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Maximus VI Impact - Discussion Thread

Raja
Level 13

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 🙂








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Raja@ASUS wrote:
I'd think so given the time frame of launch - will have to ask. CONFIRMED, retail boards in our region (NA) will be C2.
What about EU region?

Classic_GOD wrote:
What about EU region?


I replied to you on OCN as well but here you go: C2 🙂

24235

Awesome.

Early Europe boards are C2, all NA boards are C2 so we can assume all Impact boards will be C2. 😉

As Raja suggested I contacted my local Asus rep. Didn't get the answer yet but it looks like I no longer need it 😄

Raja@ASUS wrote:
I'd think so given the time frame of launch - will have to ask. CONFIRMED, retail boards in our region (NA) will be C2.


Awesome! Thanks for finding out.

Raja, when the Samsung XP941 SSD goes retail will it fit in the mPCIe Combo II or is it too long?

I'm mounting my Impact in a Fractal Design Node 304 and it seems like the I/O shield is too thick to get the mobo pushed back far enough for the case mounting screw holes to line up. The I/O shield has some fairly thick squishy foam padding stuck on it, and this seems to be the issue. Is this normal? Should I go ahead and push the mobo against the I/O shield padding and screw the board into place?

Same with the bitfenix prodigy. I had to give a bit of force to squash the foam on the I/O to get the first screw started. Once the first was done the ret went in fine.

I've had this card since 7th Aug. (first in Aus?). Very happy with it.
Managed to put together a new Pocket Rocket.

CASE: BitFenix Prodigy (Shadow Warrior - black & Red trim)
PSU: Corsair AX-760i
M/B: ASUS VI Impact
CPU: 4770k
Cooler: Swiftech H220
Memory: Corsair Vengeance PRO (Red) PC3-19200 (2400MHz) (2x8GB)
GFX: ASUS GTX-780 Direct CUII
HDD: 2x Samsung 840 PRO 256GB
1x Seagate Barracuda 3TB

O/S: Windows 7 64bit
Monitor: DELL 3014
Speakers: AKtiMate (Red)
Keyboard & Mouse: Corsair Vengeance K70 and Raptor M40 mouse

The whole package looks sweet (Black and Red everywhere). Sound from the card and this speaker combo is superb. Have had no issues at all. Tested it on games, movies and FLAC audio.
Best sounding setup i've had to date and i've always used dedicated sounds cards with previous builds.
I'm still trying to work out the final overclock - Work In Progress ... but my CPU seems to be a real issue.
Have yet to update the BIOS and that looks like it will improve stability.

Have to admit, this was also the most difficult system i've put together. Lots of gear and very small space to work in.
Had to rely on friends for the extra set of hands on several occassions. Cabling very tidy atm, but still could do with more tweaking. Haven't pushed the overclocks yet, currently the temps and noise from this system is excellent.

+1 Re: issues with the I/O bending out. It was pretty bad to begin with but finally managed to improve it. A little fiddly and not completely flat but no longer obviously noticeable. One other issue, anyone contemplating using the Bitfenix Prodigy cases .. the rear fan does NOT accommodate the Corsair AF140 fans. The vibration and sound dampeners on the corners of these fans gets in the way of corner brace/side panel.

I just wanted to point out that you can really throw a lot of gear onto this board and case. It's not an easy process, but the rewards to date have been excellent and with mature drivers/bios - this will become a system i intend to keep and use for many years.

Gindo wrote:
Sound from the card and this speaker combo is superb. Have had no issues at all. Tested it on games, movies and FLAC audio. Best sounding setup i've had to date and i've always used dedicated sounds cards with previous builds.


Great to hear this one bro! What sound cards were you using by the way? I am still contemplating if this is worth giving up my Xonar Xense... I know it won't match the Xense audio quality but I am hoping Impact is much better than any other on-board audio solutions out there...

I've been buying sound cards for close to 20yrs ..
The last card i bought was several years back, the Auzen X-Fi Prelude 7.1 .... brilliant card for its time and still use it in my Rampage III setup.
Not familiar with any of the cards over the last few years though so can't compare to current lot, including the Xonar cards, etc ..

Re: the AktiMate speakers ... superb value. I live in a few different places so have a few decent audio setups and have listened to many others over the years. AktiMates have always been on my radar but never had a chance to listen to until the last week. Superb pairing to the Impact sound.

I've got a Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6 (brilliant) which i also want to test around with this new system.