Layout

Already at a first glance the ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z looks very good with its harmonic design. As always the ROG color schema is very attractive. The combination of a black PCB with red expansion slots as well as DIMM slots is very appealing especially if this is combined with the nicely shaped cooling blocks. The layout itself is well thought and there is for example enough space to install a big CPU cooler. 

ASUS equipped the Maximus IV Gene-Z with a 16+4+2 phase current supply whereas the CPU can rely on eight phases, the memory gets its own two phases and the integrated GPU gets another four phases. Furthermore ASUS implemented a digital power design which should emit less electromagnetic radiation than its analogue counterpart. Therefore ASUS claims that the system stability can be enhanced even further, especially during extreme overclocking.

Totally you'll find four DIMM-slots on the Maximus IV Gene-Z. Officially supported are DDR3-2200+ / 2133 / 1866 / 1600 / 1333 with up to 32 GByte capacity. Because of the mATX formfactor ASUS had to place the DIMM-slots quite close to the CPU socket which might cause some compatibility problems with big coolers especially when you choose to install RAM with big heatspreaders.

Current converters are being held at adequate temperatures via a passive heatpipe cooling solution. The southbridge got an independant cooling block which has been nicely designed. The aluminium blocks around the CPU socket are quite big. Nevertheless their not close to the CPU socket which means that this will not compromise the installation of a big CPU cooler.