Asus Maximus 3 Gene Motherboard Review.

Advantages
Buying a motherboard nowadays is quite a trial since, in terms connected with performance, there is almost no to choose between the best contenders. Brand loyalty is a single route but leaves the impression that something good might be missed out on through deficit of awareness of the many offerings. Manufacturers have had a tricky time and a lot have been forced straight into an "arms race" of adding an increasing number of features to make their boards differentiate yourself. A recent example may be the trend towards putting huge amounts of copper onboard using little performance gain to indicate for it but within a disproportionate cost. Why did they practice it? Simply because people choose motherboards depending on reading the specifications in the quantitative fashion. We imagine that far greater value for your customer can be reached by putting features (software and hardware) in your package that gives your pet tangible benefits.
ASUS undoubtedly are a prime example of it. Their strategy is to help you lead through innovation and never follow the herd. Readers will already recognize products such as the Eee range and various other home entertainment products they also have developed. The ROG (Republic connected with Gamers) brand is rapidly gaining interest with extreme gaming and also overclocking workshops and seminars being held in several countries. The selection of prizes given out at these events shows how closely ASUS understand yourwants and aspirations of their readership. We've been impressed for a long time now with the feature wide range ASUS motherboards and think it's now period to review them with a give attention to those features and not an array of benchmarks comparing 20+ boards that get lucky and perform within 1% of every other. Today the board you want is the Maximus III Gene, a flagship socket 1156 product for Intel i5 not to mention i7 (8XX series) processors.
Mother board Features
A brief summary from the main features follows: Removed just to save space - please make reference to www. asus. com for additional information
Board Layout
The box can be purchased in a nice package that will prominently displays the ROG logo showing that is an enthusiast and gamers motherboard.
It really is Windows 7 willing and everything was found correctly during our 64-bit Your windows program 7 Pro setup. Installing the additional drivers and utilities that is included in the enclosed CD remains highly recommended though.
This onboard X-Fi supports EAX 5. 0 for advanced HD sound and has an filter to eliminate backdrop noise while recording. Most of us tested in both 5. 1 in addition to 7. 1 channel modes without the need of distortion and good split of channels.
There are a lot of features that the front and back of this box are not enough and a supplementary flap is used to help elaborate further. It also increases the "gift box" effect and may even make a nice present this december.
All these features on the board that's not cluttered and is particularly mATX! As well as the SLI/CrossFire capabilities we can see it is passively cooled with a large heatsink in the lower right. There is a a dozen phase power design composing of eight phase CPU power, two phase VTT strength and two phase mind power. There are 7 SATA-2 places and an E-SATA vent out header. The four DDR3 spots operate in dual funnel mode and support memory nearly 16GB DDR3-2133 through the BIOS. The red button makes for recovery without clearing the particular BIOS if settings are usually too extreme during overclocking. The addition of on/off switch helps testers or those not utilizing a traditional case. A legacy PCI slot possibly there is for that old PCI RAID controller and so on. you just cannot bear to part with. RAID 0 and 1 is supported about the SATA-2 ports and you will be cost-effective until SSDs grow to be mainstream.
PS/2 keyboard connectors are classified as the only look to way back when and 8-channel audio will be fully supported and configurable as soon as full audio drivers can be installed. The USB port on its side will be the ROG connector along with allows a notebook to help you monitor and configure any PC remotely. In practice this worked well with our Eee PC 901 while using the supplied cable. Firewire and E-SATA (there's a second E-SATA and Firewire connector on the reverse side of the board for cases which may have those connectors on them) are generally included. The addition of any CMOS clear button around the back panel will satisfy overclockers and save tension reaching for just a jumper with a couple long-nosed pliers while presenting a torch between tooth enamel and aiming it with the help of tongue manipulation....
Included in the compartment are SATA cables with metal bars to help with making them easy to remove but still keeping them securely in position against accidental removal - quite a distance from the first SATA cables that are still supplied with quite a few motherboards today. The ROG cable is a USB (male to help you male) lead. Padding on the again shield forms a snug fit with the edge of the board and it's thickly constructed making it straightforward to fit and remove without bending. The SLI bridge is simple to install and the most known thing is the Q-Connector regarding case wires (HDD, electric power, rest switch etc. ) to be able to be fitted there and also the entire connector taken out as meant for access. This is the type of time saving function that leaves people thinking why no-one has planned it before.
Test Set up
Removed to save space - please make reference to html version of write-up for details
Overclocking
Outlet 1156 processors, like their socket 1366 siblings are renowned with regards to overclocking capabilities so many of us started with high hopes for our i7-870 on this board when using the extensive options available on the BIOS. The BIOS is too detailed for all of us to explore in it review but we would suggest viewing this YouTube video here in case your appetite is whetted to read more you can download the manual belonging to the ASUS Support Site.
Your first target was 3. 5GHz and this also was achieved without whatever noticeable increase in temperature ranges (the Corsair H50 sealed processor watercooler is truly remarkable and completely silent). Many benchmarks were run free of problems.
Incredibly, the method posted and booted inside Windows at 4GHz upon stock voltage. Running the Far Meow 2 benchmark caused the lockup though and all of us increased the processor voltage to 1. 35V before the CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT completed all tests with no problems. Even so, 1. 35V is on the low side when compared to some extremes we can see with simple cooling.
We conducted our studies at stock speeds though permitting readers to make comparisons over a fixed baseline.
Test Outcomes
We should explain why we now have selected certain tests along with why we repeated them all for 1, 2, 3 in addition to 4 cores. People buy motherboards with regard to different uses and whether that you are a gamer who will make do with 2 cores or a passionate video editor who definitely will max out 4 cores determines which processor you certainly will pair the board with the help of.
We always advise not even skimping on motherboard selection and choosing a high end, fully featured one just like the Maximus III Gene (high finish by socket 1156 standards - half the expense of a socket 1366 board) provides greatest flexibility as we will see. The benchmarks will show which processor is best suited for particular uses. I am comparing the ASUS Maximus III Gene using the ASUS M4A79T Deluxe.
The main advantage of DDR3-2000 versus DDR3-1600 and also the Dual channel memory may be clearly seen. Synthetic benchmarks eliminate various bottlenecks and show the actual potential of increasing cores. Only users of the AMD platform is able to replace their current CPU using a 6-core "Bulldozer" one then year. There are no ideas for 6-core "Gulftown" (aka i9) processors in a position to fit in a socket 1156 motherbaord.
Similar scenario with very linear running.
The number of cores doesn't have any effect on memory bandwidth (fortunately you can get no single core Athlons inside the AM3 configuration).
The results listed here are quite interesting and any leveling off after 2 cores with the i7-870 but more linear for ones slower AMD X4 CPU. The results are in this article average for boards of the chipsets.
Far Cry 2 is widely acknowledged beeing the game to bring any system to its knees and we deliberately tested on the highest settings for each resolution in accordance with 8x anti aliasing. Frame rates are perfectly playable by any means resolutions (we don't use a 30" monitor for the particular ultra high resolutions).
Contrasting the FPS about Far Cry 2 will be Tom Clancy's HAWX the cross between flight simulator along with air combat game and even we achieved over 60 frames per second at all resolutions.
Horror games are currently popular and Resident Evil 5 includes a great benchmarking function integrated. The board performed wonderfully in this test.
Realization
We've deliberately avoided receiving bogged down with a multitude of benchmarks comparing many motherboards as this really is one component where that performance varies by usually a lot less than 1% across the wide variety. Readers looking to see these kinds of benchmarks are pointed on the way to AnandTech and similar online sites. We have already explored comprehensive and rest assured that Maximus III Gene open for the top 3 in virtually every test in available criteria. Instead we are concentrating on the added features as well as bundled software that increase unique value to every one motherboard.
ROG motherboards have never disappointed with regard to features and the Maximus III Gene isn't a exception despite its mATX form factor which puts a pressure on available "real-estate". The choice for this looks like to allow the board that they are used for small form factor and convenient to carry systems for gamers to utilise in LAN parties as well as gaming conventions etc.
Overclocking was formerly the realm of that connoisseur requiring great skill/experience not to mention tenacity with nerves of iron required and therefore the constant danger of devices destruction adding tension on the hours it took to secure a stable overclock. No longer is this true now that ASUS have wine basket easy for everyone (and do not can we impress females at parties by a review of ourselves as PC overclockers.... ) through PC stepup, iROG associate, MemPerfect and a coordinator of utilities within Windows rendering it easy to get professional creates a fraction of that time period and with little and / or no risk.
When everything is planned for we are convinced the fact that ASUS Maximus III Gene is the greatest socket 1156 motherboard available today and is keenly priced for their target market.