Layout

The ASUS Maximus III Formula presents itself on a black PCB with red expansion slots as well as red and black, passive heatsinks covering northbridge, southbridge and current converters. The design in black, red and withe looks very nice and leaves a lasting optical impression. The ASUS Maximus III Formula is a therefore a very nice porduct to look at.

ASUS provided the Maximus III Formula with a 16 phase power design whereas the CPUs memory controller has three extra Phases for even more stability. ASUS also uses All-Solid-Capacitors which have an MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) of 50'000 hours. ASUS itself describes the current supply as Xtreme-Design and I should allow very good overclocking cababilities.

Totally you'll find four DIMM-slots on the Maximus III Formula. Officially supported are DDR3-2133(O.C)/1600/1333/1066 with up to 16 GByte capacity.

North-and Southbridge as well as current converters are being held at adequate temperatures via passive cooling elements. There is also plenty of space around the CPU socket to install even todays biggest aircooler without encountering any problems. Right above the DIMM-slots you find three switches which can be used for extreme overclocking. In fact switching them makes highger voltages available in the BIOS.