ASUS Maximus IV Extreme (P67) Motherboard Review

 

ASUS Maximus IV Extreme (P67) Motherboard Review

Last week we took our first look at Intel's new Sandy Bridge platform and were very impressed by the CPUs. Intel had also created an impressive board in the form of their DP67BG motherboard but as always there are motherboard manufacturers ready at launch to push Intel's chipset into a whole different league of features and performance.

Today we have one of the first high end P67 based boards on our test bench. With their Maximus IV Extreme ASUS hope to deliver a board which exceeds anything else on the market and we will be testing it in a selection of synthetic and real world tests to establish how good it is.

As this is a Republic of Gamers motherboard the box features the same style as a number of other recent ASUS boards. Inside the box the familiar Republic of Gamers experience continues as we find a bundle which exceeds pretty much anything on the market. We start with the usual manual, software CD etc and ASUS then add multi-GPU bridges, SATA 3 certified cables, wiring stickers, case stickers, thermal probes, voltage reader wiring and a Bluetooth 2.1+EDR module. In addition to this ASUS also bundle a cable to take advantage of the RoG remote management console for control of the board on a portable device and an I/O shield and wiring blocks which make the system building process as quick and simple as possible.

The Maximus IV Extreme is an extended ATX motherboard which, as expected, features the 1155 socket towards the top of the board. On three sides of the socket we find aluminium passive heatsinks with a copper heatpipe passing through each. These cool some of the power circuitry and towards the top of the board are a set of LEDs which give us the status of various system aspects and the power/reset buttons.

All of the socket 1155 CPUs are supported by this board and it is capable of holding 32GB of DDR3 with 1600MHz supported without issue, and speeds above this easily selected in the BIOS.

Down at the bottom left of the board we find our add-in card slots which run from PCIe 16x through PCIe 1x, three full length PCIe (8x, 16x, 16x) to a 4x slot. Beneath the slots we can see the main reason the board is able to offer this connectivity, a PLX branded PCIe controller/switch which adds lanes to those already available on the P67.

Over to the right we find the USB headers and dual BIOS chips which facilitate easy recovery from failed overclocks. On the edge of the board are eight SATA ports with the black signifying SATA 3GB/s, first two red 6GB/s (Intel) final two red meaning 6GB/s on the Marvell 9128 controller. RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 are all supported by this board.

Also dotted around the PCB, with a number of components being found in this area are ASUS's own power design circuitry. This includes an Energy Processing unit which monitors power consumption, maximising efficiency. Along with this ASUS use a new VRM design (DIGI+) which has an 8 phase CPU, 3 phase memory architecture to enhance efficiency, reduce heat and improve reliability and stability. TPU, which stands for TurboV Processing Unit, is another on-board processor which allows us to overclock/enhance the board with minimal effort.

There is nothing new in terms of power connectors on this P67 board, a standard 24/8-pin configuration is present along with a Molex connector for use with high power multi-GPU SLI/CrossFire configurations. Alongside the 24-pin connector are a selection of headers which allow us the ability to connect a multi-meter to monitor the system.

Round on the IO panel we find a PS/2 connector, eight USB 3.0, 2x Jmicron eSATA, dual Intel GB LAN, Realtek 7.1 audio with optical out and a single USB 2.0 port which is also used for RoG Connect. A clear CMOS button is also present on the back panel to assist in recovering from any system issues as is a separate button which enables ROG connect but also allows us to flash the BIOS in standby mode from a USB stick (BIOS Flashback).

Conclusion

When we took an initial look at the Sandy Bridge platform last week we included two motherboards from Intel which, as always, set the bar high for quality and performance. With their Maximus IV Extreme ASUS have taken the platform to an entirely new level, even at this early stage.

Essentially what we have here, from a design and build quality perspective, is the result of the ASUS engineers sitting down and throwing everything they could at the P67 platform. Through the inclusion of tried and tested Republic of Gamers technology they offer features such as the ability to monitor and control the board from a second system but for the new platform aspects such as this have been enhanced over other models. The ability to control the system, via Bluetooth, from an iDevice being an ideal example.

As noted in the review ASUS have also ensured that we get all of the features we would expect from their RoG family, such as more PCIe lanes, support for DDR3-2000+, enhanced power design and then of course there are eight on-board USB 3.0 ports with two more available on the front panel... and four SATA 6GB/s connectors. All of these combine to give a board which doesn't disappoint on any level and frequently manages to squeeze a little extra performance out of every component installed on it. A particular highlight was the CrossFire test where the enhanced PCIe configuration of the Maximus board allowed it to perform noticeably higher than a standard P67 board.

We were also hugely impressed by ASUS implementation of the EFI based BIOS which looks great, is simple to use and really does enhance the user experience. For those who missed the video, here it is again.

Of course, as always, a board like this does come at a high price. £299 /$349 is a lot for a P67 board but this is a case of the consumer getting what they pay for.

Summary
Packed with features and performance the Maximus IV Extreme is a phenomenal P67 board.

 

Source : hardwareheaven.com