ASUS Maximus VII Formula ROG Z97 Motherboard
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,752 words · ~8 min read
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as ausa's highest end Rog z97
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motherboard the Maximus 7 formula has all the bells
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and wait what sorry it's not supposed to come
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with any bells or whistles this is a piece of computer hardware not a summer
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camp counselor preparedness
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kit Cooler Master V series semi modular
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power supplies feature 80 plus gold efficiency and their gold guarantee
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5-year warranty click now to learn more obviously I meant figurative bells and
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whistles with CPU performance pretty much equal across every motherboard
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running a given chipset ausa's approach to justifying the high price of a
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formula grade Republic of Gamers board is to load it chalk full of features
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that they hope will enrich the gaming experience let's find out if they
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succeeded first a physical tour it starts with the eye-catching plastic Rog
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armor PL on the front of the board an attractive if not particularly
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functional feature and a steel back plate something that may actually save
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you a motherboard RMA if you have a tendency to accidentally scratch the
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backs of your boards on motherboard standoffs the LGA 1150 socket is powered
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by an 8 plus 4 pin connector setup although you only really need to plug in
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one of them and thanks to the new improved Digi Plus 8 pH power design it
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performs optimally with any Intel CPU that fits in it RAM is a similar story
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with digital power delivery and support for up to 3,300 MHz DDR3 RAM in dual
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Channel we're talking ddr4 type range
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speed here onboard tweaker friendly dials include onboard power reset memo K
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kbot and Sound Stage buttons more on those last two later and finally to go
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along with a header for their external overclocking panel there are built-in
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voltage checkpoints although I prefer the implementations of some other
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manufacturers who include multimeter friendly adapters instead of relying on
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my steady hands to get a reading moving further down the storage config of this
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board is super premium in some ways with dual SATA Express slots one from the
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Intel chipset and a second as media powered one Each of which can become two
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SATA 3 slots for a total of 10 and yet kind of lacking in others with no rear
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EA and while it has an m.2 slot on the
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mpcie combo 3 thing that comes pre-loaded with a Bluetooth and dualband
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AC wireless card the aforementioned m.2
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only works with short style drives due to clearance issues with the Rog armor
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maybe that's why ASUS also sent over their hyper m.2 X4 expansion card that
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just plugs into a PCI Express lot something that's an extra for this board
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it's not something that I'm likely to use soon with m.2 drives not being that
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plentiful and not really offering a tangible performance benefit yet but
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they also have other expansion options available such as their Thunderbolt 2
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module that works on all of their z97 boards including this one with love to
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get my hands on one of those PCI Express gen 3 expansion is handled by three PCI
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e1x slots two PCIe 16x slots that are split to 8X 8X when both are in use and
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a final PCIe 4X slot that can be used for a graphics card and three-way
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Crossfire but unfortunately isn't usable for three-way SLI now three-way Graphics
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configurations are not something that I really encourage anyway but I feel like
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for someone dropping almost $400 on a motherboard these days it should
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probably at least be an option anyway under these slots is ausa's best onboard
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audio implementation yet highquality Dax
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and premium audio grade capacitors aren't exactly new but what is new with
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the 2014 edition of their Supreme FX audio solution is the ability to amplify
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your games and music and provide a great listening experience no matter where you
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plug into which with the number of people using front panel audio
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connectors is a great step forward now let's take a quick look at the rear
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panel with its useful clear seos button abundance of USB 3 ports and some people
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won't care about this but I do PS2 Port
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before moving on to the features and Extras that ASUS feels will help this
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product justify it's high price compared to the more basic options that are also
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available for DIY PC Builders first up
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is the best onboard fan control setup I've yet seen on a motherboard it's got
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eight sensibly positioned fan headers with what has become standard on ASUS
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boards individual control control of either pwm or DC fans via curves that
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can be adjusted according to onboard or manually positioned temp sensors awesome
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next up is keybot an onboard chip that sits electrically between your USB port
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and your keyboard and allows you to remap your F keys to other Keys macros
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functions like media playback or program shortcuts the UI isn't particularly
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intuitive but once you set it up it actually seems to work pretty well when
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you toggle it on and off with this can be done in software or with an onboard
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button for some reason there's a bit of a delay longer the first time but
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nothing horrible it actually works on to sound features man are there a lot of
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these first is their sonic radar which puts a visual representation of where
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noises are coming from on the screen it lets you adjust opacity and turn it on
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or off for different games with profiles next they've got their Sound Stage
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Hardware level EQ presets they only work
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on the front panel audio and if you live in bizarre Universe you can press an
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onboard button to toggle them and use the post led to see if you're in FPS or
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sports mode or whatever or if you're a normal person you can change them in the
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control panel where you'll actually find a lot more stuff that I don't really use
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like artificial Reverb effects smart EQ
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and virtual surround the good news is that within the panel there's also a ton
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of useful stuff like a software EQ DTS
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settings and their voice Clarity feature to make in-game communication
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pop a little bit more and be easier to hear in summary the hardware of the
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audio on this board is great I mean it even Auto detects the impedance of your
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headphones when you plug them in and adjust the output accordingly but there
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are some dials in the software that many purists would never touch thankfully
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they have a test feature so you can do ab listening to see what sounds best for
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you I really wish they'd add a few more different sample audio tracks so that
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would make it a little bit more useful on to game first networking the features
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here are really cool and for a long time I actually had a killer Nick K1
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installed in my personal system just to be able to meter bandwidth or prioritize
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traffic between applications so this being powered by an Intel chipset
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instead of a Bigfoot one should be much better but I've had a fair bit of
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trouble with network connections working correctly with AI suite and game first
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installed over the years and unfortunately this time around is no
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exception with my network connection sometimes taking 5 to even 15 minutes to
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start working correctly whenever I unplug it the Saving Grace is that once
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it is running it works like awesome though so your mileage may vary let me
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know in the comments how game first is working for you if you have an ASUS
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motherboard and finally we've got their
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cross chill copper air/water vrm cooler
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and with this I think they finally nailed it mostly like last gen it's got
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G14 thread so I can use my own fittings but this time we get copper internals so
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I'm not mixing any Metals in my Loop way to go ASUS the only issue left is making
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sure that there's enough clearance for large compressions for the people who
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like those but my preferred 38 in thick wall ones fit just fine so this is a
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total non-issue for me two thumbs up in the real world with a 4770k switching
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from air to water let me go from 66° to
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56° on the vrm sensor and AI site but I
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feel like that sensor isn't really positioned to be truly representative of
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the difference because the board feels much more cooler than that to the touch
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which leads us to conclusion time is the Maximus 7 formula a luxury item or is it
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a practical purchase I mean you do get some software extras like kasperski
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antivirus demon tools Pro and a full copy of Watch Dogs yes it's Better Built
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and looks a lot nicer than the other stuff and you do get those little Rog
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extras like additional Support over the longer term but while I do see more
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value in a high-end board these days now that generational CPU performance
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improvements from Intel are so small that you're likely to get a few
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Generations out of it I also think the same could be said about a susus z97 pro
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which is available for a little over half the price so the bottom line is yes
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it's a luxury item but at least it's a cool one guys like this video if you
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liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment letting me know if you have any suggestions for future videos
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or comments that are more complicated than liking or disliking or whatever
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know um um I'm completely blank I'm just tired
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Amazon thanks for watching again and as always don't forget to subscribe
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he