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Firstly, we are pleased to report that our Leetgion Hellion mouse worked to its usual standard in the Asus Maximus VI Formula motherboard's UEFI BIOS. This is a positive point as we have experienced problems when using certain mice in the UEFI BIOS of other motherboards in the past.
If you read our review of the Maximus VI Extreme motherboard, you will notice the clear similarities between that board's UEFI BIOS and the implementation on the Maximus VI Formula. Most of the screenshots have been copied over from the Maximus VI Extreme review due to their identical nature, but nine new images have been input as the Formula variant does feature some slight differences in regards to UEFI BIOS options.
The Extreme Tweaker section of the Maximus VI Formula's UEFI BIOS is very similar to that of other Asus motherboards. Upon entering the Extreme Tweaker page, users are greeted by a well laid-out and easy to understand interface with plenty of tweaking options.
Plenty of CPU power and voltage adjustment settings can be accessed via their dedicated pages.
The main components that are connected to one's motherboard are outlined on the GPU.DIMM Post page of the Extreme Tweaker section.
The Maximus VI Formula ships with four customised overclocking profiles, as well as three ‘CPU level up' speed boosts. The specific overclocking profiles feature heavily tweaked settings for the base clock, multipliers, voltages, and memory configuration. CPU level up provides a simple multiplier and VCore boost.
Asus equips the M6F with a maximum memory multiplier of 32x. Plenty of timings settings can be accessed and manipulated.
As we saw Gigabyte supply with its Z87-D3HP motherboard and ASRock with the Z87 OC Formula, Asus' Maximus VI Formula features a list of pre-defined memory configurations for specific kits.
System information is outlined on the ‘Main' page of the UEFI BIOS.
Onboard controllers and other settings can be accessed through the ‘Advanced' subsection. A specific section can be used to set the PCI-E lane configuration which is good for ensuring that a single card receives full bandwidth.
The monitor section provides access to temperature, voltage, and fan control readings. The fan speed control featured on the Maximus VI Formula motherboard is very similar to what we have seen on Asus motherboard in previous generations; certain modes (such as Turbo and Silent) can be applied, or somewhat confined parameters can be tweaked to change fan speed and the target CPU temperature.
Boot settings can be changed under the ‘Boot' section.
Asus provides some noteworthy tools with the Maximus VI Formula motherboard. Perhaps the most useful of all is ROG SSD Secure Erase. It can be used to erase data from and reset the performance of a supported SSD by ‘cleaning' the NAND chips. This is a highly useful tool that can save many hours when trying to restore the performance of an SSD that doesn't have specific restoration software available.
Up to eight overclocking profiles can be saved to the M6F. These profiles can easily be transferred to and from the motherboard with a USB flash drive.
Quick access to settings can be accomplished by adding them to the favourites page. By default, the ‘My Favorites' page is opened upon entering the UEFI BIOS.
A note can be added to the BIOS profile which can be helpful when testing stable overclocks. A log outlines the previously modified parameters so that accidental settings aren't applied.
Upon hitting F10 to save the configuration and exit the BIOS, a window pops up displaying all of the settings that have been tweaked in this visit to the BIOS. This is a good feature that offers an extra line of protection in the case of an incorrect setting being applied.
Asus has implemented an excellent UEFI BIOS for the Maximus VI Formula. It is attractive, easy to use, and features plenty of customisable options.
Sonic Radar
We tested Asus' Sonic Radar using the Maximus VI Hero motherboard, and used the Maximus VI Formula to certify its operation. Our analysis of Sonic Radar, as taken from the Maximus VI Hero motherboard review, can be read below.
One piece of ROG software that really caught our attention was Sonic Radar. The tool is an overlay that indicates the direction of interaction in a game. For example, the radar shows the direction of enemy gunfire, footsteps, or even explosions and vehicle movement in a shooting game.
The Sonic Radar piece of software is bundled in with the Realtek audio installer. Typing ‘Sonic Radar' into the Windows search box will bring up the tool.
Eager to test this out, we loaded up Battlefield 3. The Battlefield 3 game didn't want to work when Sonic Radar was running. To overcome this problem, we simply loaded Battlefield 3, before opening up Sonic Radar once the game had launched.
The overlay can be set to lie in different areas of the screen.
Sensitivity was the first characteristic that we noticed about Sonic Radar. The overlay is very sensitive towards any type of noise that is created in the game. At some points, it can seem a little jerky due to the rapidly adjusting interaction lines.
The radar did work correctly for our spell of Battlefield 3 and a quick test with Metro 2033, provided the enemies were in front of the character. Turn the player around and the radar continues to display the gunfire as coming from the forward direction when it was really coming from behind. This certainly was an irritating shortfall and one that we hope Asus will fix soon.
While Sonic Radar is a convenient tool that does provide some assistance in FPS games, I wouldn't call it a feature that makes me want to rush out and buy an ROG motherboard specifically for it. That said, the tool's importance and relevance are entirely related to one's individual preference. Changing the overlay's on-screen position may have also changed my usage style.
Have mine ordered, cant wait to get it. thanks for the review. ive just bought some 2,800mhz memory, hope it works!
I really dislike the thermal armor, had it on my sabertooth and took it off, makes no difference and makes getting at some buttons tricky. good board though.
Great read Luke, looks like another winner for ASUS, but I fail to see the benefits of the armor really unless you added fans to circulate air underneath it. It would isolate GPU heat from above, that is good, but the stagnant air underneath the plastic would stay close to the capacitors, right? Am I missing something?
OMG it’s here. >.< Thank you so much for the review.
If I didin't already have this at hand ( arrived yesterday), I would have been worried because of the rating, which BTW I don't understand why the low rating seeing as it didn't do that bad at all. In fact I had to read the whole review carefully to see where it all went wrong but for the life of me, I can't find the negatives that matter. I only use one card so the lane speed issue doesn't affect me and By the Gods, Extreme and Hero don't have anything on how sexy This Beast looks or just how awesomely powerful it feels in hand. I would gladly drop the extra cash just for those looks alone.
Now that I have seen no real issues where performance is concerned, I have no regrets for skipping Ivy-E this time around in favour of Has well. And it was all because of this sexy thing.
Thank you again for the review Luke, can I use you name?
“A small minority of users may miss the support for 3-way SLI, and an even lesser number will frown at the headaches caused by two Nvidia cards being simultaneously used with a PCI-E x2 or x4 expansion device.”
What about a PCI-E x1 device? I have a SoundBlaster X-Fi I would like to use along with 2 770 GTXs in SLI.
Simon,
The two graphics cards can be installed in the upper x16-length slots to use the CPU’s PCI-E 3.0 lanes (split as x8/x8 for each card).
If you install the PCI-E x1 sound card in one of the dedicated x1 slots, it will receive a PCI-E 2.0 lane from the Z87 chipset, and will not affect the bandwidth provided to your graphics cards.