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ROGBot
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):
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 🙂
Skrillion wrote:
Had my Maximus VI Impact board inside my new SIlverstone Raven RVZ01 for a month or so now. I will just say it's an absolute PAIN IN THE ASS to find a compatible CPU cooler with that size case.
I've tried the following:
Stock Intel (too hot of course)
Thermalright AXP-200 (too big for this case, )
Thermalright AXP-100 (arrives tomorrow, will update)
Antec 620 H20 AIO with a slim fan on the radiator (it all fit in there, but i wouldn't say it fits. a lot of excessive force on daughter card and "pressured" tubes)
Noctua L9i (my backup if the AXP-100 does not work)
If anyone has had any luck with anything else in a small form case like this please let me know. I'm starting to run out of ideas and im starting to think I got the wrong mobo for this build =(
The L9i is the way to go, mate.
Chino wrote:
The L9i is the way to go, mate.
Thank you friend!
How are your temps by the way with the L9i?
