ASUS Z170 ROG Maximus VIII Formula review
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Ziggymac
Nice RGB lighting.
..except I hope people realise that once you've plugged everything in to the motherboard, it all gets covered up and you can barely see it.
Two graphics cards for instance will cover the lighting on the heatsink and around the sound chip.
In other words..you can't see any of this fancy lighting once the PC is switched on.
Unless you're running a fancy low profile water cooling loop don't buy this Motherboard for the RGB aspect of it.
LordSilver
This motherboard gets 5 stars whereas the Extreme gets only 4 stars, despite being the highest model and also 50 euro more expensive. That's quite ridiculous.
Hilbert Hagedoorn
Administrator
LordSilver
Hilbert Hagedoorn
Administrator
Pre-orders are always expensive, in the end this this is going to be 325~375 EURO board.
LordSilver
SSD_PRO
This makes the Hero Alpha look like ASUS' ROG sweet spot (assuming the Formula comes in at 375USD/340EURO. The Hero Alpha also has U.2 and M.2 and the bandwidth sharing is a bit better on the Alpha. Since I keep my motherboard in a chassis, the shield/cover/support and improved RGB customization isn't worth the extra cost.
edit: Newegg over here in the USA is going 400USD with low price guarantee. In Newegg speak that means the thing is going to stay 400. So you have the Hero at 235USD, Hero Alpha at 300USD, Formula at 400USD and Extreme at 485USD.
Kyrat
MSI copy!
Denial
SSD_PRO
Denial,
I am pretty sure you are correct about the Maximus VII Hero allocating only 2 PCI 3.0 lanes (x2) when M.2 is used. All of these boards, Z97, Z170 etc share bandwidth in some way to allow all the features as there just isn't enough bandwidth for all of it at the same time. Things got better with Z170 but it still isn't perfect. According to ASUS' specifications for the M7H PCIEX4_3 shares bandwith with PCIe 2.0 x1 and M.2 slot. An M.2 device will be limited to x2, but you should still have 1 @ x16 slot or 2 @ x8. You just lose the 3rd PCIe slot.
Neither the original Maximus VIII Hero or Hero Alpha will drop your primary graphics to x8. If you have one card it will still have an x16 link. If you have 2 they will be x8 link.
The Maximus Hero and Maximus Hero Alpha both have M.2 but only the Hero Alpha has M.2 and U.2 (like the Formula of this article). The Hero shares the M.2 with a SATA port. The Hero Alpha shares the M.2 with PCIEX4_3 (3rd PCIe slot). The Hero Alpha's first U.2 shares with nothing. The 2nd U.2, if the 1st is also used, shares with SATA_1234.
I don't see M.2 going anywhere for several years. It really does suit notebooks if the right power savings is used but it also has a place in desktops. It has the positive of no cables but lacks mobility and ease of access. U.2 will grow this year. What happens with SATA, only time will tell. SATA 3.0 is still sufficient for most purposes.
Denial
The Laughing Ma
stereoman
Problem with LED lighting on motherboards is once you have all the gear installed, graphics card, cpu, soundcard etc it covers all the leds up, my maximus hero looks great but once everythings installed you can barely see any of the lighting. I like that you can change the colours on this one tho it's an improvement over previous generation.
edekoning
SSD_PRO