ASUS Maximus V Extreme review

There is a kind, of people, that feels enough is not enough. They want moar' and for exactly that kind of enthusiast end user, ASUS creates ROG EXTREME products. There has been a lot of gossip and rumor about the project tested today already, and yes, it is the ASUS Maximus V Extreme!

The Maximus V Extreme main engine comes from the Intel Z77 Express chipset. But that's just the start of it of course. A motherboard that comes with four DDR3 memory slots and let's take graphics cards as an example. Four PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots for multi-GPU graphics configurations (NVIDIA SLI / AMD CrossFireX) is what you get. To get you four Gen 3.0 links, ASUS had to apply a trick, that was adding a PLX PEX8747 PCI-Express 3.0 switch IC, responsible for the so many slots. Two of the slots can operate in x16 mode, three of them in x16/NC/x8/x8 mode and all four in x8/x8/x8/x8 mode. And one x8 Gen 3.0 slot is actually similar to a full x16 gen 2.0 slot. Not bad.

But there is so much more going on on the Maximus V Extreme as there is a PCI Express x16 Gen 2.0 slot there (electrical x4), along with a PCI Express x4, Thunderbolt, twelve SATA ports and a multiple USB 3.0 headers. But wait Jim, there's more, ASUS threw in: 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, an HDMI output, USB 3.0, 8-channel HD audio, etc.

This is a ROG (Republic of Gamers) motherboard, and that means extra enthusiast features alright, as for overclockers, here's where things start to get serious, the board is designed with a 12-phase Digi+ VRM, Subzero Sense, has voltage-measurement points and the ROG Connect technology (overclock the board via Bluetooth from their phone). And yes there's still more, ASUS throws in the OC Key as well, which creates an overlay on the active DVI monitor to adjust overclock settings in real-time without using additional software or hardware (it connects to the graphics card DVI port).

The ASUS Maximus V Extreme just breathes overclock potential. Taking the Core i7 3770K processor towards a 4.6~4.8 GHz on air cooling simply is a fairly easy task to accomplish. 

All that on a Z77 motherboard that has great looks. Z77 is of course the Intel chipset predominantly released for Ivy Bridge based processors. These motherboards will have a slightly altered feature set and thus support the new Ivy Bridge apples from Intel.

So today we have a closer look at the technology and of course a deep review of the the ASUS Maximus V Extreme. Armed with the latest key's and gadgets, some ROG lovin' and that Z77 chipset will most definitely surprise you. 

Briefly meet the product that really is Extreme... next page please.

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