ASUS Maximus V Formula/ThunderFX Pro Reviews

The ASUS Maximus V Formula / ThunderFX can be purchased at Amazon with Prime shipping for $359.54. This is certainly not cheap for a motherboard, but this motherboard was not built "cheap" and is not marketed at the budget conscious. As I think we stated on our last ROG motherboard review, we have paid a lot more for a lot less in terms of motherboards in the past. ASUS has yet again built a halo product that is worthy of its halo in the Maximus V Formula / ThunderFX. The overclocking enthusiast with an ear for sound and penchant for water cooling should definitely give this motherboard a look.

After spending a week with the ASUS Maximus V Formula/ThunderFX, I have mixed feelings. It's good, and is, at stock, one of the best performing products ever, although this is, quite obviously, due to the modified Turbo profile. The memory options in BIOS are second to none with custom profiles for many different memory kits, and more timing options than any other board maker offers. The tools, and other options offered in the BIOS, are great as well, with things like the SPD Tool being undeniably useful. But then, I overclocked the CPU. Once overclocked, performance of the Maximus V Formula wasn't what I had expected it to be. Its performance is good, and really not that far off the average, but I do, at the same time, expect more from ROG products. Meanwhile, looking at drive performance, the ASUS Maximus V Formula easily surpasses many other boards out now, even managing the very best USB 3.0 benchmarks I've seen so far. The add-on ThunderFX audio device definitely takes headphone audio to another level, but that, to me, merely proves how poor the onboard solution actually is. Several Beta BIOS releases, and even a full public release, all of which will go a long way in improving the board's performance, have been released since testing the ASUS Maximus V Formula/ThunderFX. It must also be mentioned that simply enabling XMP options may result in looser timings than dictated by the memory, which can negatively affect both performance and stability. This can easily be remedied thanks to the BIOS tools. The Asus Maximus V Formula/ThunderFX is, in the end, good, but there might also be better out there. I may or may not cover such an option in upcoming weeks.