Spruce Up your computing experience with ASUS Maximus IV Extreme P67 i7 Motherboard

The Maximus IV Extreme is a “Republic of Gamers” version of their P67 line up, meaning, the product is specially designed to target the gaming market. Unlike the P8P67 products which were meant mainly for professionals, the Maximus IV Extreme is targeted at the hardcore game addicts, the packaging and the messaging being a clear indicator of the fact. The packaging typically bears the ROG standards with its blood-red colored design and a wealth of clear and concise information.

 

Inside the packaging, there are two separate boxes for the board and the accessories. The overall bundle is obviously very huge as it contains both traditional, as well as ROG specific parts needed for installation of the board, and then making it fully functional.

 

 

Now, let’s have a brief look at the technical specifications. The Maximus IV Extreme (M4E) is an average-sized board, measring 12 x 9.6 inches (30.5 x 24.4 cm). The chipset belongs to the Intel P67 Express family, while the CPU supports Intel’s second generation processors like the Socket 1155 Core i7, i5, i3 as well as the Intel Turbo Boost Technology and 32nm CPU.

 

The memory feature comprises of 4xDIMM, Max 32 GB, DDR 2200(O.C.)/2133(O.C)/1866(O.C.)/1600/1333 Non-ECC,Un-buffered. It also supports Intel Extreme Memory Profile, more famously known as Intel XMP. It has the Realtek RTL 8112L Gigabit LAN controller, which is indeed, quite effective in terms of speed and reliablity.

 

The Audio Features include VIA VT2020 10-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC. It supports Blue-ray audio layer content protection, 1optical S/PDIF out port at back I/O, automatic jack detection, multi streaming and Front Panel Jack restaking and many more. The special features include: CPU Level UP, MemOk, Onboard buttons Power, Reset and CMOS-located at the back IO, ASUS MyLogo3, ASUS Fan Xpert, ASUS EZ Flash 2 and many more.

 

 

The CPU area is really crowded with a large amount of power circuits around it. Apart from that, the overall layout of the Maximus IV Extreme is just like that of any other motherboards. If you are one of those who, for whatever reasons, likes to changes the memory every now and then, you’ll certainly enjoy the DIMM sockets featured with a nice, single clip retention method.

 

The left hand side of the board enjoys a very attractive, eye-catching color. The heatsinks are placed at the bottom, right-hand side. The SouthBridge, however appears surprisingly plain. Other than that, the other features of this gaming motherboard, such as the SATA II ports being grey and the SATA III being red, is look-wise fairly formulaic.

 

An extra Molex adaptor has been equipped at the left hand side of the board which would be helpful if you are to run a multiple card setup for extra GPU power. It also enables you to plug in your ROG bluetooth adapter. However, the rear panel, featuring the USB ports, Network and Audio jacks, and the combined PS2 port offers you nothing new. But, in our opinion, this hardly should matter to anybody.

 

Though, at first glance the motherboard seems to have a North Bridge, but a closer look will reveal that it actually is an Nvidia NF200. The P67 line up usually comes up with 16 PCI express lanes, 1x16, or 8X & 8X, or SLI. But with the addition of the NF200, users will enjoy the privilege of having enough PCIE lanes, allowing them upto 3 GPUs.

 

Those, who complaints about the board being too familiar, we would politely suggest them to keep in mind how impressing, and nicely built the ROG line of motherboards have always been.

 

 

Its been a couple of years now since the “revolutionary” introduction of the EFI BIOS, which kind of changed the way we were looking at the familiar and boring blue screen of the earlier BIOS versions. The EFIB is really quite impressive, both in terms of look and performance. People all around the world were waiting for it to feature in a motherboard, and when they finally did in the P67 Chipset Motherboards, it lived upto the expectations of everyone.

 

Its worth mentioning that the EFI BIOS is the first BIOS in the world which can be controlled by the mouse, thus finally moving away from the same old “Cursors and Enter” method. There are options to turn off the Hyper-threading and the C1E state. The monitoring systems, however remain unchanged, featuring thermal shut down levels, and other conventional monitoring tools.

 

The motherboard comes with a huge bundle of accessories and support CDs. The accessory bundle includes the user manual, 12 port USB 2.0 module, one I/O shield, 2+2 SATA 3.0 GB/s, and SATA 6.0 Gb/s single cables (2 in 1), one Q-Connector Kit (2 in 1), one ROG Connect cable, one Thermal Sensor Cable Pack, one 3 way SLI bridge, amongst many. Not only that, the support CD package also comprises of many system and utility discs, e.g the driver CD, ASUS AI Suite II, ROG CPU-Z, 3DMark Vantage, Kaspersky Antivirus Program with 1 year license etc. 

 

 

Finally, about the price factor, the Maximus 4 Extreme falls well into the mid-ranged category; and believe us, it truly gives you the worth of your money.

 

All in all, from our experience, the Maximus 4 Extreme delivers exactly what it was meant to. Especially, if you are game freak, you would surely like to lay your hands on this yet another fine product from ASUS and for this visit Evetech.co.za which offers a massive range of customised PCs and hardware accessories tailored to satisfy your every gaming need. Just browse through the site you can get a host hardware products that stand out for their outstanding performance, attractive look, and a reasonable prices.