Connectique et I/O
In total, ASUS equipped the ROG Maximus X Apex motherboard with four SATA 6Gbps connectors, which have all been natively wired to the PCH and angled by 90°. With this motherboard you get three PCIe x16 Gen 3.0, one PCIe x4 Gen 3.0 slot and two PCIe 3.0/2.0x x1 slots. While the first three received metal reinforcements, the last one doesn't feature any reinforcements. From top to bottom the full-sized PCIe slots have been wired using 16 lanes, 8 lanes and 8 lanes. This means you can build 16x/8x SLI/CrossFire and 8x/8x/8x CrossFireX (3-way). These are basically the standard options you get with any Intel Z370 based motherboard, that does not feature a PLX chip. The placement of the PCIe slots has been well-thought. Having a look around the board we find practical onboard power- and reset-buttons and there is also a debug LED on this board. Furthermore you get a MemOK button, which has proven to be a useful many times.
There is a total of eight fan headers on the ROG Maximus X Apex which is enough, to provide a well equipped E-ATX system with fresh air. The headers have been located close to the CPU as well as spread over the board. Other than that it's a good thing that all of them feature four pins, which allows for rpm regulation in BIOS as well as under Windows. Furthermore there is a plethora of additional headers you find listed below:
Fan headers
- 1 x CPU Fan connector(s)
- 1 x CPU OPT Fan connector(s)
- 3 x Chassis Fan connector(s)
- 3 x 4-pin Full Speed Fan connectors
Watercooling connectors
- 1 x AIO_PUMP connector
- 1 x W_PUMP+ connector
Connectors
- 1 x PS/2 keyboard (purple)
- 1 x PS/2 mouse (green)
- 1 x DisplayPort
- 1 x HDMI
- 1 x LAN (RJ45) port(s)
- 1 x Optical S/PDIF out
- 1 x Clear CMOS button(s)
- 1 x USB BIOS Flashback Button(s)
- 5 x Gold-plated audio jacks
- 6 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 (blue)
- 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 (red)Type-A
- 1 x USB 3.1 (black)USB Type-C
- 1 x 5G LAN(RJ45) port(s)