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 🙂

[Praz]

Nivaku wrote:
Hello all, I'm still waiting on my ITX Case but I have a few questions for the BIOS settings in this mobo. Is there an option to disable the iGPU?

I have the i7 4770k and it comes with the 4600HD is there a way to disable that? I know in other ROG boards you can

Is there an iGPU in the mobo or only on the CPU itself?

Thanks in advance

You don't turn it off. If using a discreet graphics card just connect the monitor to it.

[Classic_GOD]

Set your default video device in UEFI to PCIe and it shouldn't get initialized if you are using discreet gpu.

[Nivaku]

^Cool thanks guys

So from what I'm gathered there no actual setting, just have to plug the DVI into your discrete GPU and change the setting to PCIe for GPU device

[crazymilk]

Another very unhappy customer with regards to the Audio...seriously how bad???

Are there any plans to improve...wow I miss my XFI Titanium.

[dstubbs]

Has anything been done about the audio problems. When I power up and down I get that pop sound. Its really loud and I am worried about my speakers. I rma'ed the first board I got and the new board has the same problem. Also get a random squeal while gamming but very rarely. do all these boards have this problem. Very sad as I bought this board based on the sound card.

[Gman257]

What type of speakers do you have attached?

[Nivaku]

Yeah I keep hearing lots of problems from people regarding audio quality.

Working one here with M1, 4670k.

... and pretty MUCH disappointed about it.

The audio card is prety ****ty -> 1) hearing data noise/whine through headphones; 2) the headamp doesn't work as supposed; 3) classic loud pop during computer start/stop; 4) when amplified and any sound starts, you hear the "sound crackle" or "gain" like with common ****ty cheap onboard audio cards.

... another little thingy -> keyboard in usb1 (2.0; back panel); smartphone on front panel usb (3.0); if I enable usb fast charge in Ai Suite 3, keyboard stops working... Doesn't stop working, if its in usb3 (2.0) (in usb2 (2.0) is mouse) Pretty much failure in my opinion.

... cpu isn't stable with latest LinX with latest Linpack on "MoBo default" = 3800MHz at load, crashes after several hours (~30+ runs with 16G RAM), and yes, it's cooled enough (even delided IHS and CLU applied; it crashed before delid; so does it after delid)... Otherwise is CPU stable (AIDA64; gaming; ...) Can be haswell "feature", don't know.


From a post from a user, this is unacceptable for me. I'm probably going to return my MOBO

[Praz]

Joni, what leads you to believe that 1.17v is not the default VID. Some of the Haswell CPUs are set at this or a slightly higher default voltage. Also an approximate 0.100V increase when running an AVX stress test program is normal.

[Joni]

Well ive seen a lot of haswell cpu:s and none has been even as close to that vid at stock, all ive seen yet have had under 1.1v when the intel spec turbo is in use. Its also the high stock cpu cache voltage that made me think something isnt right. I know cpu cache voltage can vary when you increase ram frequency and leave it auto, but havent even raised memory from stock 1333mhz yet.

I really doubt that that is the real vid, if it would be the cpu would be on fire using stock heatsink, im allready getting mid 80:s at short 5-10min P95 run with H100i.

[Joni]

Started overclocking today with this board but got stuck immideatly. When i example set 42 multi for cpu and run some stress test multi according cpu-z is jumping beetween 41-42 all the time. Any idea what settings ive missed that cause that kind of thing? Its definately not thermal throtthling as it starts to happen immideatly when lauch the tests when temps are still very low. I read the VI series OC guide and according that it was fine to leave digi+ & power settings to auto, but do i need to change something on those to keep it running full multi all the time?

E: Tried lower voltage to see if its some power related thing, but still did same with 1.150. Took short video to show what i mean.

E2: Hmm somehow it seems to be P95 blend where the multi isnt static, tried to run smallfft and on that
one multi stayed locked on 42.

E3 Also tried BF4 and on that one it mostly stayed on 42, but when pausing or at some areas with less happening it dropped to 41, so seems like its depending on how much load cpu get. With lighter load it starts to drop multi and in heavy load it stays at max multi. What could cause behaviour like that?




Didnt do any extensive tweaks at uefi so tips are appreciated.

Fully manual mode
By all cores to 42
CPU cache eventual multiplier 40
ram to 1600Mhz
Fixed cpu voltage of 1.200v
CPU Cache voltage 1.150
Ram voltage 1.5v

+ Also tried later to set cpu current capacity -> 140%, Short & Long duration package power limits to 300w but those didnt help anything.