Layout

ASUS decided to give the Maximus X Apex 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 easy installation of oversized graphics cards.


The ASUS Maximus X Apex comes with a digital 8+2 phase power design. The power design on this board is pretty solid and it's good for extreme overclocking. Digging a little bit deeper into the details we find a PWM controller that's been labelled ASP1405I, which might be an IR35201 fully digital PWM controller that offers up to 8 phases. Each PWM phase from the digital PWM is doubled by an IR3599. On the PCB there are four of these chips. Furthermore there are ten IR3535 chips on the backside of the motherboard. The MOSFETs are Infineon OptiMOS BSG0812ND and they are rated for 50A.

The memory VRM uses a two-phase controller with N-channel MOSFETs. The VCCSA and VCCIO take power from a TPS51362 10A converter by Texas Instruments and a single phase VRM controlled by an Anpec and PowerPAK.



This board has been equipped with a total of two DIMM-slots. Officially supported is everything up to DDR4 4500 (O.C.). There is enough 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.



The PCH as well as the current converters are being held at adequate temperatures via passive heatsinks. The heatsinks for the current converters are made from two aluminium blocks which are not linked by an additional heatpipe. The PCH heatsinks are all quite simple and flat. The cooling blocks have been very well made and they've been perfetcly attached to the board to provide enough pressure on the components they have to cool. The aluminium blocks are black with grey sheet metal covers, overall resembling a new and fresh looking design.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 11 - SiSoft Sandra 1
Page 2 - Specs and Delivery	Page 12 - SiSoft Sandra 2
Page 3 - Features	Page 13 - UC Bench
Page 4 - Layout	Page 14 - Super Pi 1M
Page 5 - Connectors and I/O	Page 15 - Right Mark Audio Analyzer
Page 6 - BIOS	Page 16 - Crystal Disk Mark 5
Page 7 - Test setup	Page 17 - Power Consumption
Page 8 - Preview / Gallery	Page 18 - Performance Rating
Page 9 - 3D Mark	Page 19 - Price Comparison
Page 10 - Cinebench R15	Page 20 - Conclusion