Maximus VI Impact - Discussion Thread

[Raja]

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):

4.6GHz DDR3-2400 16GB (2x8GB) 12 hours of AIDA passed




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 🙂

[nadof1]

You guys are in for a treat, im running a 4.6 and its solid as a rock.
On a side note if you use 4 way optimisation make sure you crank back the Vcore as @4.6 it gets set to 1.3v!!!

[Drerex]

Nice! My daughter already called me at work asking if she can open the package. Haha!! I said wait until I get home young grasshopper. Daddy would like to see the grand opening as well!!

[Drerex]

Finally about to break it out today.

[nadof1]

Just got a nice oc of 4.9.

Loving the Impact

[bim27142]

Any more user feedback for the built-in sound card of Impact?

[steve_rogers42]

finally built my girlfriends computer, prodigy + impact + h220 + 770gtx. Just in the install and tuning phase now... anyone know whats safe for rpms on the swiftech unit?

man sooo tiny, LOVING the impact tho, solid work ROG!

[CANheSE3me]

I am running the bitfenix prodigy with the impact i5-4670k 2133 Mhz 16 GB ram gtx 770 and h100i oh my gosh. This thing is a beast lets just get to it.

WoW ULTRA settings 100+ fps
BF3 Ultra settings auto load 90+ FPS under 60c
Assassins Creed 3 auto load Ultra settings 80+ FPS under 65c
Splinter Cell blacklist auto load Ultra Settings 80+ FPS under 55c
Crysis 3 Auto load Ultra settings 80+ FPS under 65c

This system is knocking everything out of the water. Exactly what I wanted a small form no compromise build and its performing like a champ! Thanks asus!

[bim27142]

How about the audio quality?

I wonder why few people put focus on this... IMO, this is the only thing unique to this board, since no other ITX board has this kind of feature (I mean, technically a built-in discrete class sound card in an ITX board).

[CANheSE3me]

bim27142 wrote:
How about the audio quality?

I wonder why few people put focus on this... IMO, this is the only thing unique to this board, since no other ITX board has this kind of feature (I mean, technically a built-in discrete class sound card in an ITX board).

I think its pretty damn good. I have been playing lots and lots of splinter cell blacklist lately (spies vs mercs) and being able to hear CLEARLY when someone is coming and from what direction is phenominal. I honestly can tell when people are around the coroner clear and crisp. Sound quality with other games IE Crysis 3 and Battlefield 3 also the Music from those games sounds great. I have never had a discrete sound card before but I could imagine this is what it would be like. Huge gaming advantage being able to hear people before they turn the corner especially in a game like Splinter Cell blacklist. I enjoy the sound quality I am sure a lot of people are as well.

[Myk_SilentShado]

bim27142 wrote:
How about the audio quality?

I wonder why few people put focus on this... IMO, this is the only thing unique to this board, since no other ITX board has this kind of feature (I mean, technically a built-in discrete class sound card in an ITX board).

How is the SupremeFX Impact the only unique thing to the board? there's also the VRM Daughterboard oh and also the mPCIe 2 Combo card with WIFI 802.11ac....This is the only ITX Motherboard that has ac WIFI that i've seen so far. None of the other Mfrs have a Combo card, so please tell me...how is this not unique to the board?