ASUS Maximus V Gene Intel Z77 Express LGA 1155
 

Introduction

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Over the past several weeks we've taken a look at a couple of new products for Intel's Z77 Express platform, launched not long ago. The past two products we've looked at from Gigabyte and ECS each had their own spin on the features they provided, each having its own flavor that lets each stand out. ASUS has several Intel Z77 Express products on the market as well, and the first we will be taking a look at is straight out of ASUS's own "ROG" line of products, and currently the flagship, the ASUS Maximus V Gene. Although this board fits within the mATX form factor, don't let its small size fool you, this is one top-tier product, meant to clock the crap out of your Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs.

Specifications

<table class="tputbl">
<thead>
<tr>
<th colspan="2">Specifications</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tr>
<th scope="row">CPU SUPPORT:</th>
<td>2nd and 3rd Gen Intel Core i5/i7 processor family for the LGA 1155 Socket</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">POWER DESIGN:</th>
<td>CPU Power: 8+4 Phase <br />
PCH Power: 1 Phase <br />
Memory Power: 2 Phase <br />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">CHIPSET:</th>
<td>Intel Z77 Express </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">INTEGRATED GRAPHICS:</th>
<td>Dependant on installed CPU</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">MEMORY:</th>
<td>4 x DIMM, Max. 32 GB, DDR3 1066 to DDR3 2666
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">BIOS:</th>
<td>AMI EFI BIOS with 64 Mb Flash ROM </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">SLOTS:</th>
<td>2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots (x16/x0 or x8/x8) <br />
1 x PCIe 2.0 x4 slots </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">HDD CONNECTIVITY:</th>
<td>2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s (Intel Z77) <br />
2 x SATA 3.0 Gb/s (Intel Z77) <br />
2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s (ASMedia 1061)<br />
1 x mSATA 3.0 Gb/s (Intel Z77)<br />
1 x eSATA 6.0 Gb/s (Intel Z77)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">NETWORKING:</th>
<td>1x Intel WG82579V PCIe Gigabit LAN</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">PORTS:</th>
<td>8 x USB 2.0 ports (4 at back panel, 4 at front panel)<br />
6 x USB 3.0 ports (4 at back panel, 2 at front panel) <br />
1 x eSATA port <br />
1 x RJ45 LAN connectors <br />
1 x Audio port with 6 audio jacks<br />
1 x SPDIF Output(Optical)<br />
1 x Clear CMOS Button<br />
1 x ROG Connect Button<br />
1 x Displayport<br />
1 x HDMI port<br />
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">AUDIO:</th>
<td>SupremeFX III HD Audio CODEC</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">FORM FACTOR:</th>
<td>mATX Form Factor (244 mm x 244 mm)</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">FAN HEADERS:</th>
<td>5x 4-pin PWM</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">EXCLUSIVE FEATURES:</th>
<td>

• mPCIe Combo card
• ROG Connect
• ROG Extreme Digi+ II
• CPU Level Up
• Game First
• ProbeIt
• Extreme Tweaker
• USB BIOS Flashback
• ASUS EPU Engine
• ASUS AI Suite II
• ASUS EZ DIY
• ASUS Q-Design

</td>
</tr>
</table>

Intel Z77 Express Chipset

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Intel launched their latest desktop platform in the first half of April 2012, just a little while ago, beginning with board products. The Intel Z77 Express platform is an incremental upgrade from previous platforms, adding additional features and providing a wider level of functionality, while adding full support for the 3rd Generation Core i5/i7 family of CPUs, commonly called Ivy Bridge in enthusiast circles.

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The Ivy Bridge CPUs are made using a new 28nm process technology that lowers power consumption as well as offering a bit more performance-per-clock than previous Intel 2nd Generation Core i5/i7 products. Also changed is the onboard GPU that's part of the Ivy Bridge silicon, which now takes up more of that slice of silicon that sits under the integrated heatspreader.

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The integrated PCIe bus on the CPU is also upgraded, and can be split differently than with Sandy Bridge CPUs, with Ivy Bridge natively supporting three devices over a single bus with with 16 lanes of PCIe 3.0 connectivity, compared to the two devices and PCIe 2.0 link that is found inside SandyBridge products. Taking advantage of that added PCIe functionality requires a motherboard design change from previous Sandybridge-supporting motherboards, yet backwards and forwards component compatibility for both SandyBridge and IvyBridge platform products including CPUs and chipsets is possible with updated firmware for older SKT 1155 board products. Using a new IvyBridge CPU with an older P67 Express or Z68 Express motherboard may limit PCIe functionality, and naturally, with SandyBridge only supporting two devices, the tertiary slot provided on some Z77 Express boards will not work on some products when a SandyBridge CPU is installed.

Like any other ASUS ROG product, the Maximus V Gene is a mini-powerhouse, packed full of features that should appeal both to gamers, and to extreme clockers. It's not only ready to clock your CPUs to the Max, but also the memory as well, whether you are aiming to break world frequency records, or just to get the best framerates you can. No concessions have been made with the ASUS Maximus V Gene, and since its larger brethern, the full-size Z77 Express ASUS Maximus products, have yet to make it to market, you can be sure that it's tuned to the Maximus possible, too.
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Packaging

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Like all ASUS ROG products for the last several generations, the ASUS Maximus V Gene comes in a dark red box that definitely stands out on the store shelf. Walking into my local retail PC parts store, it's quite easy to spot all the ROG products on the shelf, that include not only motherboards, but videocards as well. The back of the box is much more refined than previous generations, I think, with a nice detailed listing of what the board can do.

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Lifting the lid shows the board itself, wrapped in its own box with a clear plastic cover so you can see the board clearly. Underneath the board's box are all the included goodies, nicely arranged and seperated with a cardboard divider.

Contents

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The goodies included in the box are pretty standard fare for a ROG product, finally with enough cables for every SATA port! There's a bundled add-in card we'll take a closer look at in a moment, and it's also worth noting here that the rear I/O bracket has a couple of holes near top end for WiFi/Bluetooth antennas to be attached through, and that the white USB cable is the ROG connect cable, used to remotely control the board's settings and such via another PC with the aid of a bit of software. A full listing of what is included besides the board is below:

• 1x I/O Shield
• 1x User Manual
• 1x ROG Door Hanger
• 1x SLI Bridge
• 1x mPCIe Combo card
• 6x SATA cables with locking clips
• 1x Driver CD
• 1x ROG Connect Cable
• 1x 12-in-1 ROG Cable Label
• 1x ASUS Q-Connector kit
• 1x ROG Case Badge

The Board - Layout

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The ASUS Maximus V Gene features a mostly-black color scheme, with a bit of red thrown in here and there, most of which will be covered by added GPUs and memory. Due to all the included features, the surface of both the front and the rear is pretty busy, but everything is carefully arranged to maximize compatibility for aftermarket cooling as much as is possible with an mATX product. The PCB itself is finished with in glossy black, not the easiest thing to take pictures of.

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The matte black heatsinks on the left and above the socket, covering the board's CPU power delivery are pretty beefy, more than what is needed almost, while just below the socket is a couple of other power delivery phases with capacitors right next to the bottom of the retention mechanism. The back of the socket has a bunch of MOSFETs around the socket as well, and although there does seem to be enough room for aftermarket backplates, you do need to make sure that you are not going to short out a few little round solder pads that are quite close to the mounting hole near the bottom of the VRM.

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The Maximus V Gene has just three expansion slots, two PCIe 3.0 x16 slots in red, and one black PCIe 2.0 x4 slot at the bottom. The top red slot is an electrical x16 slot, but will pass half of that link to the bottom red slot when both red slots are populated, making for a dual PCIe 3.0 x8/x8 electrical link directly to the CPU. There are four DIMM slots on the ASUS Maximus V Gene, each supporting modules up to 8 GB each in density, for a total support of 32 GB. ASUS lists support for up to 2666 MHz DIMMs too, although I've seen the ASUS Maximus V Gene board with much higher speeds in the hands of extreme clockers.

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The Maximus V Gene's bottom edge is actually pretty sparse when it comes to pin headers, although there is a lot of other stuff there as well. The left side is just audio connectors, and a couple of buttons as well as a Thunderbolt header, and the right side has a couple of USB 2.0 headers, a fan header, and the front panel block, useful if you decide to use a case. There are a total of five fan headers on the ASUS Maximus V Gene, each of which is 4-pin PWM-based, with quite a bit of controls available for each in the BIOS.

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The rear I/O plate starts off with just a couple of buttons, one for CMOS Clear, and the other for the ROG Connect and the USB BIOS Flashback features, combined with that white USB port at the bottom of the USB 2.0 tower. There are four blue USB 3.0 ports, a single red eSATA port, and one LAN connector, with digital audio, HDMI, and DisplayPort all tucked together in the middle. There's also an analogue audio tower with 6 ports for 7.1 Audio support. There are six internal SATA connectors, with a rather weird arrangement. The bottom red ports are SATA 6 Gb/s, driven by an ASMedia controller, while the other red ports are SATA 6 Gb/s, driven by the Intel Z77 Express PCH. The black ports are also driven by the Intel PCH controller, but are SATA 3 Gb/s, making this board have backwards ports compared to other products.

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The PCH cooler is matte black just like the VRM cooler, and features a ROG-themed vanity plate, with just a slash of red below the ASUS logo. Below that is the Intel Z77 Express PCH, shown in the second image above, a pretty small chip itself that does manage to put out a fair bit of heat, too.

The Board - A Closer Look

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When first firing up the board, you've got a couple of options on how to do so, thanks to the on-board buttons found by the board edges. On the bottom edge is the POWER and RESET buttons in the first image above, while the little red "GO" button, in the second image, is just above the 24-pin power connector. That "GO" button can be used to ensure a stable boot no matter what memory is installed, or can initiate an OC profile when the board is running, the settings to which are available for modification inside the BIOS.

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The socketed BIOS chip itself is also on the board's bottom edge, while just below the SATA ports I found a dual-DIGIT POST display. Right next to the 24-pin power plug is a series of LEDs that visually indicate where in the POST process the board is, which together help to quickly pin-point boot problems.

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The CPU VRM design is an 8+4 design, with eight phases for the CPU proper, and four for the iGPU portion. There are six input drivers total, each of which powers two phases. The DIMM VRM is of a similar design, with a single input driving dual output phases, shown in the second image above.

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The system agent is also powered like the other CPU phases, shown in the first image above, with a single input driver and dual output phases, to help push memory speeds to the max. The PCH power delivery, found between the PCIe slots, also apears to have a dual output, with dual chokes seen close by.

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To monitor all that functionality, I found direct measure points on the board's right edge by the DIMM slots, as well as a Nuvoton NCT67790 Super I/O, for monitoring duties inside the OS. LAN connectivity is provided by an Intel WG82578V GbE controller, found on the board's left edge.

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ASMedia provides both the secondary SATA 6 Gb/s ASM1061 controller, as well as the ASM1042 USB 3.0 controller

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The ASM1442 TMDS link and ASM1480 PCIe switches are also provided by ASMedia.

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the mPCIe add-on card, shown in the pictures above, is a neat little innovation that adds a mPCIe port on one side, and a mSATA port on the other. With space as limited as it is on a mATX product, this allows all the features that the Intel Z77 Express platform offers, although seperate purchase of components to fit into the card is necessary.

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Fortunately, I've got such devices on-hand, and installed them as shown in the above pictures. For an mSATA drive, I used an OCZ Nocti 60 GB drive, and for mPCIe, I installed an Atheros-based WiFi/Bluetooth combo unit.

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As you can see in the pictures, there is a black plastic clip that holds the mSATA drive in place, using a single rubber pad on the card's PCB surface and two additional rubber pads on the bracket itself. To me, the pad on the PCB itself is too thick, and causes the OCZ mSATA drive to sit at an angle to the card's surface, and then places additional force on the black plastic bracket making it bow out, and causing the rubber pads on the bracket to pull away from the adhesive used to attach them. I'm not very fond of this mechanism, and do not place much faith on it being very secure and holding the mSATA drive in place in the long run. The mPCIe side, on the other hand, attaches the card in place with two screws that are found already installed in the mounting posts. There is very little excess room here, and I had to twist the antenna wires of the Atheros card out of the way before I could secure the mSATA drive properly.

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Anyway, the card itself attaches to the board's surface at the top of the rear I/O, via a 25-pin header. Once installed, it attaches securely in place via a single screw, and is oriented so that if you use a mPCIe wireless card, the WiFi card is facing the top where the holes in the rear I/O cover for antennas are.

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The audio portion of the ASUS Maximus V Gene is quite the thing, with the actual audio CODEC covered by a metal shield, to prevent electrical interference from other parts. The yellowish line you see in the second picture above is a bare area on the PCB that goes through all layers, and that ensures the audio portion is islolated from the rest of the board, with only a few SMDs and the audio CODEC itself connected to the rest of the board electrically. There are also a bunch of LEDs around that line, that light up red when the board is powered up, and can they be turned off in the BIOS.

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As you can see in the two images above, the LEDs are pretty bright, so much so that they shine through the PCB itself, illuminating the line of isolation. This bit draws attention to this innovation, as well as offering a bit of "bling", great for windowed cases.

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The coolers, as I mentioned earlier, are finished with flat black anodizing, and both the VRM and PCH cooler are pretty thick, for more-than-ample cooling ability. Looking at the contact areas once I removed the coolers, I found perfect contact impressions on the VRM cooler with all of the MOSFETs, the input drivers, and the controller itself. The PCH cooler uses that same pink gummy TIM we've seen often, which I think is provided by HoneyWell. A couple of pieces stuck to the PCH's smooth silicon surface, and pulled away when I removed the cooler, a good sign that the contact made is pretty secure.

BIOS Walkthrough

<table class="tputbl">
<thead>
<tr>
<th colspan="3">BIOS Options</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tr>
<th scope="col">Clocks</th>
<th scope="col">Range</th>
<th scope="col">Step Size</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">CPU BCLK:</th>
<td>80.0 MHz ... 300.0 MHz</td>
<td>0.1 MHz</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory Dividers:</th>
<td colspan="2">x8.00 (800 MHz), x10.67 (1067 MHz), x13.33 (1333 MHz), <br />
x14 (1400 MHz), x16 (1600 MHz ), x18 (1800 MHz), <br />
x18.66 (1866 MHz) x20 (2000 MHz ), x21.33 (2133 MHz), <br />
x22 (2200 MHz), x24 (2400 MHz), x26 (2600 MHz)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="col">Voltages</th>
<th scope="col">Range</th>
<th scope="col">Step Size</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">CPU Vcore:</th>
<td>0.800 V... 1.920 V</td>
<td>0.005 V</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">DRAM Voltage:</th>
<td>1.20 V... 1.92 V</td>
<td>0.005 V</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">CPU VCCSA:</th>
<td>0.800 V... 1.700 V</td>
<td>0.00625 V</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">CPU VCCIO:</th>
<td>0.800 V... 1.550 V</td>
<td>0.00625 V</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">PCH Voltage:</th>
<td>0.800 V... 1.600 V</td>
<td>0.00625 V</td>
</tr>
</table>

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ASUS has designed one of my most favorite BIOSes for the ROG series, a design that offers more than any normal user is ever going to need, and just enough to make even extreme clocking easy, something that no other OEM offers at this point. Upon booting the board and entering the BIOS we are greeted by a flashy "Easy" page, one that in my opinion is a bit too busy to really be easy to use. All of those options there are shown in the first image above, and as you can see, it does hold a lot of stuff there. Fortunately, a more traditional layout is also available, accessed by clicking the button in the top right of the main page, and selecting "Advanced Mode". Once in the "Advanced Mode", we end up on the main settings page with access to almost every needed option for overclocking and memory setup.

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There are so many options here that it took three screenshots to be able to show them all, a testament to ASUS's commitment to provide the most options to the end user in their ROG products. After the tweaking section we find a more traditional main page with language, date and time options, and then the third page lists board-specific options, all tied together.

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WIth the BIOS offering an easy way to capture screenshots to a FAT-formatted device, it was quite easy for me to capture every single page and post them here.

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Every option you could ever need is contained here, as well as a few that aren't required, but are definitely nice to have.

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ASUS has spent considerable time optimizing the layout, with each page containing very specific options without being confusing at all, as each option not only contains obvious labelling, but also has a nice little description listed on the right-most side of the screen.

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Even the monitoring section is laid out neatly, with seperate pages for voltages, temperatures, fan speeds, and finally, fan controls. The first of a few things I think is missing here on the ASUS Maximus V Gene is on the voltage monitoring page, as there is no listing for iGPU voltage, which might be a nice addition.

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The temperature page is pretty sparce as well, with just CPU and PCH temperatures listed, and that is all. Fan speed monitoring, on the other hand, has listings for each fan individually. The controls for the fans are seperate to nearly every fan as well, with only the dual CPU_FAN headers grouped together, which does make a lot of sense. The fact that a second CPU_FAN header is even offered, great for users with dual-fan CPU coolers, is amazing in and of itself.

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The Boot page is pretty basic, but does include a section to boot from other drives other than the primary listed. After that though, is the tools page, something I personally like A LOT. First is the tool "EZ-Flash", for BIOS updates from within the BIOS, then we have the O.C. Profile listing, for saving BIOS profiles that can be loaded very easily.

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The third tool is immensely useful, the SPD Tool, which displays both stock JEDEC and XMP profiles for your installed DIMMs, making manual adjustment of timings a very easy task, although a bit of knowledge is required as the options listed in BIOS for memory timings do not have the exact same labels as the SPD Tool does. The final listing in the Tools section is access to the "GO Button" profile, which can instantly load a profile for overclocking, even when the system is running.

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The final page I've posted here is accessable at any time, by pressing "F3". The pictured menu will pop up, allowing quick navigation to any main section of the BIOS, something I used a fair bit when setting things up for the first time. All that said, I do have to commend ASUS here for having the very best and most functional UEFI BIOS in the industry, offering a ton of options that no other OEM currently matches. These options included a whole bunch of memory profiles for easy memory clocking, as well as other features designed to cater specifically to extreme clocking users, making this the best BIOS for every-day users and extreme users alike. It can be very hard to manage the two very different needs of those types of users, but ASUS manages it all very well, while not sacrificing stability to do so. That's a gargantuan task, so hat's off to ASUS, for a job very very well done.

Board Software

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When it comes to software, there's something that upon inserting the DVD that stuck out for me immediately, seen in the image above. The very first thing you see is not from ASUS, but from Google, offering the installation of Google Chrome. I do not approve of third-party offerings like this, and ASUS has done similar before but with Norton, which I do not like much either, but have less of an issue with since OSes don't come with anti-virus software. I kind of feel like ASUS is pushing the use of Chrome on to me, and would much rather make that choice on my own without any outside influence like is offered here. I have no issues with it being offered on the disc with utility installations, but to show only the page above as it does when inserting the disc just doesn't sit well with me. There's nothing wrong with Google Chrome itself, just merely with the way it's offered. Of course, you can click the listings across the top of the window to get to the actual software installations, which I did, but this may not be immediately plain to all users, and hence my problem with it.

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The majority of tools offered by ASUS are contained within a centralized interface called "AI Suite". AI Suite is actually just the interface pictured above, with many components accessed by clicking the appropriate buttons shown in the screenshot.

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When it comes to tools, there's a huge number of them, which each having a specific functionality, whether it be changing voltages, changing fanspeeds, adjusting the VRM settings, or enabling USB 3.0 boost technologies, each has its own window that pops up when you click the appropriate button.

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Sensor and informational tools as well as updating tools each get their own listings as well, as seen in these screenshots.

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The informational tool displays motherboard, CPU, and memory information seperately, each on its own tab, useful if you need to get support from ASUS directly, but aren't 100% sure on the components installed. The settings page is a pretty useful tool, allowing you to individually un-install or install each part of the suite, so that if there are parts you do not need, you can remove them to free up drive space.

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There is also GPUTweakIt and ROG Game First functionality offered on the driver disc, two tools that help prioritize how your system runs, and can add a bit of a performance boost in some situations. I personally like the ROG Game First tool, one that allows you to adjust network priority with just a few clicks.

ASUS has had a very large and fully-functional software package for some time, and that hasn't changed at all... if anything they've expanded the offerings a bit, some of which I haven't shown here. There's the offered "ROG Connect" utility that can be used to remotely clock your system, even when it's running, but ROG Connect does require a seperate system to run the utility on, so that's not something everyone can take advantage of. Another newer feature is the ability to flash the BIOS without a CPU or even memory installed into the system, with the addition on a FAT-formatted drive. When combined with the screenshot capabilities, it almost seems as if ASUS should include a small affordable USB drive in the box, pre-installed with a backup BIOS, and maybe ASUS should consider replacing the driver disc with a ROG-themed USB stick for software and driver installation, as it would make their ROG board offerings even more appealing to the end user. I only mention this because one of the big things I look for is features that require a user to spend some money on to take full advantage of them, and the BIOS screenshot capability, USB BIOS Flashback, and ROG Connect are all features that require some additional expense before they are really useful. All in all, ASUS's software package is so great that they just cannot include everything needed in the box, especially with the ROG Connect feature, so there are definitely some areas that can be improved, even if they aren't highly critical things that all users will have a use for.

Test System

<table class="tputbl">
<thead>
<tr>
<th colspan="2">Test System</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tr>
<th scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td>Intel i7 3770K<br />
3.5 GHz, 8 MB Cache</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td>8 GB DDR3 (4x 4 GB) G.Skill F3-2400C10D-8GTX</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Cooling:</th>
<td>Noctua NH-C14</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td>ASUS Maximus V Gene<br />
Intel Z77 Express, BIOS ver 0813</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Video Card:</th>
<td>XFX Radeon HD 6950 2 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td>Corsair ForceGT 60 GB SATA 6 Gb/s SSD(OS)<br />
Crucial M4 SATA 6 Gb/s SSD<br />
Velocity SuperSpeed USB3.0 External Dock w/ Corsair F60 SSD</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td>Silverstone Strider GOLD 750W</td>
</tr>
<tr class="alt">
<th scope="row">Case:</th>
<td>CoolerMaster CM690<br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Software:</th>
<td>Windows 7 64-bit SP1, ATI Catalyst 12.3</td>
</tr>
</table>

Initial Setup

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Installation of the ASUS Maximus V Gene was pretty straight forward, but there are a few things that stand out with this product that need to be mentioned. First and foremost, ASUS's UEFI BIOS does not follow the standard Intel Turbo profile for CPUs, and rather sets a custom profile that leads to a performance increase across the board. I noticed this immediately, as performance on a couple of quick benchmarks was far higher than I was expecting. Rather than having just a single core hit 3.9 GHz as is normal for an Intel i7 3770K, I found that ALL CORES run at 3900 MHz, as shown in the CPU-Z screenshot shown above. It's possible to manually set the default Intel Turbo profile, but since the default the ASUS Maximus V Gene offers is as shown in the CPU-Z screenshot, all testing was completed with this custom ASUS Turbo profile in place. This means I expect the ASUS Maximus V Gene to take the top spot in all benchmarks, although some may consider this an unfair advantage for ASUS. I'm pretty sure that most users would not have immediately noticed this behavior anyway, and a big part of how I do my reviews is focused on presenting exactly what you get out of the box, so I chose to leave things as they are. This is not the first time I've tested a board that runs Intel's Turbo in this fashion, and I do expect others in the future to do that same as well, so I merely consider it a bit of free safe overclocking, that any CPU should be capable of.

Memory, on the other hand, was just as expected, with the default JEDEC profile booting without any issues.

PWM Power Consumption

Since one of our first tasks was to truly verify system stability, while doing so we measure CPU power consumption. We isolate the power coming through the 8-pin ATX connector using an in-line meter that provides voltage and current readings, as well as total wattage passed through it. While this may not prove to isolate the CPU power draw in all instances, it does serve as a good indicator of board efficiency and effective VRM design.

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I run IntelBurnTest for power consumption testing, so these numbers do kind of indicate worst-case scenarios, however even with the added Turbo boost to all cores, I found idle power consumption numbers and load numbers pretty close to the other two Intel Z77 Express products I've tested so far. Load is a couple of Watts higher, but given the added performance, it is nothing unexpected and actually quite good considering.

CPU Performance Results

We spent about a week with the ASUS Maximus V Gene before beginning our performance testing, running various configurations and CPUs, and checking hardware compatibility. We verified our power consumption numbers using various different power supplies, and played a few hours of games with some members of the TPU community to get an overall feel for the board and to verify stability. Once completed, we tore down the system, mounted our Noctua cooler and put the board through the paces.

SuperPi

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SuperPI serves as our memory-focused benchmark, being highly single-threaded. As expected, the ASUS Maximus V Gene is in the top spot, but not by much, just a couple of seconds.

wPrime

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wPrime is much more CPU-focused, but memory plays its role as well. In this test, the ASUS Maximus V Gene seemed to pull even further ahead than other Intel Z77 Express products, managing a bit over a ten second advantage.

WinRAR

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Part of our motherboard benchmarking suite is the built-in benchmark that is part of the WinRAR software suite. The ASUS maximus didn't score quite high here, with the Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H scoring considerably higher. I'm not sure why the Gigabyte actually got that high of a score, to be honest, although the ECS Z77H2-AX is just behind the ASUS Maximus V Gene board.

AIDA64

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We employed AIDA64's memory bench to highlight memory bandwidth. We isolate the write performance metric as it serves as a good indicator of overall memory performance. Again the ASUS Maximus V Gene ended up in the middle for Intel Z77 Express products tested so far. Perhaps the added memory performance on the Gigabyte board led to its higher WinRAR numbers.

HandBrake Encoding

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Handbrake is used for encoding testing, and here the ASUS Maximus V Gene and its custom Turbo clock boost are on top again for Intel Z77 Express products, as HandBrake is one of few applications that take full advantage of all the CPU performance offered.

CineBench Encoding

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In Cinebench, the ASUS Maximus V Gene again capitalized on its added frequency, taking the top spot over all platforms for GPU performance, while taking the top spot for SKT 1155 products in the CPU test portion.

3D Performance Results

Once we completed our CPU test suite, we took some time to play some games with the TPU community to get an overall feel for gaming on the ASUS Maximus V Gene. After a couple of days we settled in to complete our 3D benchmarking, feeling confident that the ASUS Maximus V Gene was going to put on a good show. Let's take a look at what numbers the board provided.

3DMark11

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3DMark11 proved to show the real power of the ASUS Maximus V Gene, with it again taking the top spot across all current Intel platforms. That should translate into fantastic gaming performance too.

Civilization 5

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Our first real-world 3D performance test comes in the form of Civilization 5, using the included benchmark. We let the game recommend us settings, and then disabled V-SYNC and AA to eliminate bottlenecks introduced by the GPU itself. Here the numbers were exactly as expected, with very little variation compared to previous results. A problem in this particular benchmark points to other issues, but the ASUS Maximus V Gene passed with flying colors.

F1 2010

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Our second real-world 3D performance test comes from CodeMasters, in the form of the "F1 2010" included benchmark. We let the game recommend us settings, which included 8xAA with our newly added HD 6950 2 GB from XFX. Again we were impressed, as F1 2010 proves to be one of our personal favorites, and the ASUS Maximus V Gene again noticed higher performance than the other Intel products we've tested in the past few months, including the Intel X79 Express-based ones.

With the CPU and 3D performance compares out of the way, we took a closer look at the other performance features offered by the ASUS Maximus V Gene.

Drive and Audio Performance Results

Our drive and audio testing differs a bit from the rest of our testing, for several reasons. First of all, when it comes to drive performance comparison, nearly every platform on the market is very close to one another, as most do provide external drive controllers which means the numbers offered are very much platform agnostic. And finally, with audio, we do not list any numbers except for those reported by the product we are testing in order to provide the most information possible, as each audio CODEC will behave quite differently, and each board does not employ the same CODEC. As such, there is no standard we can use other than the numbers themselves. You can always check our other motherboard reviews in order to make direct comparisons to audio performance.

We've tested each drive interface separately in order to provide the most complete numbers possible. Employing HDTune Pro for all of the testing, we tested each drive outside of the OS environment, using a separate OS on a separate drive. However, we do use drives with a fair amount of data on them (60% full) to simulate performance in real-world situations.

HDTune Pro (SATA2)

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In HDTune Pro SATA 3 GB/s performance, I found the ASUS Maximus V Gene to be a bit underwhelming, with relatively poor SATA 3 Gb/s performance, although it did manage to beat out the ECS Z77-based board by a few Megabytes per second.

HDTune Pro (SATA 6Gb/s)

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SATA 6 Gb/s showed nearly the same as SATA 3 Gb/s, with the ASUS Maximus V Gene in second to last place. 20 MB/s may not seem like that much, but it's still a hefty deficit.

HDTune Pro (USB3.0)

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USB 3.0 drive performance with the ASUS Maximus V Gene was much better, right near the top, thanks to the design choice of the ASMedia USB 3.0 controller.

RightMark Audio Analyzer

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It seems that the ASUS Maximus V Gene's audio design paid off in spade, with RMAA giving one of the best results to date with the ASUS Maximus V Gene. It performed so well, in fact, that I don't think RMAA did it any justice with these results, as the audio is one of the best I've seen ever, and very close to ASUS's own Xonar D2X that I use in my personal audio rig. That's saying a lot, considering this result didn't come from a seperate add-in card!

Overclocking

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One of the main design focuses with the ASUS Maximus V Gene is overclocking, and it definitely does it well. To reach our 4.6 GHz "reference" overclock required setting 1.19 V in BIOS, and simply enabling XMP and setting the Turbo multi to 46 for all Turbo modes. This is where the real comparison happens, too, as the playing field is 100% level as each motherboard has the exact same frequency settings, except for the very minor BCLK difference. Let's look at the numbers.

Overclocked Performance Summary

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Cinebench saw the ASUS Maximus V Gene come out on top of all tested Z77 Express products.

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Likewise, SuperPi 32m results proved the same as Cinebench, with substantial performance increases that are also noticed on previous Intel platforms, although the ASUS Maximus V Gene also managed a bit of better result than all others here too.

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WPrime 1024M numbers further the results, showing a near half-a-second performance advantage.

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For a bit of 3D action we fired up CodeMaster's F1 2010 to be impressed with the performance boost offered compared to the other products. Again the ASUS Maximus V Gene is on top, with nearly a full one FPS advantage.

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With Codemaster's F1 2010 starting to show its age, and proving less reliable in showing performance increases, we've added the Shogun 2 DirectX 9 CPU benchmark to our testing suite. In the months to come, it will get added to the main testing section, but for now, it does show a very large increase in performance when run on the overclocked ASUS Maximus V Gene, yet again putting the Gene board on top. There's no doubt here now that the ASUS Maximus V Gene excels when overclocking.

Value & Conclusion

<table width="100%" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" id="result">
<tr><th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/dollar.gif</th>
<td>

• The ASUS Maximus V Gene is available right now at your favorite retailer, with an MRSP of $219.99.

</td><br>
</tr><tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbup.gif</th>
<td>

• Packed with added features and options not seen on some other products in the same price range.
• Clean and simple color-themed layout.
• Fully functional AMI UEFI BIOS, including mouse support and support for 3 TB+ drives.
• Full functionality of an ATX board, shrunk down to mATX size.
• One of the most diverse and most functional overclocking BIOSes to date.
• Highest tested overclock performance efficiency.
• Excellent audio performance.
• Free added performance with custom Turbo profile, without pushing up power consumption noticibly.
• One of the most versatile "SmartFan" implementations yet.
• One of the biggest software packages in the industry.

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbdown.gif</th>
<td>

• Low SATA performance numbers
• Add-on mPCIE card retention mechanism questionable
• Relatively high price
• Limited temperature monitoring
• Software installation immediately offers install of Google Chrome, and nothing else without a few clicks, and no easy directions.

</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>9.8</th>
<td>There's not much left for me to say about the ASUS Maximus V Gene. Its overclock performance is second to none, has one of the best software packages, it is ready for gamers and extreme clockers alike, uses relatively tight voltage regulation, allowing for lower voltages to be used when overclocking, has all the features of a full ATX product, yet it is all smushed into a smaller mATX form-factor. I do not like the add-on mPCIe card, at all, and have issues recommending it to users, but I don't see many users actually making use of it anyway, although personally, I will not build an Intel Z77 Express system without an mSATA drive. There are clearly a couple of things that I have an issue with that prevented it from getting a perfect score, like that mSATA retention clip, a few details in BIOS, and the underwhelming SATA performance, but none of those things came in the way of the performance numbers, which were the best ever in nearly every situation. Unfortunately, there's one more detail I must mention.<br />
The ASUS Maximus V Gene is pretty expensive. For the cost, you can get a full ATX product with very similar features, and there are even a few out there that bundle WiFi and Bluetooth, something this product lacks. Be that as it may though, if performance is priority number one for you, or you're interested in using LN2 cooling, there's no better product than the ASUS Maximus V Gene, and the slightly elevated cost should pose no barrier. It's so good, in fact, that W1zzard is using it in his VGA test rig and you'll find it used as the basis for our upcoming memory reviews as well. I'm a bit disappointed to find that the "TPU" logo that ASUS and TechPowerUp share is not on this product either, but clearly if it serves as the base for some of our test rigs here on TPU, the ASUS Maximus V Gene has proven itself as a stellar product. It scores very high, as it's going to be very hard for any other product to match. Don't forget to hit us up on the forums, and tell us what you think!</td></tr>
<tr><th></th><td>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/editorschoice.gif</td></tr>
</table>

Nice review as always :)

nice review cadaveca only thing that's annoying me with all Maximus Gene boards is they only got 6 sata ports, i should use two more internal instead of e-sata :/

I'll keep that in mind. I've always felt that for gamers, and extreme guys, 6 was enough. IF that WASN'T a gaming/OC product, I would have felt the number of ports was a bit short as well.

Awesome review, I'm looking to put this in a Thermaltake Armor A30 Micro ATX case for my new build in a couple of months just need to work out if I can use a corsair H series cooler in there without any issues.

LOL

Nice job and looking for more of your Ivy Bridge MB reviews!

For overclocking, have you found any difference in the ceiling between Z77 MBs?, or is 46x the max multi?

Yes, those coolers should work fine, since the backplate is plastic.


IF facing the front of the board, at the bottom left of the socket, that mounting hole does have a few solder points that are really close to that mounting hole, and if the backplate is metal, that may be an issue. I've added a pic here to reference with:

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/at...1&d=1339769366

My board reviews will come out @ one a week. I have enough here to cover the next 4 weeks, and I am expecting more, although until they arrive there is nothing definite.


Through talking with other reviewers and other Ivy users, it seems that these CPUs on average will end up with 4.4 GHz to 4.8 GHz clocks. Of course, 4.6 GHz is very nicely in the middle, and my CPU reached that with less than 1.2 V measured via Digital Multimeter. I do have a second chip, but haven't had the time to it test yet. I'm gonna pop it in a board today.


So, anyway, with this board, I can set 1.2 V, and it works fine. With the Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H, i had to set 1.225 V...and I have another board that requries more. The relatively "modest" overclock I use is eonugh to ensure I can show that different boards will need different voltage when overclocking, while not reaching too high in the volts department that I might degrade my chip.

The way these IvyBridge chips clock, you hit a certain point, and then more is only possible with fairly large voltage boosts, and 4.7 GHz does require a fairly large boost for my CPU, so 4.6 GHz is what I use.

I have also foudn that the CPU pulls a wee bit over 95 W. I think, but am not sure, that once you pass teh 95 W limit on IvyBridge, that's where that voltage boost is needed, and really, these chips might not like any more than that 95 W for 24/7 use. I need a few more chips to test before I can confirm that, but that's the idea I'm working with right now. I think INtel marked these early 3770K chips with 95W, because that's the max they can handle, and that that was NOT a misprint on the box...and they switched to 77 W on the box after the response from reviewers and enthusiasts about the heat issues. BEfore hte box stated teh max draw for the chip at any clocks(since it's "K" chip), and now it states the max for the stock clocks.

Nice board is NICE. I wanna see a Micro ATX Sabertooth.

I plain old want to see just a normal Sabertooth board, in my livingroom. I've asked for one, and am going to ask again today, as that entire product line seems to not get reviewed very often.

well even the Maximus IV Gene-Z/Gen3 is a overclocker and can be used for more than just gaming, bcs other than gaming i want storeage aswell and when 2x2TB just gets too small i wanna add more drives, but i also got 2 optical drives i wanna use ^^;

so all suddenly, 2xSSD's, 2x2TB's, 1x500gb and 2x optical (Blu-ray and a DVD Burner) i miss more ports xD

I agree. I would like to see a soild review for a Sabertooth and I really think they need a Micro-ATX version. If they did that I MIGHT upgrade.

Absolutely makes sense. Naturally, I'm curious what each board can get the chip up to (max stable OC), but you're not interested in melting glass and wrecking the common chip for testing.

:toast:

Yeah, I hear ya on that, but hte use of dual optical drives is part of the issue you've got. TO me, the addition of a USB 3.0 dock or external will fix all those problems, so I do not see it as a major thing. The chipset supports 6 ports only, and that's what you get, although you get the bonus of 4x SATA 6 Gb/s instead of just two.

That said though, that was my reasoning. I do understand that there are users like you that have multiple drives, and that 6 ports is not enough in all situations, but it is also impossible for them to cater to absolutely everyone.

USB 3.0 is so damn fast...and a dock costs just $25 or around there...the Thermaltake BlackX is pretty popular, and works very very well with this board.

There are some reviewers out there that get trays of chips to play with. I got just one, and bought another one myself, and the one I got that i did not pay for, did take some for me to get. In fact, the chip I am using for reviews is the one I bought myself, with my own money, as the sponsored chip took a long time to get here, and I was sick of waiting.

If I can get more chips, I'll push things much much further. I am not afraid of pushing the limits, but I do need to ensure that I have stuff so I can do my job, and I cannot afford to replace a chip with every motherboard. Fixing this issue, because I do see it as a real issue, is something i am working on over the coming months. I've talked to W1zz about some plans I have when I get these boards done, and I'll just leave it at that for now, and say that I do plan to cater to more extreme users in the near future. I can run LN2, no problem, and have done so many many times, and I do have some help local if needed as well...I just need more chips.

Thankfully, INtel does offer that new Tuning plan warranty, so I am really really eager to get working with the extreme side of things, just need to cover all the details so that it doesn't affect my ability to finish my reviews. If the chip gets damaged, and say, it draws more power after, that invalidates the rest of the reviews used with it. I cannot have that. ;) I've been overclocking since before TPU even existed, so I really want to get back into the extreme things as I have not done very much like that in 3-4 years.

So cadaveca as the Maximus V Gene and the Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H are priced the same (here in the UK anyway) which one do you think is best for the money?

Awesome review! I like the looks of this board now only if they would take the this ROG line to the ITX level.

Any chance for a review on the ASUS P8Z77-I Deluxe I really want one of those.

Tough choice. Both are great, but the ASUS Maximus does require a bit less voltage from the get go. The UD5H is jsut as capable, but does require more tweaking to get there.

I dunno, what color do you prefer? :p Both boards got the same score, although for slightly different reasons, and each has it's own form factor. IF you want a smaller build, go wit hteh Maximus Gene...although ,you know, I think a Maximus V Formula is flapping it's wings on the way to my door right this moment...;)

Thank you very much for this review. I find it very useful since this board hit retail here last week and I've been in a pickle to choose whether this one was better than the MaxIV Gene-Z/Gen3 (cheaper by ~20€).
Still, what do you reckon?
Besides what you listed as minor shortcomings, the mSATA being the most pronounced one, I feel the lack of a PS/2 port for the keyboard is something that could be mentioned. Since I still use a lot of PS/2 keyboards...and surely a lot of other people do as well.
Of course, lacking that port, ASUS used the space for a clear CMOS button...but I'm used to jumpers anyway, so it's not something I crave for.

I feel that this board is much better than the Maximus IV Gene-Z. It's far more caapble, especially for memory clocking. The BIOS seems much more mature at htis point, ready profiles for nearly every memory IC on the market is a big thing when it comes to reaching for hte Maximus clock. :p

I know that many prefer PS/2 for n-key rollover reasons, and while it's unfortunate that one is not included, I kinda have to side with ASUS on this one(and other board makers that drop support for PS/2), since such a port is very much a legacy item at this point. I feel it is up to keyboard makers to come up with a better connector interface to deal with n-key issues, and not a board maker to make sure they support a connection that is like 25 years old at this point.

Yes, PS/2 has been around for 25 years.

I went to my local retailers, and checked boards and the add-on cards, none had the same problem, so while that was an issue with that rubber pad on my particular sample, it was not found on any of the boards in town here, so I feel it is a one-off, and I got unlucky. the card does still work, and I wil leb using it(I hate wires, need the wireless bit).

i could also do e-sata to sata, my CM690II Advanced got rubber holes for watercooling i can just use for that, if i can find long enough.

http://www.webconnexxion.com/raid5/i...ASA2SA100C.gif

or will there be problems with using that for hdd and optical drives?

Better then the Maximus IV Gene-Z? NEVER!

That's a very good question. I do not think that there will be power for the drive that way? So you will need to provide power to it somehow?

eSATA uses one of the SATA 3 Gb/s ports from chipset, so I do not foresee any issues there.

The audio on the Maximus V Gene is awesome. Far better than the Gene-Z. :roll: In every way the Maximus V Gene is an evolution of the Gene-Z.

Don't forget...W1zz is using one for VGA reviews, and I wil leb using this one for memory reviews. That says something. ;)

i don't care if i need extra power that i don't mind ^^

and sata 3gb/s is fine for optical drives anyway and i hope that will work for burning aswell as reading ^^;

If i had one of those cables, I'd check for ya, but sadly, i do not. I use 3x SSD, 1x mSATA SSD and an optical drive for review testing. I cannot see why it'd be OK to read a disc, but not write..have you run into such an issue before?

Well, it's good to know that mSATA problem was a one-off, but bad since it happened to you. :(
As for the PS/2 port, yeah, I guess I could move on...but I'd have to buy a new keyboard...an expensive one, at that. :\
I was planning on getting a 2500k (budget overclocker by now :p), so I guess the Z68 would be better for that chip...not to mention cheaper by this point, but I will still take your arguments and points in high consideration.
The BIOS part is very important to me, but IIRC, memory profiles are usually updated with new BIOS versions, right?
The MaxiIV has had a couple of updates so far, one of them clearly stating memory compatibility improvements.

THe profiles are NOT available on the Gene-Z. These are very specific profiles that can be loaded form within the BIOS itself for memory clocking. There are several different profiles for each IC type, fast/slow, etc.

This is very much different than compatibility things fixed in the usual BIOS update manner.

As to 2500K being better supproted by the Gene-Z ,that coudl be possible, I suppose, but I do nto see any real reason for that, since both boards each support both CPUs. The Maximus V gene, however, does have a few memory dividers for Ivy that is not there on the Gene-Z, as far as I remember.