Maximus VI Formula Discussion Thread

[Raja]

Maximus VI Formula Overview and Discussion Thread
The Maximus VI Formula should be available to purchase in a few weeks. A motherboard many have been waiting for, and for good reason. Plenty of cool features on offer, we won't go into them all, but have picked out some of the salient ones for you to check out below:

Board layout and features at a glance:



Gaming Features



SupremeFX






The Maximus VI Formula sports a specialized audio solution called SupremeFX. Based on Realtek’s latest ALC1150 chipset, the Cirrus Logic DAC and the TPA6120 headphone amplifier and an optimized PCB layout - isolating PCB layers and spacing sensitive traces away from other areas of the motherboard. Shielding is also utilized to minimize spurious noise from entering signal lines. High quality capacitors are used for power supply decoupling to minimize ripple and provide a low impedance at audio critical frequencies. The end result is a 120dB SNR, placing the Maximus VI Formula's onboard audio solution on par with the best discrete soundcards available.


On the software side, the latest addition to the package is Sonic Radar:






The Sonic Radar GUI


Sonic Radar is a HUD that is useful in FPS games. It shows a visual representation of where sounds are coming from. The location of footsteps, gunshots, explosions and anything else is shown in the 360 degree HUD while gaming:




BF3 – Sonic Radar showing direction of audio effects



The HUD can be made more transparent and its location on the screen changed. Sonic Radar very useful feature when gaming with stereo headsets, where surround effects are simulated and may not be easy to pinpoint.



On the subject of headsets, Perfect Voice has been added to improve the clarity of VOIP calls. It’s a software based filter that uses digital signal processing to remove noise pickup from your mic while making a call:






DSP helps reduce ambient noise for clearer comms


Perfect Voice works with any plug in microphone/headset to clean up voice transmission during calls.




ROG RAMDISK




With high density memory modules and kits becoming the norm, many of us have an abundance of free memory on our systems that never gets utilized. ROG RAM Disk has been coded to take advantage of that free space to help speed up the system.





ROG RAM Disk GUI


Unlike many free RAM drive tools, ROG RAM DISK has no size limitations – up to 80% of the free memory (not used by the OS) can be configured as a RAM drive.


To get you an idea of how fast a RAM drive is, check the screenshot below:





10000 MB/s sequential write speeds


Applications stored on ROG RAM DISK are written to hard storage (HHD/SSD) when the system is prompted for shutdown.



Of course, re-installing games to the RAM DISK would be a painful experience. That's why ROG RAM DISK has a feature know as Junction Mode.








Setting a junction point to a game folder allows critical game files to be transferred to the RAM DISK without interfering with the original installation. Just point the software at the game folder and it will take care of the rest. This way, critical files such as maps can be accessed directly from the RAM DISK, speeding up load times.



Discussing features is fine, but what really matters for many users in knowing a board can overclock and run stable. How about 24 hour stability testing? Here's a few screenies from JJ, showing the Maximus VI Formula running different memory configs and CPU overclocks:




Over 24 hours AIDA64 passed at 4.7GHz DDR3-2800 16GB 4x4




Over 24 hours AIDA64 passed at 4.6GHz DDR3-2133 32GB 8X4





4.8GHz DDR3-2400 AIDA 1 Hour - right at the limits of the CPU and cooling






Use this thread to discuss/share results when you get your boards folks 🙂

[AusRoG]

I have the EK blocks on my MVIF. They are well designed with excellent quality and finish BTW. Regarding GPU clearance for the PCH block, EK lined up the ports perfectly with the third PCIe (1x) slot so that in theory you should be able to fit 2 dual-slot aircooled GPUs in the first 2 red PCIe slots without them blocking the PCH waterblock ports. But in practice it will be a tight fit, especially with larger fittings and tubing (barbs should be OK, fat compression fittings not).

[MrAnonymous]

AusRoG wrote:
I have the EK blocks on my MVIF. They are well designed with excellent quality and finish BTW. Regarding GPU clearance for the PCH block, EK lined up the ports perfectly with the third PCIe (1x) slot so that in theory you should be able to fit 2 dual-slot aircooled GPUs in the first 2 red PCIe slots without them blocking the PCH waterblock ports. But in practice it will be a tight fit, especially with larger fittings and tubing (barbs should be OK, fat compression fittings not).

This was the big question, compression fittings 🙂
Seems it's millimeter clearance with barbs or thick tubing which I don't understand why they lined up the ports there, but again they can't do much considering asus put the pci-e slots where they are.
I agree with Keyzman though, southbridge is going to only reduce flow rate of the loop.
Going to consider the ek m6f blocks since the vrms on board don't even need the cooling 😞

[AusRoG]

MrAnonymous wrote:
This was the big question, compression fittings 🙂
Seems it's millimeter clearance with barbs or thick tubing which I don't understand why they lined up the ports there, but again they can't do much considering asus put the pci-e slots where they are.
I agree with Keyzman though, southbridge is going to only reduce flow rate of the loop.
Going to consider the ek m6f blocks since the vrms on board don't even need the cooling 😞

If you're not going to use the PCH block then I don't know if it's worth paying for the EK kit. Personally I was initially going to use the Crosschill in my loop (after deciding galvanic corrosion probably won't be an issue), I even tested it under water and was happy with it's performance (good temps and little flow restriction).

Then EK released their kit and I loved the idea of putting it on my board. Since I'm only using a single watercooled GTX 780 I don't have any clearance issues with the PCH waterblock. I found the stock PCH heatsink actually gets quite hot after a while and I liked the idea of putting that under water too - the less hot air that's dumped into my case the lower I can turn my case fans. And the EK blocks actually look pretty good, the black Acetal version fits in very well with the ROG armor. But if I was using dual slot aircooled graphics cards I would definitely not have bothered and just used the Crosschill.

[Keyzman]

JackNaylorPE, thanks for the detailed response. Good to hear from someone with industry experience.
Just a couple of questions based on what you talked about:
1. If I understand it correctly, for a galvanic cell to form you need two dissimilar metals suspended in electrolytic fluid, but you also need an electrical contact between the two metals. I suppose electrical contact happens through the case? Would this mean that if you were to use plastic washers to isolate blocks / rads you could break the galvanic cell?
2. When aluminum corrodes away and deposits on blocks, you might be able to clean them, but what about the rads? Won't aluminum eventually decrease rad efficiency over time and render is useless?

AusRoG, does M6F have a temperature sensor on the PCH? How did you determine that it got hot? Also, where is the "Motherboard temperature" measured?

[ToggTogg]

I need some dimensions that I can not find on the internet and would be useful to me for my future mod ...

Mainly, the heights of Waterblocs.

Ideally, technical drawings in plan and section ...

In advance thank you!

(I have not read a dozen of the 85 pages on the topic, I hope I have not missed this information)

[AusRoG]

Keyzman wrote:
AusRoG, does M6F have a temperature sensor on the PCH? How did you determine that it got hot?

There's no sensor that I am aware of. What I meant is that the heatsink itself gets hot to the touch, i.e. it's radiating heat into your case. It's not a problem if you have some case airflow.

[Antony-rog]

I think so far the best choice is still the 0804.

[Antony-rog]

I got this issue today. Says it's a registry issue but I don't know what is this and what key it is.

How can I solve this? What is it exactly?
Thanks!

[thebadwolf79]

If you installed or uninstalled AI Suite 3 it could have corrupted this as it's a driver for the suite.

[Antony-rog]

Thanks for answering thebadwolf79! I did actually had to reinstall AI suite.
About BIOS bugs. I faced a power loss yesterday and the system would not restart for nothing! I tried every version avalible on the website and I actually had to flash it to W7 x64 1102 and open the case :mad: take off the vga card, change to off the fast boot button on the MOBO, boot it first with onboard vga, change settings manually and only then boot it normally.
Really frustrating this situation and worst of all, I don't even know why this happened. The other PC came back just fine and it's an P5Q.
So far, it's working normally.
Anybody else still having issue booting the system?