ASUS Maximus V Formula Motherboard Review

The Maximus V Formula motherboard ships in a very distinctive red box featuring the Republic Of Gamers Artwork.

The box is a gatefold design, to give the potential customer an overview of the motherboard in a retail store environment.

The included bundle is extensive and contains the following:

• User's manual
• I/O Shield
• 2 x SATA 3Gb/s cable(s)
• 4 x SATA 6Gb/s cable(s)
• 1 x SLI bridge(s)
• 1 x Q-connector(s) (2 in 1)
• 1 x ROG Connect cable(s)
• 1 x 12 in 1 ROG Cable Label(s)
• 1 x mPCIe Combo card(s) with dual band WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n module + Bluetooth v4.0/3.0+HS module
• 1 x 2-in-1 RF Cable(s)
• 2 x Wi-Fi Ring Moving Antenna(s)

An overview of the Maximus V Formula motherboard, built around a black PCB. The red accenting looks great on the ports and slots, and is obviously the traditional ROG colour scheme. The board is an Extended Form factor size measuring 30.5 cm x 25.7 cm.

The ASUS heatsinks are huge and surround the VRM's at the CPU socket. The ‘Fusion Thermo' is a VRM cooler made from a combination of 100% copper water cooling channel with electro plated nickel barbs, and anodized aluminum finned air cooler.

There is a manual power and reset switch next to the DIMM slots, ideal for easy access inside the case. There are four (dual channel) memory slots on the board which support up to 32GB of memory. DDR3 2800(O.C.)/2666(O.C.)/2600(O.C.)/2400(O.C.)/2200(O.C.)/2133(O.C.)/1866(O.C.)/1600/1333/1066 settings are supported.

There are eight SATA ports on this board. Two two black ports on the right side are SATA 3Gbps, and controlled by the Intel Z77 chipset. The two red ports on the right are SATA 6Gbps rated and are also controlled by the Intel Z77 chipset. The four red ports on the left are SATA 6Gbps rated and controlled by the ASMedia Z77 controller.

There is support for Raid 0, 1, 5 and 10.

There are :

3 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8 or x8/x4/x4), 1 x PCIe 2.0 x4, 3 x PCIe 2.0 x1 and a single x mini-PCIe 2.0 x1 slots on the Maximus V Formula motherboard.

Along the bottom of the board are audio connectors and several USB headers, alongside additional fan headers and the front panel connector.

The Maximus V Formula has the SupremeFX IV onboard audio controller, with a bundle 300 ohm headphone amplifier. The sound quality from this motherboard is well above average and an excellent choice if you value sound quality.

The rear I/O panel supports:

• 1 x DisplayPort
• 1 x HDMI
• 1 x eSATA 3Gb/s
• 1 x LAN (RJ45) port(s)
• 4 x USB 3.0
• 4 x USB 2.0
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF out
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF in
• 5 x Audio jack(s)
• 1 x Clear CMOS button(s)
• 1 x ROG Connect On/ Off switch(es)

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