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 🙂

[Hat1324]

My front panel audio is glass shatteringly loud, plays out of the left ear and has horrible muddy basses. What's going on? I've tried it on multiple chasses and pushed the HD AUDIO all the way in

[Webrider]

Does anyone know if a Plextor PX-G128M6e which is a M.2 2280 (M2PS) will work on an ASUS Z87 Impact motherboard?

Update: Praz was very helpful and has informed me that this is not an option for the Maximus VI Impact MB as the mini PCIe M.2 slot on the VI Impact is only x1 and the Plextor card is x2 and the MB does not recognize the card.
Anyone wanting to install a M.2 NGFF card will need to wait for the Maximus VII Impact to get any value from this install.

[Hanakuso]

Rody wrote:
is there a list of compatable m.2 drives some where? I'm wondering if something like this would work http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-512GB-Internal-Solid-CT512M550SSD4/dp/B00ITFZTHC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qi...

I believe that same SSD is working for someone on another forum. I'm using a M500 M.2 in my Impact and it's working great. It's used as my boot drive as well.

[silencer51]

I'm currently using Noctua's NH-L12 with my Impact in a Corsair 250D case. The coolers pretty good but I would like to move up to the NH-C14 which is seems to perform better all around.

I know it fits inside the case - my question is, does it fit on the Impact? Has anyone tried this combination? Can you orient it only one way? Is the front panel audio connector usable witg such a big cooler?

Thanks in advance!

[Hanakuso]

silencer51 wrote:
I'm currently using Noctua's NH-L12 with my Impact in a Corsair 250D case. The coolers pretty good but I would like to move up to the NH-C14 which is seems to perform better all around.

I know it fits inside the case - my question is, does it fit on the Impact? Has anyone tried this combination? Can you orient it only one way? Is the front panel audio connector usable witg such a big cooler?

Thanks in advance!

The NH-C14 fits as long as you have the space and somewhat low profile RAM. In my Ncase M1, it only fits in 1 orientation, but i'm not sure if that's for all cases. It fits with the audio connector, you just need to be careful when you mount the heatsink because it goes over it.

This picture is old but I can fit a 120mm fan under the heatsink just fine. I could probably do the stock Noctua fans but my case/psu won't allow it.

[ziran]

Hanakuso wrote:
The NH-C14 fits as long as you have the space and somewhat low profile RAM. In my Ncase M1, it only fits in 1 orientation, but i'm not sure if that's for all cases. It fits with the audio connector, you just need to be careful when you mount the heatsink because it goes over it.

This picture is old but I can fit a 120mm fan under the heatsink just fine. I could probably do the stock Noctua fans but my case/psu won't allow it.

I am running a similar system.

NCase M1 v2
Asus Maximus VI Impact
i7 4790K
EVGA GTX 780ti
16 BG Corsair Vengence
Corsair H55 Cooler

I have a slight overclock and use the H55 to draw cool air in. Before I finalize my build I was going to look for a passive Air Cooler. Can you shoot me some pics of your setup? I had the NH-C14 and could not get it to install due to the riser cards on the motherboard.

Have you seen any Impact builds in an NCASE m! with an air cooler?

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks in advance,

Z

[josiaslemus]

Im having an issue with my computer it wont wont boot after i restart it doing windows restart its not the os because i already did start up repair and the bios is giving me an issue to if i put the optimized functions the bios is fine and my os starts up fine but i had to change the defaults because it changed the frequency on my ram so i changed the ram frequency to 1600 because that is what it runs at but when my computer boots it loads windows but the it goes to a grey screen for a minute then it takes me to the log in screen please help my computer specs are asus maximus vi hero intel i7 4790 geforce gtx 760 gskill 16gb and ssd ocz vertex 460 240gb

[Raja]

You'll have to ask EU reps. I cover NA only.

[Classic_GOD]

Thanks, I understand.

I'm not that concerned about C2 since it doesn't impact my usage but now I'm curious 😄

[Raja]

US pricing is circa $229 for those that wanted to know.

-Raja