ASUS Maximus V Formula Pro Reviews

There are some areas ASUS can improve on where the competition are perhaps getting a minor but noticeable lead. ASRock may not have an EZ mode BIOS, but the Z77 OC Formula offers more automatic overclock options, as well as a better experience due to the enhanced visuals. ASRock also include some plastic standoffs in the package for overclockers to quickly set up a motherboard rather than resting it on a box. Gigabyte has Gigabyte TweakLauncher, a simple GUI overclocking tool for every setting that can be changed in an instant. Both ASRock and Gigabyte have two BIOSes on board in case something goes wrong, and ASRock + MSI have easier to use voltage read points. I also prefer MSI’s method of more VGA power via a 6-pin PCIe connector rather than the 4-pin molex. Gigabyte also includes the OC Touch buttons, which are great for those extra few MHz.

If you didn’t jump straight to the Conclusion and actually read our review, then I am sure you won’t be surprised that we are going to criticize Asus Maximus V Formula quite a bit here. But let’s maintain our objectivity here and take another unbiased look at the issues that we uncovered. Are they really serious enough? I would like to start by saying that our impression of the board turned south even before the actual tests during the prep stage. Asus usually provides extensive information about their mainboards, including the models of all additional controllers. This time, they only mentioned the controller manufacturer names: ASMedia SATA 6 Gbps controller, Intel Gigabit network controller, ASMedia USB 3.0 controller and no other details. As for the sound card, they only mentioned its marketing name, SupremeFX IV, and not a single word about the actual codec. As a result, we had to put the board under a magnifying glass to get all the controller names and models. Of course, non-disclosure of useful information is not a plus, but could it be regarded as a serious drawback? Not really. Many users don’t even care about the additional controller nomenclature, but only until one day they need to find the latest drivers for them.

After taking some time with this board, it really met and exceeded the expectations I had for it in terms of performance and the unique feature set that this ROG board is equipped with. If you want a board that offers it all, while not totally breaking the bank, the Maximus V Formula should easily be in the running for your performance and gaming dollar. Awesome overclocking, excellent cooling, Supreme FX IV sound, gaming enhancements, software tools galore, and the great looks ASUS ROG series are known for – it's got it all.

The Z77 chipset has many boards to its name, and ASUS had quite a tough job carving out a niche for the Maximus V Formula, especially with the Extreme tight on its heels. We believe they accomplished this quite well, as each board tends to offer its own unique feature set to meet the needs of a specific user group. The Maximus V Formula offers full 2 way SLI support with even triple slot cards, and with the 3rd slot it can support 3 way CrossFire. This is because CrossFire can run a card at 4X whereas SLI opts not to due to performance concerns when lane allocation is dropped that low. The Formula also offers WiFi onboard right out of the box which is a huge plus as well since many users want a system not tied to a network jack. The SupremeFX IV Audio offers very crisp and clear audio to our ears. The Fusion Thermo cooler allows for the extra cooling for the VRM so that even if used for rendering or constant heavy load, the power components will be nice and happy. There are so many features that we just cannot list them all here, but they are all found further up in the review.

The Republic of Gamers (RoG) has come out firing on the Intel Z77 chipset once again with the Asus RoG Maximus V Formula. This is a high-end motherboard with hardcore overclocking pretensions. It has an Extended ATX format, making it a rather large board, replete with blocks that are ready for liquid-cooling over the power circuitry, and voltage report points by the board-mounted power and reset switches.