ASUS Maximus VI Gene Review
Published by Marc Büchel on 12.07.13Conclusion
| Overall | + | - | |
| At a first glance the Maximus VI Gene definitely leaves a very good impression. The mix of overclocking features and a high quality audio hardware makes this a state-of-the-art motherboard for mATX-gaming. And next to a very nice looking design you find useful features like for example GameFirst. This software allows you to configure your network device the way gaming traffic gets prioritized (keyword traffic shaping). And then there is the "Do Not Disturb" door hanger. we really like this addition. It really is these small thing that make manufacturers win gamers hearts! | -
Design - Layout - mATX |
||
| Layout | + | - | |
|
Basically the ASUS Maximus VI Gene's Layout has been very well thought. Once more practical are the angled SATA connectors as well as the power- and reset-buttons. There is also a debug display which is very useful in case you should have issues with a component in your system or the board itself. Especially overclockers will enjoy the voltage read-out points. Regarding the PCI-Express x16 slots there we have nothing to complain about. A closer look at the area around the CPU socket shows, that there is plenty of space to install big aircoolers without running into any issues. What we also liked is where the power and reset buttons are. Especially when you overclock memory using liquid nitrogen, then it makes sense to not have them next to the DIMM slots, since they will free quite quickly. Another great addition is the mPCIe-Slot, which in this case is compatible with M.2 (NGFF) SSDs. Unfortunately this slot has only been wired to one PCI Express 2.0 x1 lane, which means, that maximum transfer speeds won't surpass 500 Megabyte per second. |
- Angled SATA connectors
- mPCIe Slot - M.2 (NGFF) Support - Power/Reset-Button onboard - Debug display - Space around the CPU socket |
||
| Performance | + | - | |
| Let's first have closer look at overall 3D performance. Calcualting the average of all 3D benchmarks we ran, we see that this board comes in on an excellent 2nd spot. Concerning the average of all 2D performance, this board came in 5th to bottom, which is a bit disappointing. Furthermore, when we dig deeper into the individual results, we see that this board is either somewhere in the top rankings or somewhere in the bottom third. Nevertheless we hope that future BIOS updates will level performance a bit. On another note we had a look at power consumption and in this case we see that this board is a little bit below average. | -
SuperPi 1M - wPrime - Sleeping Dogs |
- 3DMark 11 - Metro Last Light |
|
| Overclocking / BIOS | + | - | |
| As you might have expected from ASUS you get an excellent BIOS which offers not only a boatload of tuning and tweaking options but is also very easy to use. The ROG themed BIOS always comes with a bit more of a technical touch but it is still very well structured and it won't take long until one understands what's where. | - Clear arrangement - Sheer amount of options | ||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| Should you be looking for an ASUS ROG mATX motherboard, which comes at a very decent price point, then there is no way around the Maximus VI Gene. It's an overall very good board and it offers everything you need to squeeze even the last bit of performance out of your system and even for gamers it offers a decent features mix. | -
Enthusiast build - Overclocking - Gaming |
||
| Rating | |||
| We give the ASUS Maximus VI Gene very good 4.5 out of 5 stars. | |||
Discuss this article in the forums
Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch
| Navigate through the articles | |
ASUS Maximus VI Hero Review |
ASRock Z87 OC Formula Preview
 |
|
|