I've had this board in my house and in use for nearly 6 months. ASUS didn't contact me to review this board formally; it merely showed up on my doorstep. It also had a note in the box that clearly indicated that this board had been hand-picked for me to run benchmarks with, and bench I did. I prefer RAM overclocking over CPU overclocking; especially with Skylake, where silicon limits are not really related to temperatures, which definitely makes pushing realistic clocks with moderate cooling possible. So my comments here about how I feel about the ASUS MAXIMUS VIII EXTREME come not only from using it for an extended period of time, but also from the point of view of a RAM overclocker. At that task, the ASUS MAXIMUS VIII EXTREME is quite nearly the best board I have in my arsenal, and I have yet to see a place where the board has proven to be a limiting factor. I get RAM from G.Skill and Crucial on a fairly regular basis, and G.Skill sends me some of their best, and when these G.Skill sticks are paired with ASUS motherboards, you are guaranteed to have some fun. I'm still having fun, months later.

There can be no denying that the price of entry here with the ASUS MAXIMUS VIII EXTREME is rather high, but that's how the market goes when it comes to top-level products. In the very least, I can say that your money is well spent if you truly intend to push the limits of benchmarking. I do question the board's usefulness for 24/7 use, but being able to run three fully sized videocards on the Z170 Express platform, all while overclocking your CPU and memory to the limit is hard to ignore. This board is tough, no matter how you look at it. Freeze it over and over again to then toss it back into your case to PWN the noobs in The Division; it's ready to take it all.

I do, of course, have to comment of ASUS's new ROG color scheme. The removal of a lot of the red normally found on such boards really helps this board's looks no matter what hardware you install into it; who wants to buy a $500 board that looks ugly in their system? With all the complaints about the "overdone" red and black color schemes out there, ASUS's new look with less red (although it's still there in places) should go a long way in appeasing those users, while the lighting system with its rainbow of selectable colors is sure to keep even the most picky users happy. We're seeing a huge number of products as of late with LEDs and other lighting effects all over the place, and not being tied to a single color is a great thing that is worth mentioning as well. Tie all those good points together and you have a nearly perfect product that does everything it claims to do and then some. I do wish it were a bit cheaper, but we can't get it all for nothing! Got one? Let us know in the forums!