Layout
At a first glance the ASUS
Maximus VII Formula looks very good with its harmonic design. Once again the
ROG-colors - red, black and white - suite
nicely and together with the black PCB it becomes a beautiful product.
Apparently the "ROG Armor" is quite an eye catcher. On the upwards
facing side of the board
you find a nicely crafted plastic cover, which helps keeping dust away from the
PCB and also makes the board look great. On the backside of the Maximus VII
there is a plate made from SECC steel, which provides the board with great stiffness.
Overall, when you take this board in your hands, it feels excellently built.
The ASUS Maximus VII Formula comes with a digital 8+2 phase power
design. The CPU gets eight phases and the memory gets stable current supply
from two individual phases. Furthermore ASUS equips this board with their so
called "BlackWing Chokes". These chokes can cope with up to 60A per phase. Furthermore there are 10K Black Metallic Capacitors, which have an average life
span of 10'000 hours. In other words, the Maximus VII Formula received the same
power design, which can also be found on the ASUS ROG Maximus VII Hero and Gene motherboards.
On the
Maximus VII Formula the PCH is being cooled by a
passive cooling block. A closer look at the area where the VRMs are, shows
that there is one big heatsink, which can either be used as a passive cooler or,
thanks to the two G1/4'' threads, it can be integrated into a watercooling loop. The design as well as the build quality is on an
excellent level, which is typical for ASUS Maximus VII series motherboards.
Additionally, the steelplate on the backside of the motherboard also acts as a
heatsink.
Totally you'll find four DIMM-slots on the
Maximus VII Formula. Officially supported are DDR3 3300(O.C.) / 3200(O.C.) / 3100 /
3000 / 2933 / 2800 / 2666 / 2600 / 2500 / 2400 / 2200 / 2133 / 2000 / 1866 /
1800 / 1600 / 1333 MHz. There is engough space between the DIMM-slots and the CPU socket which
means that you wont encounter compatibility problems with big coolers even when you choose to install RAM with big heatspreaders.
Also supported are Xtreme Memory Profiles (XMP) in version 1.3.