Layout

At a first glance the ASUS Maximus VIII Extreme looks very good with its harmonic design. For the first time in quite a few years ASUS has decided to change the color scheme of their ROG series motherboards. There is a matte black PCB and the heatsinks feature a metallic, dark silver tone, which reflects colors. The layout itself is well-designed and there is plenty of space around the CPU socket to install even todays largest CPU coolers. The fact that there are angled SATA connectors allows an easy installation of oversized graphics cards.


The ASUS Maximus VIII Extreme features a digital 8+4+1+1+2 phase power design. Each phase is driven by an IR3535 and next to that there is a dual N-Channel MOSFET as well. The single phase driver (IR3535) is on the back side of the motherboard, which keeps the front side cleaner. Continuing we find ASUS's MicroFine Alloy Chokes as well as black metallic caps, which are specified for 10'000 hours at 95°C.

A closer look reveals there is a total of 12 phases taking care of stable current delivery to the CPU. Eight phases supply the CPU cores and four phases are in charge of the iGPU. When it comes to identifying the VRM controller ASUS is using, we always have to guess, since the vendor is using it's own label. Nevertheless we're pretty sure ASUS is using an IR35201, which is the state-of-the-art VRM controller on any serious Z170 overclocking motherboard. Apart from that there are the dual N-Channel MOSFETS from Infineon. To be more precise ASUS is using Infineon OptiMOS BSC0812ND and they are specced for 50A. What's really nice to see at this as well is the fact that there is no phase sharing going on on this board.

In the case of the additional 1+1+2 phasses, which we've not covered so far, these are taking care of VCCSA, VCCIO and memory. The memory can rely on two phases, which is sufficient for any overclocking - no matter how extreme you want to go.
There are four DIMM-slots on the Maximus VIII Extreme. Officially supported are DDR4 3800 (O.C) / 3733 (O.C.) / 3600 (O.C.) / 3500 (O.C.) /3466 (O.C) / 3400 (O.C.) / 3333 (O.C.) / 3300 (O.C.) / 3200 (O.C.) / 3000 (O.C.) / 2800 (O.C.) / 2666 (O.C.) / 2400 (O.C.) / 2133.There is engough space between the DIMM-slots and the CPU socket which means that you won't encounter compatibility issues with large coolers even when you choose to install RAM with big heatspreaders. Also supported is Xtreme Memory Profile (XMP) in version 2.0.
On the Maximus VIII Extreme the PCH (Platform Controller Hub) is being cooled by a passive heatsink, which features an RGB backlight that can be controlled via software. A closer look at the area where the VRM is, shows that there are three additional heatsinks, which have been connected with a heatpipe. As we already mentioned, ASUS has decided to rework the design and in our opinion ASUS once again managed to improve the looks of these coolers compared to the previous generation. We particularly like the shroud covering the sound implementation, I/O area as well as a part of the power design.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 4 - Layout
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery	Page 5 - Connectors and I/O
Page 3 - Features	Page 6 - Conclusion