Overall | + | - | |
At a first glance the Maximus VII Impact definitely leaves an excellent impression. The mix of overclocking features and a high quality audio hardware makes this a state-of-the-art motherboard for mini-ITX-gaming. And next to a very nice looking design you find useful features like for example GameFirst III. 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. Absolutely remarkable, that's what the ten phase power design is. ASUS really succeed in bringing even extreme overclocking to the mini-ITX form factor. |
- Design - Memory Overclocking - Layout - mini-ITX |
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Layout | + | - | |
Basically, the ASUS Maximus VII Impact's layout has excellently thought. In order to make more space on this tiny PCB ASUS decided to use a daughter PCBs, one for the power design and the other for the audio solution. Furthermore, the straight SATA 6Gbps ports have been placed at the only location where it makes sense to have them, when you look at this point from the accessibility perspective. Also due to space contraints ASUS has put the debug LED, the KeyBot as well as the SoundStage button to the I/O panel. Since the CPU socket is in the center of the PCB it is possible to install even largest CPU cooler found on the market today. Another great addition is the mPCIe-slot, which in this case is compatible with M.2 (NGFF) SSDs up to PCIe 4x. | - mPCIe Slot - M.2 (NGFF) PCIe 4x Support - Power/Reset-Button onboard - Debug display - Space around the CPU socket |
Page 1 - Introduction | Page 4 - Layout |
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery | Page 5 - Connectors and I/O |
Page 3 - Features | Page 6 - Conclusion |
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