Introduction
For a long time I have been a huge fan of Asus's Maximus Gene motherboards, they are proof that going small, you don't have to sacrifice anything. The Maximus VI Gene was a pretty amazing board, so lets see if Asus has been able to better it, so without further delay, lets jump into the review.
For those who don't have the time for going through the whole review, here are some of the pros and cons of this motherboard.
Pros:
Cons:
Here are some of the features that we will be covering in the review:
First up, we'll be doing a quick check on what we get inside the box.
Package and Unboxing
The box is the typical ROG styled red-black box, with plenty of information under the flap and behind the box. Open the box and you'll see that it has 2 compartments, on the top safely sits the motherboard wrapped in an anti static bag. Underneath we have the goodies. We get 6 Sata cables, IO back panel plate, SLI bridge, cable management stickers and a door hanger, pretty standard for this series of motherboards. You also get the SupremeFX Impact II add on board, which in the images below is already attached to the motherboard.
Closer look
Lets take a close look at the board itself. Since its a mATX board, there is a crunch for real estate. Its a very busy board, with a ton of components, something I find aesthetically pleasing.
Starting from the business end, the socket. Its an LGA 1150 socket with support for 4th and 5th Intel core processors. The cpu is powered by an 8 phase power design and comes with 8 60A chokes and digital voltage control. The MOSFETs are cooled by heatsinks both on the front and back of the board.
Moving along the edges of the board, we notice a small expansion slot in a very odd place near the top of the board. Its a mini PCI express slot, mainly to be used for a wifi card (not included).
On the right, we have the 4 slots for DDR3 memory supporting up to 32GB of RAM, which is significant if you are thinking between a mATX or a mini ITX board, since the most mini ITX boards just support 16GB.
Next to the slots, we have a few nifty things. Above the RAM slots, we have what asus calls ProbeIt (read: probe it). They provide easy, direct access to various system voltages, saving you from any modding, very useful when doing some extreme overclocking, when you cant rely on software for the voltage and want to monitor things in real time. There are in total 10 points, they let you monitor the CPU, PLL, memory, PCH voltages (among others). When I was overclocking on this board, there was an issue with the voltage readings in the OS (as you will see in the overclocking screenshot) and I found these to be useful as well as dead on accurate. I did find it slightly difficult to make the right contact with my multi-meter probes and took a few attempts. If possible, a slight depression in the middle of the points would make it easier, because soldering it might not be everyone's first choice.
Next to it are the LN2 mode jumpers. These help you get past the cold boot bug when overclocking in sub zero temperatures. Then we have the MemOk button, which basically a 1 step fix to any memory compatibility issues that you might face.
At the bottom of the board, we have an array of buttons. The most prominent being the start and reset buttons, which are great when your using the board on an open bench. Next to them, we have the KeyBot and SoundStage buttons. I have covered both of these features in another review and they are pretty useful. Keybot feature basically 'hacks in' into your keyboard interface and lets you create custom macros, features of a gaming keyboard on your normal one. SoundStage lets you set hardware level audio profiles (FPS, Racing, Combat and Sport) even without OS drivers. Can be useful if your running an OS without any supported drivers.
Now a unique part of the board. Asus initially started doing this on the mini ITX boards that are starved for PCB space, the created daughter boards that can be attached to the motherboard. This is the SupremeFX Impact II audio daughter board. This does not take up a slot, but attaches onto the board itself.
As for audio quality, it really isn't my area of expertise, but there was a significant difference in gain as compared to my on board audio on my Z77 motherboard. This is to be expected, as the SupremeFX Impact is based on the Realtek ALC1150 codec and my motherboard uses the Realtek ALC898 audio codec. I did try doing some tests to quantify the difference, but the readings I got were really out of place and I think it was down to the testing equipment. Will try to fix that up in future reviews.
A surprise between the PCIe x16 slots is the M.2 slot. Its a high bandwidth slot that can be used for SSDs and uses a PCIe 2.0 2x lane. They provide greater bandwidth than current SATA 3 ports (10Gb/s vs 6Gb/s). These days, SSDs are getting quicker and quicker, some already saturate the SATA 3 bus during sequential reads, so its only a matter of time. There are some other vendors that provide M.2 slots that use a PCI3 3.0 4x lane, boasting of 32Gb/s, so I guess asus could provide a similar solution here.
Finally taking a look at the rear panel, we have 4 USB 2.0 ports, 4 USB 3.0 ports, 1 PS/2 port, 1 HDMI port and 1 optical audio out. You can also see the analog ports (speaker, line-in, line-out). On the left, we have a few buttons, the one on top is to clear the CMOS and the next one is the ROG connect button. This can be used for BIOS flashback, which is a pretty cool feature that lets you flash a BIOS even without having a processor (yes, sounds scary, but it won't hurt !).
Quick assembly:
Being a micro ATX motherboard, you might want to know how everything fits in and if there were any issues with the layout of the board. Like with many other boards of this form factor, having a large air cooler can have problems. The cooler I use ain't too large, its an SVG Tech AOC 120, size of which should be similar to other 120 mm coolers in the market. First up, if your cooler is really wide, you might not want to get very tall RAM modules as the cooler might extend over the RAM slots.
In my case, I had no issues since I use low profile RAM, but just keep it in mind.
On the other side, the SupremeFX Impact audio board does come close to the cooler as well. Most coolers should have no problem, as there is still some space, but may be a slight problem. If you guys know more on this, please leave a comment below.
BIOS
Asus's implementation of the UEFI BIOS gives a good mix of simplicity and fine control. EZ mode keeps things simple and to the point and gives you a dashboard of all the system essentials.
Some auto overclocking with EZ tuning, its a simple 4 step process.
Q-Fan is another really great feature. The board basically has a full featured fan controller, so you can now control the speed of fans hooked to the board, even create and manage profiles. I love this feature, as my current system is extremely loud and even when idling, I got no way of reducing the noise. It does NOT require expensive fans and will work on even normal chassis fans. The board has 5 fan headers (including CPU fan headers), so that should be sufficient for most users.
Looking into more advanced settings, we have the extreme tweaker, where you will find all the overclocking options. You can either use any of the overclocking presets provided or manually tweak all settings There is another menu called Tweaker's Paradise, which has some more voltage controls, one I dont recall seeing on older Asus boards. You then got the DIGI+ power menu, where you have all the power delivery controls.
Over to the advanced tab, you find options to control various system settings. CPU power options, storage settings, on-board device settings and even ROG lighting options can be found here.
Heading over to monitoring, we can monitor various system voltages, temperatures and fan speed.
Bundled Software:
I'll do a quick overview of the bundled software, the detailed analysis was done in an earlier review and can be viewed here:
Maximus VII Ranger Motherboard Review: Bundled Software
First up is the AI Suit III, which has some useful utilities, ranging from overclocking to USB 3.0 boost.
The Sonic Radar II tries to help out gamers by providing some directional audio feedback. It basically adds an overlay in games and tells you the direction of the sound in game.
A pretty neat feature that Asus has on this board is the Asus Keybot, which lets you enable macros on any keyboard. So you now get some gaming keyboard features for free!
Auto and Manual overclocking
Now lets take a look at how the board overclocks. The CPU we got here is the Intel's Core i7 4770k. Its a chip we have tester before, so I do know a little bit about its OCing potential.
I tried overclocking using the EZ tuning utility, which was a simple 4 step process to overclocking (covered in our BIOS section). The rest was pretty darn good and the final clock of almost 4487MHz, with a voltage of 1.295v read off ProbeIt as the software readings were clearly messed up. I think the same can be achieved with slightly lower voltages (~1.285v) but still pretty good for an auto OC.
When overclocking manually, I was able to get the chip up to 4800MHz, with a 48x multiplier. The voltage was set to 1.29v but was reported slightly higher at 1.30v even with various LLC settings, under load. That is quite acceptable and nothing to complain about.
On the memory side of things, I was very easily able to push the clocks up to 2600MHz at 1.60v. RAM used was Samsung 30nm RAM(stock 1600MHz @1.35v).
The Verdict:
The Asus Maximus VII Gene is a great little motherboard, gives you all the features of a full ATX motherboard with a smaller footprint. With some really good mATX chassis coming into the market (I personally love the Corsair Carbide Air 240), this can be a really great companion. The board looks beautiful and performs well as well. The SupremeFX audio provides some good quality audio and I think most gamers would be satisfied with it. Overclocking wise, it does well, specially impressed by the performance of the EZ tunning. Given that the price of the board will probably be around the Rs17000 mark, it does feel a bit pricey, maybe actual market prices would be slightly lower. I think anything south of Rs 16,000 would make it a very good buy. Overall, I would like to give the board an 8/10 and highly recommended for someone which is looking for an mATX board for a high end gaming PC.
For a long time I have been a huge fan of Asus's Maximus Gene motherboards, they are proof that going small, you don't have to sacrifice anything. The Maximus VI Gene was a pretty amazing board, so lets see if Asus has been able to better it, so without further delay, lets jump into the review.
For those who don't have the time for going through the whole review, here are some of the pros and cons of this motherboard.
Pros:
- Great Looks
- Tons of overclocking options, Ln2 mode, voltage measuring points
- Plenty of expansion options
- True 8+2 phase power with digital VRM control
- Good bundled software
Cons:
- Not a lot over the Gene 6 (worth the price difference, but not upgrade)
- Slightly pricey
Here are some of the features that we will be covering in the review:
- Board layout and features
- 8+2 Phase power
- SupremeFX Impact II audio
- Ln2 mode, ProbeIt, Manual and Auto overclocking options
- Asus Radar II, Keybot Utility, Gamefirst Lan
- Intelligent Processors 5 Utility, EZ Update
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/DSC02005.jpg
First up, we'll be doing a quick check on what we get inside the box.
Package and Unboxing
The box is the typical ROG styled red-black box, with plenty of information under the flap and behind the box. Open the box and you'll see that it has 2 compartments, on the top safely sits the motherboard wrapped in an anti static bag. Underneath we have the goodies. We get 6 Sata cables, IO back panel plate, SLI bridge, cable management stickers and a door hanger, pretty standard for this series of motherboards. You also get the SupremeFX Impact II add on board, which in the images below is already attached to the motherboard.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/unbox-1.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/unbox-2-1024x679.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/unbox-3-1024x679.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/unbox-4-1024x679.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/unbox-5-1024x679.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/unbox-6-1024x679.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/unbox-2-1024x679.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/unbox-3-1024x679.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/unbox-4-1024x679.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/unbox-5-1024x679.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/unbox-6-1024x679.jpg
Closer look
Lets take a close look at the board itself. Since its a mATX board, there is a crunch for real estate. Its a very busy board, with a ton of components, something I find aesthetically pleasing.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/maximus_gene_7.jpg
Starting from the business end, the socket. Its an LGA 1150 socket with support for 4th and 5th Intel core processors. The cpu is powered by an 8 phase power design and comes with 8 60A chokes and digital voltage control. The MOSFETs are cooled by heatsinks both on the front and back of the board.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/socket.jpg
Moving along the edges of the board, we notice a small expansion slot in a very odd place near the top of the board. Its a mini PCI express slot, mainly to be used for a wifi card (not included).
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/mpcie_2.jpg
On the right, we have the 4 slots for DDR3 memory supporting up to 32GB of RAM, which is significant if you are thinking between a mATX or a mini ITX board, since the most mini ITX boards just support 16GB.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/DSC02009.jpg
Next to the slots, we have a few nifty things. Above the RAM slots, we have what asus calls ProbeIt (read: probe it). They provide easy, direct access to various system voltages, saving you from any modding, very useful when doing some extreme overclocking, when you cant rely on software for the voltage and want to monitor things in real time. There are in total 10 points, they let you monitor the CPU, PLL, memory, PCH voltages (among others). When I was overclocking on this board, there was an issue with the voltage readings in the OS (as you will see in the overclocking screenshot) and I found these to be useful as well as dead on accurate. I did find it slightly difficult to make the right contact with my multi-meter probes and took a few attempts. If possible, a slight depression in the middle of the points would make it easier, because soldering it might not be everyone's first choice.
Next to it are the LN2 mode jumpers. These help you get past the cold boot bug when overclocking in sub zero temperatures. Then we have the MemOk button, which basically a 1 step fix to any memory compatibility issues that you might face.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/DSC01998.jpg
At the bottom of the board, we have an array of buttons. The most prominent being the start and reset buttons, which are great when your using the board on an open bench. Next to them, we have the KeyBot and SoundStage buttons. I have covered both of these features in another review and they are pretty useful. Keybot feature basically 'hacks in' into your keyboard interface and lets you create custom macros, features of a gaming keyboard on your normal one. SoundStage lets you set hardware level audio profiles (FPS, Racing, Combat and Sport) even without OS drivers. Can be useful if your running an OS without any supported drivers.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/DSC02003.jpg
Now a unique part of the board. Asus initially started doing this on the mini ITX boards that are starved for PCB space, the created daughter boards that can be attached to the motherboard. This is the SupremeFX Impact II audio daughter board. This does not take up a slot, but attaches onto the board itself.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/supremeFX_impact_1.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/supremeFX_impact_2.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/supremeFX_impact_3.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/supremeFX_impact_2.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/supremeFX_impact_3.jpg
As for audio quality, it really isn't my area of expertise, but there was a significant difference in gain as compared to my on board audio on my Z77 motherboard. This is to be expected, as the SupremeFX Impact is based on the Realtek ALC1150 codec and my motherboard uses the Realtek ALC898 audio codec. I did try doing some tests to quantify the difference, but the readings I got were really out of place and I think it was down to the testing equipment. Will try to fix that up in future reviews.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/asus_m2.jpg
A surprise between the PCIe x16 slots is the M.2 slot. Its a high bandwidth slot that can be used for SSDs and uses a PCIe 2.0 2x lane. They provide greater bandwidth than current SATA 3 ports (10Gb/s vs 6Gb/s). These days, SSDs are getting quicker and quicker, some already saturate the SATA 3 bus during sequential reads, so its only a matter of time. There are some other vendors that provide M.2 slots that use a PCI3 3.0 4x lane, boasting of 32Gb/s, so I guess asus could provide a similar solution here.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/rear_panel.jpg
Finally taking a look at the rear panel, we have 4 USB 2.0 ports, 4 USB 3.0 ports, 1 PS/2 port, 1 HDMI port and 1 optical audio out. You can also see the analog ports (speaker, line-in, line-out). On the left, we have a few buttons, the one on top is to clear the CMOS and the next one is the ROG connect button. This can be used for BIOS flashback, which is a pretty cool feature that lets you flash a BIOS even without having a processor (yes, sounds scary, but it won't hurt !).
Quick assembly:
Being a micro ATX motherboard, you might want to know how everything fits in and if there were any issues with the layout of the board. Like with many other boards of this form factor, having a large air cooler can have problems. The cooler I use ain't too large, its an SVG Tech AOC 120, size of which should be similar to other 120 mm coolers in the market. First up, if your cooler is really wide, you might not want to get very tall RAM modules as the cooler might extend over the RAM slots.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ram_slot.jpg
In my case, I had no issues since I use low profile RAM, but just keep it in mind.
On the other side, the SupremeFX Impact audio board does come close to the cooler as well. Most coolers should have no problem, as there is still some space, but may be a slight problem. If you guys know more on this, please leave a comment below.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/DSC02035.jpg
BIOS
Asus's implementation of the UEFI BIOS gives a good mix of simplicity and fine control. EZ mode keeps things simple and to the point and gives you a dashboard of all the system essentials.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/ez_mode.jpg
Some auto overclocking with EZ tuning, its a simple 4 step process.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/rajan1311-tweaker.gif
Q-Fan is another really great feature. The board basically has a full featured fan controller, so you can now control the speed of fans hooked to the board, even create and manage profiles. I love this feature, as my current system is extremely loud and even when idling, I got no way of reducing the noise. It does NOT require expensive fans and will work on even normal chassis fans. The board has 5 fan headers (including CPU fan headers), so that should be sufficient for most users.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/q-fan1.gif
Looking into more advanced settings, we have the extreme tweaker, where you will find all the overclocking options. You can either use any of the overclocking presets provided or manually tweak all settings There is another menu called Tweaker's Paradise, which has some more voltage controls, one I dont recall seeing on older Asus boards. You then got the DIGI+ power menu, where you have all the power delivery controls.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/oc_presets.png
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/tp.png
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/digi-power.png
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/tp.png
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/digi-power.png
Over to the advanced tab, you find options to control various system settings. CPU power options, storage settings, on-board device settings and even ROG lighting options can be found here.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/advance.png
Heading over to monitoring, we can monitor various system voltages, temperatures and fan speed.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/monitor_1.png
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/monitor_2.png
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/monitor_3.png
In the tools tab, we can find various utilities such as EZ Fash 2 and Secure Erase. EZ Flash 2 is a BIOS update tool and lets you update even without a CPU installed (life saver when your BIOS turns out to be incompatible with the processor). Secure erase lets you easily clean/format your SSD.*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/monitor_2.png
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/monitor_3.png
Bundled Software:
I'll do a quick overview of the bundled software, the detailed analysis was done in an earlier review and can be viewed here:
Maximus VII Ranger Motherboard Review: Bundled Software
First up is the AI Suit III, which has some useful utilities, ranging from overclocking to USB 3.0 boost.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/ais3-1.jpg
The Sonic Radar II tries to help out gamers by providing some directional audio feedback. It basically adds an overlay in games and tells you the direction of the sound in game.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/sonic-radar-1.jpg
A pretty neat feature that Asus has on this board is the Asus Keybot, which lets you enable macros on any keyboard. So you now get some gaming keyboard features for free!
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/keybot-1.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/keybot-1024x679.jpg
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/keybot-1024x679.jpg
Auto and Manual overclocking
Now lets take a look at how the board overclocks. The CPU we got here is the Intel's Core i7 4770k. Its a chip we have tester before, so I do know a little bit about its OCing potential.
I tried overclocking using the EZ tuning utility, which was a simple 4 step process to overclocking (covered in our BIOS section). The rest was pretty darn good and the final clock of almost 4487MHz, with a voltage of 1.295v read off ProbeIt as the software readings were clearly messed up. I think the same can be achieved with slightly lower voltages (~1.285v) but still pretty good for an auto OC.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/auto_oc.png
When overclocking manually, I was able to get the chip up to 4800MHz, with a 48x multiplier. The voltage was set to 1.29v but was reported slightly higher at 1.30v even with various LLC settings, under load. That is quite acceptable and nothing to complain about.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/manual_oc.png
On the memory side of things, I was very easily able to push the clocks up to 2600MHz at 1.60v. RAM used was Samsung 30nm RAM(stock 1600MHz @1.35v).
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/mem_oc.png
The Verdict:
The Asus Maximus VII Gene is a great little motherboard, gives you all the features of a full ATX motherboard with a smaller footprint. With some really good mATX chassis coming into the market (I personally love the Corsair Carbide Air 240), this can be a really great companion. The board looks beautiful and performs well as well. The SupremeFX audio provides some good quality audio and I think most gamers would be satisfied with it. Overclocking wise, it does well, specially impressed by the performance of the EZ tunning. Given that the price of the board will probably be around the Rs17000 mark, it does feel a bit pricey, maybe actual market prices would be slightly lower. I think anything south of Rs 16,000 would make it a very good buy. Overall, I would like to give the board an 8/10 and highly recommended for someone which is looking for an mATX board for a high end gaming PC.
*techverdict.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/DSC02024-1024x679.jpg
