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 🙂

[Raja]

Yep that's the point Myk. More than any other SKU, ITX needs those features taken care of because expansion is limited due to form-factor. Our job was to cram as much as we could onto the board to provide a bona-fide high-end gaming experience. I think we hit that target on the head.

[bim27142]

Myk SilentShadow wrote:
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?

Technically yes these stuff are also unique but what I am trying to say is that we have already seen similar (not the same, but similar) features to some other Asus boards in ITX or non ITX ROG (or non ROG) boards (e.g. VRM Daughterboard, mPCIe combo)... it may have WIFI ac, but it is still WIFI... but, putting a daughter board as a sound card, is truly, revolutionary IMO... competitors may have thought about this, but so far, only Asus pulled it off successfully.

Raja@ASUS wrote:
Yep that's the point Myk. More than any other SKU, ITX needs those features taken care of because expansion is limited due to form-factor. Our job was to cram as much as we could onto the board to provide a bona-fide high-end gaming experience. I think we hit that target on the head.

Absolutely! No one else comes close... at least for now... 😄

But moving on, my point being, this is the very first ITX board that has a sound card daughterboard... so it is really worth considering putting due focus on this as well... some people (including me) are unable to adopt to ITX since they are discrete soundcard users and no on-board solutions to date (except may be this Impact) are even close to matching the sound quality of discrete sound cards. Even low end discrete sound cards are still far better than the usual "ALC892 and ALC898"... subjectively that is. I don't fully rely on this RMAA results, when it comes to audio, I let my ears decide... 😄

[Myk_SilentShado]

I agree with you 100% Raja, the design team did a freaking amazing job with the Impact. Regardless of my complaining of the price-point here in Aus, which has seen a 20 dollar drop, the Impact is truly an engineering marvel and I take my hat off to the team for pulling it off and a nice touch is, that not a single other Mfr has put the VRM's to a Daughterboard either...only ASUS with the Impact and the Z87I-Pro...shame it doesn't have ac though lol.

[Groundhog_Exper]

Myk SilentShadow wrote:
only ASUS with the Impact and the Z87I-Pro...shame it doesn't have ac though lol.

And the Z77I, not that Ivy or Haswell really need such beefy VRMs anyway. But it's a nice touch.

That aside, can anyone else (preferably with experience with the current Xonar/Soundblaster cards) give feedback on the Impact's SupremeFX sound card? For me personally, that is the biggest selling point of this board, but the reviews in here seem very mixed and polarized.

The complaint about the lack of bass and a weak amp have me hesitating since I'm a total bass-head. I use Ultrasone 550 Pros (only 60 Ohm) but someone earlier said this card couldn't drive their 50 Ohm phones so I'm a little concerned.

I currently use an external FiiO dac+amp which is very clean and boomy, but doesn't offer the gaming features like virtualized surround for headphones etc. So how does the Impact's FX card compare to current discrete offerings from Creative and Asus?

Oh and @Raja, would it be possible to add a bass boost function to the drivers down the road?

[bim27142]

Groundhog Expert wrote:
For me personally, that is the biggest selling point of this board, but the reviews in here seem very mixed and polarized.

Couldn't agree more...

The complaint about the lack of bass and a weak amp have me hesitating since I'm a total bass-head. I use Ultrasone 550 Pros (only 60 Ohm) but someone earlier said this card couldn't drive their 50 Ohm phones so I'm a little concerned.

Yeah, that's what I was wondering too that no one seems to put due focus on this... even reviewers on the net (pretty damn hard to find yet though) don't put too much detailed touch on this.

[Groundhog_Exper]

I'm wondering. Is the SupremeFX Impact compatible with Creative's Soundblaster X-Fi MB3 software? I know some other high end 1150 mobos include it in their software bundles (like MSI's Z87 XPower), so I'm assuming it should be since Asus is still using a Realtek 1150 codec.

The Creative software adds a lot of features the default Realtek driver seems to be lacking, like bass boost, headphone surround configurations, EAX 5.0/alchemy support etc. Paired with the ultra high-end hardware that went into the SupremeFX, it may be a truly viable alternative to discrete Soundblaster/Xonar cards. Thoughts?

[xbrytanx]

I like it ..pretty strong little board ..around 10 hours of straight RAM benching

[Sverreerik]

Is the Impact VI's wireless ac/bluetooth card based off the Broadcom BCM4335?

If so, will we ever be able to access the FM Radio Receiver in a Windows environment?

Also when will we start seeing Windows 8.1 Drivers for the Impact VI? I'm hoping to upgrade for DX 11.2.

Thanks! - Sverreerik.


EDIT: Although the install CD said upgrading to the latest Kernel would get me wireless support, I ended up having to build my drivers from scratch.

This was a few weeks ago, and maybe there is in the box support via the 3.11 Kernel, but it would be cool if you guys could link to the Broadcom STA source code so someone in my situation would have an easier time starting off.

I don't know if it's really worth your time for such a small minority or users or any liabilities it may cause. But it would be nice c:

EDIT2: Really beautiful board. Perfect for an ITX rig.

[Classic_GOD]

Sverreerik wrote:
Is the Impact VI's wireless ac/bluetooth card based off the Broadcom BCM4335?

If so, will we ever be able to access the FM Radio Receiver in a Windows environment?

AFAIK It's Broadcom BCM4352 so no FM radio.

[Hanakuso]

What is everyone doing for drivers and software? The drivers off the asus support are really outdated..