Layout

As usual the Maximus VIII Impact looks very good and features a harmonic design. Once again the ROG-colors - red, black and silver/white - suite nicely and together with the matte black PCB it becomes a beautiful product. The layout itself is well thought and there is for example plenty of space around the CPU socket to install even the largest CPU coolers. On a mini-ITX motherboard it is crucial that the CPU socket is in the center of the motherboard, otherwise installing big aircoolers becomes an issue. There are plenty of other mini-ITX motherboards out there, which have the CPU socket closer to the PCI-Express x16 slot. This brings the consequence, that the cooler is going to collide with the VGA. Looking for the SATA connectors shows, that ASUS placed them at the only reasonable/available position. Furthermore there are straight connectors, since there just isn't enough space for angled ones.





The ASUS Maximus VIII Impact comes with a digital 6+2+2 phase power design. The CPU gets six phases and the iGPU as well as the memory receive stable current supply from two individual phases. Furthermore ASUS equips this board with so called "MicroFine alloy chokes", which are capable of withstanding higher current than conventional solid chokes. Furthermore there are 10K Black Metallic Capacitors, which have an average life span of 10'000 hours. Each phase is also equipped with an IR3553 buck-controller, which features an integrated Schottky diode as well as a control MOSFET. The IR3553 controller offer up to 40A output power. In other words, the Impact received the same power design, which can also be found on the bigger ASUS ROG Maximus VIII motherboards. Since, this mini-ITX motherboard offers very limited space, ASUS has put the VRM on a daughter PCB, which has been soldered to the motherboard.



In total there are two DIMM-slots on the Maximus VIII Impact. Officially supported are DDR4 4133 (O.C) / 4000 (O.C) / 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 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 2.0.



On the Maximus VIII Impact the PCH is being cooled by a passive cooling block. A closer look at the area where the VRM is, shows that there is another single heatsink - one is on the front-side and the other is located on the back-side. The design as well as the build quality is on an excellent level, which is typical for ASUS' Maximus VIII series motherboards.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 14 - SiSoft Sandra 2
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery	Page 15 - UC Bench
Page 3 - Features	Page 16 - Super Pi 1M / 32M
Page 4 - Layout	Page 17 - wPrime 1024M Multi Core
Page 5 - Connectors and I/O	Page 18 - Cinebench
Page 6 - BIOS	Page 19 - Tomb Raider
Page 7 - Test setup	Page 20 - Metro Last Light
Page 8 - Preview / Gallery	Page 21 - Sleeping Dogs
Page 9 - 3D Mark	Page 22 - Power Consumption
Page 10 - 3D Mark 11	Page 23 - Performance Rating
Page 11 - 3D Mark Vantage	Page 24 - Price Comparison
Page 12 - PC Mark 8	Page 25 - Conclusion
Page 13 - SiSoft Sandra 1