for programs.

2) The Corsair lighting Node is not supposed to attach to the R6E RGB headers as the R6E is 12V and the Corsair is 5V. Your Lighting node Pro attaches to the MB with a USB cable. As there's only 1 USB 2.0 port on the R6E you'll need a USB port splitter. I bought one that has 4 or 5 USB connections so I can connect other devices. The Corsair link software detects and controls the Lighting Node Pro through the USB bus.

3) The other stuff...I forgot

JustinThyme
Level 13
DJLTY wrote:
Hi all,

First post here, but been using ROG stuff for years. Loved my G75VW laptop, and my Maximus VII Hero has given me no problems for years & years. Finally retiring it & building a new machine, but it's been a while & I have some questions about configurations that I can't seem to google correctly (or find in the manual).



1) I have a couple Samsung 960 pros, a 512gb which I intend to use as the boot drive, and a 2tb for storage (both nvme 2280s). I'd like them to run at max speed pcie 4x, but not sure how that works...I see on the MB there's 2 places to mount them; one is the DIMM.2 slot next to the RAM that holds 2 m.2s, the other is a single slot covered by the shroud on the motherboard itself. I've just heard some difficulties from people booting from m.2s, but am I correct in the assumption that the single m.2 socket in the center of the MB is the bootable one? Or does it not even matter in the bios, like sata drives?

2) I have some RGB corsair fans (3 120mm & 3 140mm), along with 4 corsair LED strips that all connect to a lighting node pro. This has a 4pin cable coming off of it, and the Rampage has 3 different headers for RGB - 2 are Aura RGB headers, and the other is an "addressable RGB header". Again, am I correct in assuming that the 1 cable from the Corsair lighting node pro goes to one of the Aura headers, & you just manage the lighting from corsair link program in windows? The lighting node pro has a usb 2 & both sata and molex power, so I don't think there will be much draw as far as amps from one header on the motherboard, but...? Damn.

3) I will be putting in an EK P360 watercooler for the CPU, & this board has...quite a few different headers on it, many more than the 3-5 chassis fan ones I'm familiar with lol 😄 Among them, 2 are labeled "4-pin W_PUMP+1; 4-pin W_PUMP+2", and a few labeled "Water in, water out, and water flow connectors (2-pin W_IN; 2-pin W_OUT; 3-pin W_FLOW)", and finally one labeled "Water Block connector (9 pin WB_SENSOR)". This is the first non "all in one" watercooling setup I've done, I'm hoping EK is pretty detailed with their instructions, but can someone maybe clear up a little bit of this for me? Are some connectors optional or not needed? The watercooling kit has a combination pump/reservoir, it's an EK-XRES 140 Revo D5 PWM with a combined pump/reservoir. I'm trying to look up youtube videos on this stuff as well, but so much of it is just ads ads ads. Ugh.

4) What thunderbolt version does this board have? The board also has both USB 3.1 Gen 1 & Gen 2 expansion slots, as well as a thunderbolt one, does anyone know of a good front panel (either 3.5 or 5.25 bay) that has any combination of 3.1 Gen 2 type A, type C, and thunderbolt? I'm honestly a little stunned how hard it is to find one. I'd rather have a front panel for ease of connection than cards on the board and more ports in the back.

5) Is there any device that connects to the ROG Extension connector other than the ROG front base, or the "OC Panel"? I can't seem to find much here, I'm hoping Asus doesn't abandon this connector.


Sorry for the gauntlet of questions, but I'm really stoked on this new build and I'd just like to do it right the first time, since I know what a pain in the ass it is to jump back in and tinker with things (especially with the water cooling lol).

If you can help with any or all of these it'd be much appreciated! Thanks guys!


1) Any of the M2 slots can be used as boot drives or data drives so long as you are talking about straight up drives and are not intending on using VROC

2) The RGB corsair fans cant be controlled by the motherboard AURA controller, you will need to use the Corsair controller connected via USB and Corsair software

3) For the pump you will need only to connect to the PWM connector of the D5 to this header and power to a molex. The others are for flow meters and temp sensors and the 9 pin had not yet been used although Bitspower has one in the making but a bit late to the show.

4) Thunderbolt will require an add on card. They are hard to find as this is one of those technologies that was a brain fart that has dissipated into the wind and not really necessary on a desktop machine.

5) There is an ROG EXT connector, what devices it supports is unclear. I believe someone has tried the front panel OC and it was inoperable and not supported on this board. I personally found it to be a trinket that ended up in the trash bin.



“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, I'm not sure about the former” ~ Albert Einstein