ASUS Z170 ROG Maximus VIII Extreme

The motherboard for the PRO

In this review we test the ASUS Z170 ROG Maximus VIII Extreme. Wanna see how the best that ASUS has to offer for Z170 works ? The Maximus VIII Extreme comes with a ROG black & grey design with red accents. Add to that of course the OC Panel and the hippest features of 2015. The Maximus VIII Extreme has the right infrastructure for a truly extreme PC. These motherboards can (well must) be paired with new Skylake series processors. The big brother of the Hero comes with extended looks, AC WIFI, a VRM area that will make you wiggle and all tingly and then a dozen or so other features. It is one of the better Z170 products if you ask me, dressed for success and with added benefits like USB 3.1, multiple M.2 slots and the fastest DDR4 support the product will impress.

A motherboard that promises to deliver a high amount of features and provide that Skylake processor the full infrastructure it needs for a kick-ass gaming PC. Dressed to kill and with added benefits like USB 3.1, multiple M.2 slots and the fastest DDR4 support the product will shock and awe. These motherboards can (well, must) be paired with new Skylake-S series processors. We'll quickly dive into the two most important ones. Skylake Core i5 6600K and Core i7 6700K processors for the desktop platform have been released. We test both processors, yet have separate reviews on each of these processors. A new chip, a new package meaning both of them are Socket 1151. The new series Skylake processors are energy efficient, quite powerful and this needs to be paired with a new motherboard series. For you guys that means the Z170 and H170 range. In this review we test the Core i7 6700K. An unlocked Skylake processor that has four cores and a slim 92W TDP, that is lower compared to Haswell with its 95W TDP thanks to the new and smaller 14nm fabrication process. The quad core CPU has 8 MB L3 cache, and an integrated memory controller that supports both DDR4 and DDR3 memory. The Z170 and H170 series motherboards will all be offered with DDR4 though. For the gaming community two processors are the most important; the Core i7 6700K has four CPU cores with Hyper-Threading, 4.0GHz frequency, 4.20GHz maximum Turbo Boost frequency. Then there is the Core i5 6600K with four cores, 3.50GHz frequency and a 3.90GHz maximum Turbo Boost frequency, both are based on the new LGA1151 socket package. Skylake is the code-name used by Intel for the 14nm processor micro-architecture under development and is the successor to the Broadwell architecture.

Skylake is the code-name used by Intel for the 14 nm processor micro-architecture under development and is the successor to the Broadwell architecture. That cool looking ASUS Z170 ROG Maximus VIII Extreme then. The Maximus VIII Extreme is the expensive version, let's get that out of the way first. The product comes with a 6 and 8-Pin power connector for the CPU which is tied to a 13 Phase DIGI+ VRM. Much like all other Z170 board, you will spot four DDR4 DIMMs which can seat a maximum combined 64 GB DDR4 memory. The expansion slots for all you graphics lovin' include four PCI-e 3.0 x16 slots (one is x4 though) as well as two PCI-e 3.0 x1. Storage options are 8 SATA III 6 GB/s ports and two SATA Express (SATAe) ports rated. There's one M.2. slot running at x4 as well, thus offers 32 Gbps of bandwidth. You will spot a multitude of features like Supreme FX audio, USB 3.1 Type-C ports, USB 3.0 ports, USB 2.0 ports, HDMI, Display port and a Gigabit Ethernet jack as well as proper Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac with support for the dual band frequency 2.4/5 GHz and up to 1300Mbps transfer speeds.

Have a peek at the ASUS Z170 ROG Maximus VIII Extreme and then head on-wards into the review.