driftingforlife Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 (edited) This is my first ever review so be do bare with me and let me know what you all think. This review is for the ASUS Maximus V Formula Z77 ROG motherboard. They are some videos for you to watch only if you want to as I only had my Iphone to record on so sorry as they are not great.I know this is very short review but since Friday I have had problem with my right eye which has made things difficult. I would also like to say that I do not have the thunder FX for testing. The BIOS: As with all ASUS motherboards it has a excellent BIOS with all the options you could want. It is very well laid out and it is easy to find what you are looking for. You also have EZ flash for updating your BIOS which is very simple to use and if you do have a problem you have the USB Flash to fall back on. Below is a set of screen shots of every page. Also as I said in the ROG connect part when I set a CPU Vcore of above 1.53v it would not boot, you get "CPU Over Voltage Error" at POST and all you can do is go into set-up, that is the only problem I have found. Below is a shot of all the BIOS screens LER] Overclocking Sandy: With this board being designed for Ivy Bridge you might think it should make no difference with sandy. For this test I used my 2500k which the highest I got to before was 5444mhz at about 1.55v-1.56v. 5 minutes after turning the system on i had already got strait to 5444mhz, another 10 minutes and I had it up to 5453mhz using 1.544v. Now while this is a tiny increase, in the world of overclocking 1st and 2nd can be divided by 1mhz and I gained 9mhz. If I was using this board under LN2 I would have pushed the volts higher which could have gained me a ever bigger increase. Ivy: Ivy is a double edged sword. One the one side you have the increased IPC (instructions per clock) and a great IMC (integrated memory controller). On the other side you have the temperature. I got the CPU to 4.4ghz and I tested at that speed because the temps were nice. I did run two testes at 4.6ghz but cinebench keep giving me errors and you can see the temp increase. Performance: Stock Overclocked Ivy: Stock Overclocked 4.4GHZ 4.6GHZ Memory Features ROG connect: What this is is a remote access to the BIOS of the board. It allows you to change setting such as Vcore, turbo ratio and BCLK. You can also monitor temperatures of the CPU and chipset and voltages. One of the most useful features is RC poster which goes though each stage of POST(Power On Self Test) when you turn on your computer. What this allows is an easier way to troubleshot, for example: You have a fully watercooled system and it crashes at POST, what you would do is use the RC poster and watch for the stage that it crashes at e.g. Load VGA BIOS so you know it is a GPU that has failed which saves you stripping the hole system down and testing every part. This also help with one little problem I had when overclocking with the board which was when I went above about 1.53v it would say "CPU over voltage error" and all I could do was go to set-up. They way around this was to let windows load at a lower OC and then use ROG connect to raise the voltage and increase the OC. One problem that I found is that when I changed the BCLK via RC and hit apply it did not change on the board, I am sure this can be fixed with an update. USB BIOS Flash: This has to be one of my favourite yet most simple features. What this allows you to do is flash the BIOS without a CPU,RAM or GPU. All you need is the 24-pin connected and for it to be on standby, then get the BIOS file and rename it to M5F.CAP and put it on a USB stick. Then connect the stick to the white ROG port on the motherboard and hold the ROG button down till it starts flashing, once it stop the flash is done. Why this is so great is if you buy a board that does not have the up-to-date BIOS on it and it does not support the CPU you have it means you don't need to send it away or buy another CPU to just flash it (like with the RIVF & 3820) This also provides another back-up if you have a flash go wrong and corrupt. This is why I think while being simple, it is a great feature. Fusion Thermo: I do not have the spare parts to test it under water but this is what I think about it. With this board ASUS designed a new hybrid air/water heatsink. It looks like a standard heatsink but built in, is a water channel for watercooling. While this is a great idea I think it could have been executed better. The two problems I see are, 1. It uses 3/8 fixed barbs instead of G1/4 holes which was I believe a BIG mistake. What this does is remove options for the person watercooling, one example is on the RIVE when being water cooled you could use two 90 degree fittings and Koolance SLI connecter which gives a much cleaner look then having tubing looped everywhere. I also believe more people use 1/2 tubing which would cause problems. The 2. problem is after having a look inside the water channel I think they are to small and will be very restrictive. I could be wrong and we will only find out when someone with the correct gear can test it. Fan expert II: I have never used this software myself before as I always run my fans off on Molex connections. Once I had it installed it asked to do an automatic fan tuning, beware as this can momentarily stop your fans which is why I had the fans on my H60 connected to molex. Once this is completed you have a menu when you can map were each of you fans are in your case which is neat. There are 2 ways for setting you fan speeds, easy mode or smart mode. In easy mode you have four profiles, Silent, Standard, Turbo and Full speed. For me the silent and standard profiles stop the fan all together and turbo was so slow it barely moved any air. This is why if you are going to use this software I suggest you use smart mode. In this mode you have a line graph and you can select what fan percentage you want at what temperature like with a GPU E.G. 50% @ 30c, 75% @ 50c and 100% @ 65c. Conclusion: For me, I think this is a fantastic motherboard. All the issues I have talked about can be fixed with BIOS and software updates apart from the heatsink, which depending on your view is fine or does need changing. While this is the Formula and it does not have all the bells and whistles the Extreme has, it has what you need and it is a excellent motherboard especially for overclocking which is what is built for. If you can't afford the Extreme and go for the formula you have nothing to regret as it is still a great, feature packed and efficient board which shows you don't need to spend the most money to get a great product. For anybody with any doubts just have a look at this. Show how amazing this board is. I need to say a big thank you to ASUS for providing the board. Edited June 28, 2012 by driftingforlife Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.