Layout

ASUS decided to give the Maximus IX Formula a color scheme that's kept in black and grey. The PCB is matte black, the aluminum VRM heatsinks are silver-greyish and the PCH cooler is black with a sheet metal cover that's received the ROG logo in silver. Apart from that there is the RGB lighting, which ASUS calls AURA. It allows you to make the board shine in your preferred color. The layout itself is well thought and since ASUS is always taking Intel's reference specifications regarding socket clearance into account, there is enough space to install large aircoolers. The fact that there are angled SATA connectors allows for an easy installation of oversized graphics cards.

The ASUS Maximus IX Formula comes with a digital 8+2+2 phase power design. The CPU is backed up by eight phases, the iGPU can rely on two phases and the memory receives stable current supply from two phases as well. In general the power design on this board is more than adequate for the job at hand. It's even good for extreme overclocking. Digging a little bit deeper into the details we find a PWM controller that's been labelled ASP1400BT, which regulates the 10 CPU VRM phases. Those cosists of 87350D NexFETs from Texas Instruments, micro-fine-alloy inductors and 10K capacitors. Overall this is a high quality power design although ASUS decided to go for a doubled phase design.

This board has been equipped with a total of four DIMM-slots. Officially supported is everything up to DDR4 4133 (O.C.). 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 IX Formula the southbridge is being cooled by a passive cooling block. A closer look at the VRM area shows there are two more individual passive heatsinks without heatpipe again. The overall build quality of the blocks is good, which makes for a product that feels very nice, when you're holding it in your hands.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 14 - SiSoft Sandra 2
Page 2 - Spécifications / Bundle	Page 15 - UC Bench
Page 3 - Features	Page 16 - Super Pi 1M / 32M
Page 4 - Layout	Page 17 - wPrime 1024M Multi Core
Page 5 - Connectique et I/O	Page 18 - Cinebench
Page 6 - BIOS	Page 19 - Tomb Raider
Page 7 - Configuration de test	Page 20 - Metro Last Light
Page 8 - Aperçu / Galerie	Page 21 - Sleeping Dogs
Page 9 - 3D Mark	Page 22 - Consommation électrique
Page 10 - 3D Mark 11	Page 23 - Indice de Performance
Page 11 - 3D Mark Vantage	Page 24 - Comparaison des prix
Page 12 - PC Mark 8	Page 25 - Conclusion
Page 13 - SiSoft Sandra 1