ASUS Z170 Maximus VIII Extreme Assembly review - The review

ASUS Maximus VIII Extreme Assembly (Z170)
The motherboard for the hardcore enthusiast

We review a new iteration in the Maximus VIII Extreme series, a new SKU called ASUS Z170 ROG Maximus VIII Assembly edition. The ROG team took the DNA of the Maximus VIII Extreme and added even more. Though it lacks the OC Panel this puppy is fitted with configurable LEDs. You will also see extras like a 10Gbit/s Ethernet adapter card, triple band AC WIFI and a rather cool audio breakout box. Being Z170 chipset and socket 1151 based obviously this motherboard can (well, must) be paired with late Skylake-S series processors. The big brother of the Hero comes with extended looks, AC WIFI, a VRM area that will make you wiggle and feel all tingly and then a dozen or so other features. It is one of the better Z170 products if you ask me, dressed for success and with added benefits like USB 3.1, multiple M.2 slots and the fastest DDR4 support, the product will impress. 

A motherboard that promises to deliver a high amount of features and provide that Skylake processor the full infrastructure it needs for a kick-ass gaming PC. Dressed to kill and with added benefits like USB 3.1, multiple M.2 slots and the fastest DDR4 support, the product will shock and awe. These motherboards can (well, must) be paired with new Skylake-S series processors. We'll quickly dive into the two most important ones. Skylake Core i5 6600K and Core i7 6700K processors for the desktop platform have been released, we've tested both processors, yet have separate reviews on each of these processors. A new chip, a new package meaning both of them are Socket 1151. The new Skylake processors are energy efficient, quite powerful and need to be paired with a new motherboard series. For you guys that means the Z170 and H170 range. In this review we test the Core i7 6700K. An unlocked Skylake processor that has four cores and a slim 92W TDP, that is lower compared to Haswell with its 95W TDP thanks to the new and smaller 14nm fabrication process. The quad core CPU has 8 MB L3 cache and an integrated memory controller that supports both DDR4 and DDR3 memory. The Z170 and H170 series motherboards will all be offered with DDR4 though. For the gaming community two processors are the most important; the Core i7 6700K has four CPU cores with Hyper-Threading, 4.0GHz frequency, 4.20GHz maximum Turbo Boost frequency. Then there is the Core i5 6600K with four cores, 3.50GHz frequency and a 3.90GHz maximum Turbo Boost frequency, both are based on the new LGA1151 socket package. Skylake is the code-name used by Intel for the 14nm processor micro-architecture under development and is the successor to the Broadwell architecture. 

That ASUS Z170 ROG Maximus VIII Extreme Assembly then; the Maximus VIII Extreme is the expensive version, the Assembly I am afraid is even more expensive as it sits in the 575 EURO/USD price bracket - which is spicy to say the least. Obviously for the extra dough you will receive extra hardware like 10 GigE Ethernet powered by Aquantia and Tehuti Networks.

Audio received a warm shower as well, the Assembly editon comes with the SupremeFX Hi-Fi audio solution from the ROG team including ESS ES9018K2M digital-to-audio converter (DAC) along with two Texas Instruments LM4562 operational amplifiers for superior audio signal amplification, lower distortion and audio jitter, and delivers audiophile-grade 32-bit/384kHz and DSD128 playback. While this is the same as on the 'regular' Extreme, with the Assembly edition you will receive a front-panel headphone amp bundled, the TPA6120A2 headphone amplifier has an output of over 6V_RMS to drive 600 Ohm high-fidelity headphones.

The board itself remains the same and comes with a 6 and 8-Pin power connector for the CPU which is tied to a 13 Phase DIGI+ VRM. Much like all other Z170 boards, you will spot four DDR4 DIMM slots which can seat a maximum combined of 64 GB DDR4 memory. The expansion slots for all your graphics lovin' includes four PCI-e 3.0 x16 slots (one is x4 though) as well as two PCI-e 3.0 x1. Storage options are 8 SATA III 6 GB/s ports and two SATA Express (SATAe) ports. There's an M.2 slot running at x4 as well, which thus offers 32 Gbps of bandwidth. You will spot USB 3.1 Type-C ports, USB 3.0 ports, USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, Display port and, next to that, the 10GigE controller card, a 'standard' Gigabit Ethernet jack as well as proper Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with support for the dual band frequency 2.4/5 GHz and up to 1300Mbps transfer speeds.

Have a peek at the ASUS Z170 ROG Maximus VIII Extreme Assembly and then head on-wards into the review.