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The Maximus VII Impact is shipped in typical ROG red packaging. Little more than the product name is outlined on the front side.
Moving around to the back, and opening the box flap, reveals information regarding the motherboard and its key features.
A healthy user manual is accompanied by a drivers CD and ROG case badge. Also included are Asus' convenient coloured cable labels.
Four SATA cables, a set of plastic spacers, and the padded rear IO shield form the core bundle.
Additional items include the M.2- and WiFi-hosting (and Bluetooth 4.0) mPCIe Combo IV card and its accompanying two-stream, dual band antenna. There are also the CoolHub and SupremeFX Impact II boards, as well as a front panel header extension cable.
The CoolHub board provides two additional 4-pin fan connectors in an easy-to-access location. This bolsters the total number of 4-pin fan headers to a total of four. Also mounted on the board is the LN2 mode jumper.
A Realtek ALC 1150 codec, ELNA capacitors, a dedicated amplifier, EMI shielding, and the front panel audio header are some of the features found on the SupremeFX Impact II audio board. Asus' Sonic series of audio-related enhancements are supported by means of software. While 8-channel audio is supported by the codec, only 3 physical connections are provided (and 2 on a chassis).
Standard M.2 drives (such as the popular Plextor M6e) from 42- to 110-mm in length can be installed in the mPCIe Combo IV add-on card. A four-lane PCIe 3.0 link direct from the CPU gives the M.2 connection up to 32Gbps of bandwidth to support future high-speed SSDs.
