ASUS Z170 Maximus VIII Extreme Assembly review - Product Showcase

Product Showcase

The ASUS Maximus VIII Extreme Assembly follows the Extended ATX Form Factor at 12 inch x 10.7 inch ( 30.5 cm x 27.2 cm). The motherboard is located in the ROG range and is an enthusiast class product amongst these new Skylake Z170 series motherboards. 

Included with the motherboard are the regulars including; manuals, driver CDs, SATA cables and a rear IO plate. This motherboard has proper embedded AC WIFI and comes with one Gigabit Ethernet jack from Intel. There's more though, we'll get to that in a second. Updated from the 'regular' Extreme is the dark/copper look style with different shielding and heatsinks as well as a RGB programmable LED hiding under the Z170 chipset. 

• CPU support: Skylake-S class Intel Core processors
• Chipset: Intel Z170 Chipset
• 1x Gigabit Ethernet (Intel)
• Storage: 
• 6x SATA 6Gb/s Intel
• 2x Sata 6Gb/s ASMedia ASM1061
• 1 x M.2 x4 Socket 3, with M Key, type 2242/2260/2280/22110
• 2x Sata Express
• 1x U.2 port
• Connectivity: 
• 3 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8 or x8/x4/x4, gray) 
  1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x4 mode) 
  2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x1 (black)
• USB 3.0 / 3.1 
• 8-channel ROG SupremeFX audio based on an ES9023P Hi-Def CODEC.

ASUS dropped the OC Panel II for this SKU, however you will receive two new items; a 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapter that can manage 10G Express and five different speeds in total — 10Gbit/s, 5Gbit/s, 2.5Gbit/s, 1Gbit/s and 100Mbit/s, and also a 5.25" bay audio control pod for their SupremeFX Hi-Fi audio solution with proper component usage like premium Ninchion capacitors, ESS 9018K2M Sabre DAC, LM4562 op-amps and so on. Included as well is a triple band AC WIFI solution, properly done with 3x3 802.11ac. Also included is a fan-extension header. 

It's not listed but I count 13 power phases for the processor. All high quality components and usage of dark caps. The looks are terrific really. On-board you'll find six 4-pin PWM adapters, seven thermal sensors and a dedicated pump fan. All can be controlled and monitored with ASUS proprietary software. 

The I/O back panel reveals 3.1/3.0/2.0 ports and then a Type-C Thunderbolt connector, the red USB 3.0 is to be used for USB flashback etc. The audio unit has special noise reducing capacitors and EMI shielding. On-board you will spot one 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet jack (Intel I219-V). Included is a single PS/2 combo port for either a keyboard or a mouse, optical S/PDIF out port and six audio jacks. If you plan to use the integrated IGP of the processor, you can make use of a DP 1.2 or HDMI 1.4 connector. ASUS embedded a terrific WIFI solution with 3x3 dual band 2.4/5GHz antennas included providing 802.11ac Wi-Fi up to a theoretical 1300Mbit/s transfer speed. 

The board has 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (and one additional x16 port that runs at x4 (taken from the Z170 PCH) which can be arranged in these slot configurations with graphics cards:

• 3 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8 or x8/x4/x4) 
• 1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x4 mode) 
• 2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x1 (black)
   

As you can see, these are PCI Express Gen 3.0 configurations, that's enough for regular graphics card setups up-to 3-way SLI/Crossfire. Even at x4 Gen 3.0 you'd have the very same PCI-Express bandwidth as one x8 on Gen 2.0. 

The motherboard comes with an 8 power connector and, if you plan to go wild, you can add another 4-pin connector as well (it is not mandatory to use of course).
 

You'll get four DIMM slots that can be used for up-to 64GB of dual-channel memory. Supported is 3866(O.C.)/3800(O.C.)/3733(O.C.)/3600(O.C.)/3500(O.C.)/3466(O.C.)/3400(O.C.)/3333(O.C.)/3300(O.C.)/3200(O.C.)/3000(O.C.)/2800(O.C.)/2666(O.C.)/2400(O.C.)/2133 MHz Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory. We'll play around with a G.SKILL TridentZ DIMM kit for this review.