ASUS Maximus IV GENE-Z Pro Reviews

The Maximus IV GENE-Z is a testament to the value that the ROG line brings to the ASUS family. The board is designed flawlessly, with sharp looks and an equally sharp design. ASUS may have left some bells and whistles off of the board in order to fit the components in to the micro-ATX footprint, but they didn't skimp on quality components or design layout. I dare say that this board, both space-wise and layout-wise, easily gives a full-sized board a run for its money. No tight spots on a micro-ATX board is a hard thing to come by. Absolutely no complaints with this board whatsoever. The board's stock performance was stellar, with it consistently scoring with the top performers. Overclocking-wise, couldn't ask for much more than it gave. A 105MHz base clock is the bar we shoot for, and a close to 5GHz overclock with an Intel 2500K processor is certainly nothing turn your nose up at. All in all, another solidly designed board from ASUS and a feather in their cap. If you're looking to upgrade to an LGA1155 based solution and you either want to build an uber HTPC or just want to reclaim some space in you full sized tower, the Maximus IV GENE-Z is definitely a board to look at...

We cannot say enough how impressed we are with the ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z. When it comes to the BIOS, although we feel that the pages are far too numerous, we wouldn't want to see a single option removed, and the ones we'd like to see added hardly have any effect on usability or performance. With one of the best audio results we've seen so far, and really some of the very best overclocking we've seen yet, this minute board not only offers everything much larger boards do for features, it offers a few things more too, and the fact that it's so small doesn't affect those features one bit. There is one problem, however. With support for dual video cards, both in SLI and CrossFire format, the slot spacing is far too close together for dual high-end cards like nVidia's GTX 580 and GTX 590, or AMD's 6970 and 6990. If you are serious about overclocking and plan on using a single VGA, you'd be foolish to not consider this product. We deducted points for the slot configuration, and for the "cheating" stock overclock, although these are very minor issues that one should expect from a product like this.

Despite the smaller form factor, the ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z packs a mean punch and is definitely a board to be reckoned with!