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ROGBot
Maximus VI Impact Overview
Over the past few years, ASUS have led the way for innovation on small form-factor motherboards. It was only a matter of time before the ROG team would take on a mini-ITX project and take things to a new level.
The ROG brand is synonymous with gaming and overclocking oriented feature sets. We wanted to make a mini-ITX motherboard that could be used as a fully-fledged gaming machine and provide an overclocking experience on-par with full sized ATX motherboards - without sacrificing desirable features. A tall order, because the mini-ITX form factor is limited to a lone full length PCIe slot, which any gamer will want to populate with a discrete GPU.
That means on-board audio has to be good, however, there’s a very limited amount of space on the PCB to implement the additional circuitry required to ensure high quality audio reproduction. The same goes for power delivery. Adequate current needs to be available, but limited PCB space means that the power delivery circuit will soon infringe on space required for other on-board components and leave little room for most aftermarket CPU coolers. That's without taking space for things like on-board WiFi, Bluetooth, mPCIE space and the number of fan headers into account - things that enthusiasts want or expect to find on a gaming or overclocking oriented motherboard. We needed to find ways around these constraints whilst meeting enthusiast requirements. After a lengthy development and tuning period, these challenges have been more than met. Take a gander at the Maximus VI Impact:
ROG Maximus VI Impact - the full gamut of ROG features within a mini-ITX footprint
There's a lot more the picture above doesn't show. From compatibility with a slew of aftermarket CPU coolers with backplates to a comprehensive software suite including Gamefirst II, Sonic Radar, SSD Secure Erase and the ability to passthrough audio in standby mode. We're not going to delve into the ins and outs of all of those features today, but we are going to show you how well this little board can overclock a CPU:
We'll kick off with a 12 hour stress test pass (more to follow):
The power delivery daughter-board is an 8+2 phase solution, capable of pushing Haswell processors to maximum frequency without being a bottleneck. 4.6GHz watercooled is pretty easy. Higher frequencies fully loaded are possible with adequate cooling, too.
ETA in North America is mid~late August. We'll update with more specifics soon 🙂
Yay my order from SuperBiiz showed up today, time to finally build this thing. 😄
EVGA Geforce GTX 770 Classified, Intel Core-i7 4770k, 16GB Ram, Cooler Master Elite 120, Asus Maximus VI Impact, Cooler Master v1000 PSU.
Thinking about replacing the case when the Rosewill Neutron comes out:
http://hexus.net/tv/show/2013/06/Rosewill_debuts_thin_Rise_tower_and_Neutron_mini_ITX_chassis
EVGA Geforce GTX 770 Classified, Intel Core-i7 4770k, 16GB Ram, Cooler Master Elite 120, Asus Maximus VI Impact, Cooler Master v1000 PSU.
Thinking about replacing the case when the Rosewill Neutron comes out:
http://hexus.net/tv/show/2013/06/Rosewill_debuts_thin_Rise_tower_and_Neutron_mini_ITX_chassis
Prizeless wrote:Overkill much? 😄 This system after OC shouldn't go over 400W (single 770 with 3960X draws 300W )
Cooler Master v1000 PSU
Anyway, my Impact should be here in an hour or two. I'll be pairing it up with:
4770k, 16GB TridentX 2400Mhz RAM (I don't think i will be able to run them at 2400 after OC but I heard many nice things about this memory), Seasonic SSR-550RM and my old EVGA 660Ti FTW+ (clocks like a beast, core 140Mhz over stock, memory 700Mhz over stock. I'll wait with the upgrade decision for the new AMD cards). Everything will go into my favorite mITX case - Fractal Design Node 304.
[edit] There always is something that will go wrong 😄 The board got here, the RAM got here, I already had CPU, GPU and PSU at home but... the case didn't get here. Should get it tomorow.
