ASUS Maximus VI Formula Review
Published by Marc Büchel on 31.07.13Conclusion
| Overall | + | - | |
| At a first glance the Maximus VI Formula definitely leaves an excellent impression. The mix of overclocking features and high quality audio hardware makes this a state-of-the-art motherboard for ATX-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). Furthremore you get ASUS' RAM Disk Software and lots of other goodies, which make this board even more appealing. From a design perspective the "ROG Armor" looks excellent. Together with the possibility to watercool the VRMs this board is perfect for modding. | -
Design - Layout - ROG Armor |
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| Layout | + | - | |
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Basically the ASUS Maximus VI Formula'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. The placement of the PCI-Express x16 slots is very well chosen too. There is a total of three full sized PCI Express slots and inbetween the first two there is a space of two slots. Should you want to build an SLI/CrossFire rig, then the card will be able to suck in fresh air perfectly, since there is plenty of space inbetween. Apart from that it's also not problem to install a large CPU cooler, since there is plenty of space to even install todays largest air coolers. Another feature gamers will like is the onboard audio solution. Subjectively compared to the Maximus V Formula, the sound with this board is clearer and more accurate in a linear manner. |
- Angled SATA connectors
- 5 x Full-Size PCI Express x16 - Power/Reset-Button onboard - Debug display - Space around the CPU socket |
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| Performance | + | - | |
| Let's first have a closer look at overall 3D performance. Calcualting the average of all 3D benchmarks we ran, we see that this board ranks second to last in our comparison tables. Concerning the average 2D performance, this board scores the excellent 1st place. Furthermore, when we dig deeper into the individual results, we see that this board offers consistently excellent 2D performance but unfortunately consistently bad 3D results. We really hope that ASUS will find a way to tweak 3D performance by making some changes in the BIOS. On another note we had a look at power consumption and in this case we see that we have an ATX motherboard with a lot of features lying in front of us, which ususally means, that power consumption is going to end up above average. Therefore we didn't see any surprises and this board can be found in the bottom third of our comparison tables. | -
3DMark Fire Strike Physics - SiSoft Sandra Arithmetic - SiSoft Sandra Multimedia Integer - SiSoft Sandra Cryptography - SiSoft Memory Bandwidth - SiSoft Memory and Cache Access - UC Bench - wPrime |
- 3DMark Fire Strike - 3DMark 11 CPU - 3DMark Vantage - Metro Last Light - Sleeping Dogs |
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| 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 | + | - | |
| If you're looking for a high-end ATX gaming motherboard, then there is no way around the ASUS Maximus VI Formula. This board features everything that makes the heart of an overclocker or a gamer beat faster and also modders as well as enthusiasts will love this exclusive piece of hardware. The only drawback: it's quite expensive. | -
Enthusiast build - Overclocking - Gaming - Modding |
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| Rating | |||
| We give the ASUS Maximus VI Formula very good 4.5 out of 5 stars. | |||
Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch
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