FRONTPAGE ASUS Maximus V Extreme Motherboard Review

Extreme. The word embodies all that ASUS has tried to imbue their Maximus V Extreme motherboard with. It certainly looks the part. Do its features and performance measure up to the name? Let's find out!

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Great review and I thought that the comparisons done with the MVG and the Extreme were really informative.

Love it, I just wish I could actually afford to do 3d benching or high end 2d pushing for globals with one of these.

Hey Hokie...

Good job on the review! Was a good read!

Did you notice anything funky with OC Key?

Like voltages being WAYY off from where they should be.

As in... Dial in 1.3V and end up with like 1.5V for VCore?

Just curious to see if others have had the same issue as I've had with mine.

After the reading, I don't know what is the most extreme: the motherboard or Hookie who did such a complete review? ^^'

Nice write up Hokie. Man ! that board is jammed with bling, but at $370 it wants to be I think the price will be its biggest downfall as the board looks sweet , but is it really that much better than the MVG to justify the price hike when it does just as good a job ? Thanks for spending what must have been a fair few hours compiling this review, I know I enjoyed reading it

keny said:

Nice write up Hokie. Man ! that board is jammed with bling, but at $370 it wants to be I think the price will be its biggest downfall as the board looks sweet , but is it really that much better than the MVG to justify the price hike when it does just as good a job ? Thanks for spending what must have been a fair few hours compiling this review, I know I enjoyed reading it

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The biggest advantage it has over the MVG is the ability to go over 1.92V on the Core Voltage.

Well... That and the ability to use more than 2 Graphics cards.

The Formula can do the same though... At a substantially cheaper price.

Don't get me wrong... I own the Extreme... And I love it. (Cept for the OC Key problems I have yet to straighten out...)

But as Hokie's review states... This board is absolute overkill for even extreme benching under LN2.

Convicted1 said:

Hey Hokie...

Good job on the review! Was a good read!

Did you notice anything funky with OC Key?

Like voltages being WAYY off from where they should be.

As in... Dial in 1.3V and end up with like 1.5V for VCore?

Just curious to see if others have had the same issue as I've had with mine.

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I didn't see anything like that, but honestly I just tested it for basic functionality, to ensure it works and take photos. I always use AISuite for in-OS clocking since it works so well. This system is torn down (for Piledriver testing) at the moment, but when I get it back together, I'll see if I can reproduce that.

keny said:

Nice write up Hokie. Man ! that board is jammed with bling, but at $370 it wants to be I think the price will be its biggest downfall as the board looks sweet , but is it really that much better than the MVG to justify the price hike when it does just as good a job ? Thanks for spending what must have been a fair few hours compiling this review, I know I enjoyed reading it

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That much better to justify the price? Absolutely, but that's not the question you should be asking. It's definitely worth the price when viewed as a whole, with all of its features and accessories (I saw a review at Anandtech a little while ago that said Thunderbolt ends up costing ~$40/board). The real question is: do you need all the features this board includes that makes it so expensive? ASUS of course wants it to be a consideration for more than just LN2 benchers, but it's definitely slanted their direction.

One thing I forgot to note in the review (and have just now updated with this text) is that ASUS pointed out was that the mPCIe card has a real purpose on this board. On the MVG, it is to help save space in SFF builds (but doesn't come with the WiFi/Bluetooth module already installed). On the MVE, since it comes with the module, it is to keep you from taking up an expansion slot with a WiFi/Bluetooth card like competing motherboards. They've labeled and sold this as a 4-way CF/SLI board and they say their board lets you use 4-way without compromising the wireless solution.

Great review, and sweet board. Looks sexy too. For mild OC with a single GPU it's a little out of my price range for a mobo, But I love the features it has.