KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
The newest ATX member joining Asus' premier line of Z87 motherboards, the Maximus VI Formula, brings something completely different to the ROG table – a full-board covering called ROG Armor. Can the distinctive Maximus VI Formula prove itself as an excellent platform for high-end gamers and intermediate overclockers?
Typically a fan favourite due to its effective balance between overclocking and gaming features, with a feasible price tag to match, Asus' Formula variety of the latest Maximus series revision has been garnering a lot of attention. Asus outfits the Maximus VI Formula with the broadest ROG-specific feature set provided by any of the current line-up.
Combining the newest set of ROG software tools with the sixth-generation Maximus catalogue's highest-grade SupremeFX audio, ROG Armor, and a hybrid VRM cooling system, Asus is hoping it has an excellent performer in the Maximus VI Formula. With support for 3-way CrossFire and on-board overclocking tools, Asus' Maximus VI Formula will have benchmarkers interested in what the board can offer.
Does Asus have the winning Formula? Or has ASRock's identically-priced offering stolen the show in this segment of the market?
Features:
- CrossChill – Great on air. Cooler with water
- SupremeFX Formula – Amazing 120dB signal-to-noise ratio, 600 Ohm audio
- ROG Armor – Style, strength, and cooling in one
- Sonic Radar – Scan and detect to dominate
- mPCIe Combo II With Wi-Fi – Extra connections with new gen support
- Extreme Engine Digi+ III – Hardcore power delivery with premium components
- GameFirst II + Intel LAN – Put Your Frags First
- RAMDisk – Double up on speed with RAM
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.