Connectors and I/O

Totally ASUS equipped the Maximus VII Gene with eight angled SATA ports. All ports offer 6Gbps bandwidth and six out of eight SATA III ports are natively wired to the Z97 PCH. The two additional SATA 6Gbps ports are wired to an ASMedia ASM1061 chip. Inbetween the two PCI-Express x16 Gen 3.0 slots there is also an M.2 slot which has been connected to the PCH via two PCI-Express Gen 2.0 x1 lanes offering a total of 10 Gbps bandwidth. You'll also find practical onboard power- and reset-buttons on this board and there is also a debug display. ASUS equipped this board with their SupremeFX audio solution, which like on the Maximus VI Impact comes as an add-in-card. This helps solving to issues at once: first of all it's easier to shield the audio components from the motherboard thanks to the fact, thanks to the physical distance to the PCB and second there is more space on the PCB in order to achieve a cleaner layout. Also on this version of ASUS' SupremeFX audio solution there are ELNA caps for smoother signal quality.

  

Totally you'll find five fan header on the Maximus VII Gene which is more than enough, to provide a well equipped mATX system with fresh air. The fan headers are located around the CPU socket as spread over the motherboard. ASUS decided to use 4-pin PWM headers in all five cases. Therefore it is possible to adjust rotation speed in the BIOS or in Windows.

  

Looking at the external connectors directly at the back-panel ASUS equipped the Maximus VII Gene with a PS/2 port, four USB 3.0/2.0 ports, four USB 2.0/1.1 ports, one gigabit ethernet port, an HDMI connector as well as an optical out and an analogue audio panel (via SupremeFX module). Furtheremore you'll find also a clear CMOS button and a ROG Connect switch.