User Review ASUS Maximus VII Formula review

1. Introduction

Hi everyone, hope you are all doing fine. This time I am reviewing the ASUS Maximus VII Formula motherboard featuring Watch Dogs PC Game. This motherboard is based on the Intel Z97 chipset and is targeted towards high end gaming segment.

Here is the link to the motherboard(Asus official site) : ASUS Maximus VII Formula motherboard



Here is the link to the specs as on official site: Motherboards - MAXIMUS VII FORMULA - ASUS



2. Unboxing and packaging:

The box has got a good aesthetic appeal with the Watch Dogs protagonist, Aiden Pearce pictured on the front side which is secured via velcro. You can see the board through a transparent plastic layer under the top cover.

The back side of the box has detailed write up of the overview of the board and special features are explained.

Packaging was very good. The accessories were well packed inside another box below the motherboard.


In box accessories:


mPCIE Combo III:

Glad to say M.2 support is there on this module which we did not find in the GIGABYTE Z97 Gaming G1 WiFi BK.


The WiFi antennae is state of the art and looks excellent. Here are some photos:

The cable connectors on both sides are gold plated and are of good quality.

The I/O shield is metallic black in color with foam on the back coated with an aluminium layer for electric screening. I forgot to take photo of the I/O shield, so apologize for that.


3. Layout:

The board:

The motherboard is based on a black and red theme as seen on Republic-of-Gamers segment.

Cleaning was good mostly. There was little excess soldering flux on some areas.


Back I/O ports:

The back panel features:

• A PS/2 port supporting a keyboard or mouse
• Two USB 2.0 ports
• Six USB 3.0 ports
• HDMI and Display Port
• RJ-45 ethernet port
• Six audio jacks for 8 channel audio support with support for optical S/PDIF output.
• Clear CMOS and ROG Connect switches

Power connectors:


The board is powered using the standard 24 pin EATX and 8 pin EPS plugs.

Please note that there are device detection LEDs here as well for diagnosing problems.

An additional 4 pin power connector is given for even more power required during extreme overclocking.


Expansion capabilities

SATA ports:[/B]

The motherboard has 10 SATA ports at 6 Gbps conforming to the SATA-III specification, two SATA Express ports with support for two SATA 6 Gbps ports each. 6 SATA ports are controlled by the Z97 chipset while the rest are controlled by ASMedia controller.



Expansion slots:

Top to bottom: PCIe 2.0 x1 slot 1, PCIe 2.0/3.0 x16 slot @x16, PCIe 2.0 x1 slot 2, PCIe 2.0/3.0 x16 slot @x8, PCIe 2.0 x1 slot 3, PCIe 2.0 x16 slot @x4
The motherboard supports AMD CrossFireX™ Technology and NVIDIA SLI. Maximum dual GPU bandwidth is x8 + x8 mode.


RAM slots:

4 DIMM slots are provided supporting up to 32 GB of memory each memory module being 8 GB in size. Maximum overclocked memory support is upto 3300 MHz.


Layout is very good and I was very happy with the placement of the fan headers.


4. Component analysis, Internal headers, front panel headers, switches:



I was not permitted to open the cover of the board and so could not have the inside scoop of the components.


At the centre of the board, there is a Republic-of-Gamers logo done on a glass layer which glows on standby power and is PWM based.

The power design is 8+2 phase. The chokes are of premium quality and features 10K solid state capacitors.

There are onboard power and reset buttons and a POST code reader provided for diagnosing problems. There is also a chassis fan header just beside the reset button.


The mPCIE Combo III connector and another chassis fan header is situated near the top left corner of the board.

The CPU fan header and an optional CPU fan header is provided to the left of the RAM slots.

The front panel header is standard. There is a keybot button for easy overclocking and XMP settings. There are some chassis fan headers and USB headers as well along with the ROG ext connector, soundstage button, front panel audio and TPM headers.

There are some other chassis fan headers as well.

Near the top-right portion of the board, voltage test points are given for easy realtime DIY and diagnosis.

The front panel USB 3.0 header is included near the power connector.

The VRM heatsink is fully ready for water cooling and is fully based on copper.

The UEFI/BIOS is stored in a 64 MB Winbond chip. It is user replaceable in case the chip needs to be replaced.


ELNA premium capacitors are used for the audio filter.
The audio IC is a Realtek ALC 1150 chip having a Signal-to-Noise Ratio(SNR) of 115db. I must say that practically, the audio quality of this board was top notch with high dynamic range and excellent separation between the left and right channels.
There was an issue with this particular board and there was a very loud thud noise while it was just powered on or shut down. I reported the issue to ASUS India for inspection.

Notes: The CPU socket is very delicate. Install the CPU with utmost care to prevent damage to the socket. Do not touch the socket pins or the base of the CPU.


When opening the socket lever, just be careful of not scratching the board with the lever. This can be redesigned by using a plastic cap on the end of the lever and/or using a membrane on the surface of the board near this area.


5. Test system:




CPU: Intel Core i7 4790K
Motherboard: Asus Maximus VII Formula
RAMs: Kingston HyperX Savage DDR3 2400 MHz CL11 (2*8 GB)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Seidon 120V with push pull configuration
Graphics card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 1GB DDR5
Hard disk(s): Kingston 60 GB SSDNOW V100
Power Supply: Corsair GS 700 2013 edition
Monitor: Dell S2240M
Chassis: Open test bench table
Software: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Service Pack 1 and all updates till then.

Please check part 2...

 

[Arijit Guha]

continued from part 1.....

5. UEFI/BIOS walk through:



The first screen is loaded with all the options for overclocking.

There is an easy tuning wizard which will automatically overclock the components based on offset likely stable settings for most components.


The my favorites menu is added in all the new motherboards. You can keep all your frequently used options here for quick access.

The rest of the screens are self explanatory. I will explain where required.

The UEFI/BIOS was simply the best out of all the motherboards I have reviewed so far. With a lot of options for overclocking, everything required for a 24/7 overclock as well as extreme overclocking is there.


6. OS Installation, benchmarks:

The OS installation went without any issues.
The power profile was set to high performance mode to prevent power saving states triggering while benchmarks.


Please note that these benchmarks are not an absolute measure of the motherboard performance but a measure of the platform performance. Overclock potential however is a relative measure of the motherboard quality and performance.
I don't have much to tell here. We will compare scores at stock and overclocked conditions.


Testing methodology: CPU performance and memory performance were tested with well known benchmarking software such that scores can be compared also. Relative performance is shown at stock and overclocked settings and then compared.


Benchmarks(stock performance):


Validation: CPU-Z Validator 4.0


Cinebench R11.5:

Scores 9.66 points.


Cinebench R15:

898 points.


AIDA cache and memory benchmark:

3D Mark Vantage CPU score:

12077 CPU points(physics score) there.


Maxxmem benchmark:

SuperPi 32M benchmark:

wPrime 1024M benchmark:

Intel XTU benchmark:

Benchmarks(overclocked performance):


CPU Clock : 4.6 GHz (46*100), Voltage: 1.3V
Memory clock : 2400 MHz @ stock timings. The memory did not overclock very well and the highest I got was 2520 MHz, that too with the stability questionable.
NB Clock : 4.4 GHz


The CPU was an average overclocker with respect to core clock. However, the integrated NB controlling the L3 cache overclocked pretty well at 4.4 GHz with complete stable operation.


Validation: CPU-Z Validator 4.0


Cinebench R11.5:

It scores 10.15 points! Appreciably higher than that at stock.


Cinebench R15:

940 points there!


AIDA cache and memory benchmark:

3D Mark Vantage CPU score:

12532 points(physics score).


Maxxmem benchmark:

SuperPi 32M benchmark:

wPrime 1024M benchmark:

Intel XTU benchmark:

System performance is very good both at stock and overclocked conditions.
Performance improved after overclocking. Though the CPU was not very friendly with overclocking, it was well stable at 4.6 GHz and NB at 4.4 GHz throughout the time I tested it.


7. Bundled software:



SupremeFX audio:

The audio IC is a Realtek ALC 1150 and audio quality was very good with the chip having a 115 dB SNR on paper.

ASUS AI Suite 3:

ASUS AI suite 3 puts you in control of advanced settings that are usually accessible via the BIOS only.

You get overclocking settings, AI charger(allows you to charge USB devices quickly) and much more.


The AI Suite 3 can be minimized near the system tray:

ASUS ROG KeyBot:


With KeyBot, you can make an ordinary keyboard perform ROG functions.

Read more about KeyBot here : What Is ROG KeyBot? - Republic of Gamers


ASUS Boot setting and DirectBIOS:

You don't have to worry about pressing the del key again for entering BIOS after a reboot.


8. Temperature testing:

There were no thermal issues faced with the system. The CPU temperatures were less than 65 degree Celsius at maximum load at stock settings. Overclocking the CPU led that to be around 84 degree C.


9. Summary and conclusion:

Pros:
1. Excellent layout
2. Feature packed- SATA Express, PCIe M.2 support, Soundstage, WiFi, Bluetooth, liquid cooling support out of the box
3. Fully covered providing strength and protecting from dust and moisture
4. UEFI/BIOS is top notch.
5. Good audio quality.




Cons:


1. [Board specific]: Loud audio thud while powering on system or just while it shuts down.





Verdict:
This motherboard is for those who are into serious gaming and enthusiasm. This motherboard is undoubtedly at the top-most line of their Z97 motherboard lineup. With all that is stated above, this board is one of the best Z97 motherboards money can buy.




Overall, a 9.2 out of 10!


Thanks for reading. Hope you like it. Please share your opinions. Suggestions are warmly welcome.


Last but not the least, I would like to express my thanks to ASUS India for providing me the sample and to Kingston India for providing me the RAMs and SSD without which this review would have been difficult.




About me:




A 4th(final) year computer science engineering student with a passion to research on computer hardware and getting the best out of a product at a price.