# ASUS R.O.G. Maximus II Formula (Intel P45) Up Close and Personal



## malware (May 9, 2008)

Exclusive shots from the latest ASUS R.O.G. Maximus II Formula (Intel P45) with integrated SupremeFX Creative X-Fi sound card. Let the pictures speak for themselves.



 

 

 



*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## spearman914 (May 9, 2008)

HOLY SHI-!! This thing looks awesomely hot. No specs??


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## HTC (May 9, 2008)

*More info here*

HardwareInfo


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## Cybrnook2002 (May 9, 2008)

DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN, that is one sexy looking board. I like how they are using smaller HS too. Maybe using the Gas chambers like on the new ram modules.


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## eidairaman1 (May 9, 2008)

not perfect. first of all the second PCI slot needs to be above the Second PCI express slot since most cards are dual slot cooling nowadays.


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## Fitseries3 (May 9, 2008)

oh stop your bitching. this is gonna be a great board.


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## tvdang7 (May 9, 2008)

im sure for the price might as well go x48


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## CDdude55 (May 9, 2008)

damn, that board looks good. But will more likely be expensive. I may get it when i go to college or something.


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## FatForester (May 9, 2008)

Holy crap is that soundcard shooting out fire? I WANT IT.


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## trt740 (May 9, 2008)

is it me or is new hardware just flying off the shelf. Something new monthly I haven't seen anything like the last 3 years.


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## vega22 (May 9, 2008)

eidairaman1 said:


> not perfect. first of all the second PCI slot needs to be above the Second PCI express slot since most cards are dual slot cooling nowadays.




then how would you fit a second gpu in the bottom slot???

that is 1 sweet looking mobo, i think i need to get another job


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## D4S4 (May 9, 2008)

Maximus series are the ONLY mobos from asus i'd buy. The rest are rubbish IMHO.


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## timta2 (May 9, 2008)

That Start button is sweet! (along with the rest of the board of course!)


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## overclocker! (May 9, 2008)

D4S4 said:


> Maximus series are the ONLY mobos from asus i'd buy. The rest are rubbish IMHO.



you absolutely right! I got one and it`s the best board I have ever owned!!


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## tkpenalty (May 10, 2008)

Woah those heatpipes are damn thick.... 8mm pipes!

And whats up with the 16 power phases which are installed like as if they are there for decoration?  NB recieves three phases... RAM 2... whoa. Comes with Wifi and an XFI card... overkill much? I'd get it for the fact it comes with an XFi tho.


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## Fitseries3 (May 10, 2008)

where did you see WIFI?


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## D4S4 (May 10, 2008)

overclocker! said:


> you absolutely right! I got one and it`s the best board I have ever owned!!



But I still don't like ASUS (or Gigabyte) 

The only mobos I like are ABIT (not all), DFI Lanparty series, Epox (R.I.P.), and Intel (Bad Axe )


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## Animalpak (May 10, 2008)

man this motherboard looks soo sexy !


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## Morgoth (May 10, 2008)

now this is what i want for layout design


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## Mussels (May 10, 2008)

according to the pics, the only thing that will survive is the sound card - the rest is destined to explode


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## Frogger (May 10, 2008)

Nice looks BUT anybody notice the heat sink [pic] WTF is it ...


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## Fitseries3 (May 10, 2008)

it's a logo that lights up.


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## Frogger (May 10, 2008)

LOL like thats really help with cooling


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## btarunr (May 10, 2008)

Bad. It will dilute the 'Maximus' name because specs wise, the X38 is superior to P45, it comes into the 'extreme performance' cadre. ASUS should've named their X48 board as Maximus II and used Rampage for this instead, that would have made more sense.

Excellent board layout. What I like is that they didn't make the two MOSFET sinks share a heatpipe line, independent pipes that lead to the NB cooler, uniformity with cooling.


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## erocker (May 10, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Bad. It will dilute the 'Maximus' name because specs wise, the X38 is superior to P45, it comes into the 'extreme performance' cadre. ASUS should've named their X48 board as Maximus II and used Rampage for this instead, that would have made more sense.
> 
> Excellent board layout. What I like is that they didn't make the two MOSFET sinks share a heatpipe line, independent pipes that lead to the NB cooler, uniformity with cooling.



I agree.  So I take it this board uses 2 8x lanes?  It's such a shame for the way it looks and it's layout.


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## btarunr (May 10, 2008)

erocker said:


> I agree.  So I take it this board uses 2 8x lanes?  It's such a shame for the way it looks and it's layout.



Yes, that's Crossfire at x8, x8. So, HD3870 (or make that HD4870) won't bottleneck at x8. You may think that if two HD*x*870 X2's are installed, they won't bottleneck either since the board is PCI-E 2.0 but the catch here is, when you install a PCI-E 1.1 card, the system operates  that way, so two PCI-E 1.1 cards will operate at PCI-E *1.1* x8. So you fall short of bandwidth there. I would be furious if they priced this on par with X38 boards such as Maximus Fmla.


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## Fitseries3 (May 10, 2008)

from what i read it is 16x 16x 8x.


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## btarunr (May 10, 2008)

fitseries3 said:


> from what i read it is 16x 16x 8x.



It's x8, x8 when in Crossfire. http://www.dvhardware.net/article25361.html


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## btarunr (May 10, 2008)

On a side-note, did anyone notice this board includes the new SupremeFX X-Fi ? 







And no, I don't think it uses a CA20K1.


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## thebeephaha (May 10, 2008)

btarunr said:


> It's x8, x8 when in Crossfire. http://www.dvhardware.net/article25361.html



What about if I have an 8800 Ultra in one slot and an PCI-E 8x RAID card in the other?

Would it kick my GFX card down to 8x as well? Because that would kill the deal for me.


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## btarunr (May 10, 2008)

thebeephaha said:


> What about if I have an 8800 Ultra in one slot and an PCI-E 8x RAID card in the other?
> 
> Would it kick my GFX card down to 8x as well? Because that would kill the deal for me.



Yes, irrespective of which type of device is installed, they'll run x8 x8. The P35 had a 20 lane hub, I'm sure it's the same with this. In P35 boards which had two long slots that did x16, x4, the four lanes to the second slot would come from the southbridge. In this case, the NB just does x8 x8 if a device is installed on the second blue slot.

What's more, your 8800 Ultra would do PCI-E 1.1 x8 since it isn't a PCI-E 2.0 device.


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## thebeephaha (May 10, 2008)

Well crap. I guess I'll stick with my Striker Extreme. Meh.


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## imperialreign (May 10, 2008)

yet another nice looking board from ASUS.  I'd really like to see the full list of specs, but it looks to be a decent upper mid-range board.


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## Wile E (May 10, 2008)

Morgoth said:


> now this is what i want for layout design



Unless you want to install 2 double slot gfx cards AND an aftermarket sound card. Don't even think about putting a full size sound card in the top PCI slot. It will hit your ram. (Trust me, original Maximus is laid out the same way.)


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## nflesher87 (May 10, 2008)

Wile E said:


> Unless you want to install 2 double slot gfx cards AND an aftermarket sound card. Don't even think about putting a full size sound card in the top PCI slot. It will hit your ram. (Trust me, original Maximus is laid out the same way.)



Easy fix, don't dual channel your ram.


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## Wile E (May 10, 2008)

nflesher87 said:


> Easy fix, don't dual channel your ram.



lol. Ummmmm, no.


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## Gam'ster (May 10, 2008)

Well the good thing is i suppose that u aint got to buy the top of the line boards to get a decent looking one...in this case anyway.

Gam


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## Sent1nel (May 10, 2008)

Is that a 16 phase voltage regulator design around the CPU ?


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## VIPER (May 10, 2008)

I wonder: does anybody buys a MB because "it looks damn sexy" or because is good, has a good layout and good specs? Is it for display only?


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## sinner33 (May 10, 2008)

It sure looks pretty...


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## DeathTyrant (May 10, 2008)

Well, it certainly looks interesting. Especially the X-Fi module. My Fatality card I have now is a huge PCI monster.


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## REVHEAD (May 11, 2008)

I find the 16 phase Power a little funny , Asus said the Gigiabyte 12 phase was overkill and that there 8 phase on there X38 maximus series was adequate, now look all of a sudden Asus have 16 phase


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## TheLostSwede (May 11, 2008)

First of all, that X-Fi card is the same crap that MSI uses and it's not the real deal, it doesn't do EAX 5.0 among other things.
You might also want to check out the real source of these pictures for some more info http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,6...a_-_die_neuen_P45-Mainboards_von_Asus/&page=2 as Hardspell is a bunch of theifing bastards anyhow and they never ever link back to the source.


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## breakfromyou (May 12, 2008)

tkpenalty said:


> Woah those heatpipes are damn thick.... 8mm pipes!
> 
> And whats up with the 16 power phases which are installed like as if they are there for decoration?  NB recieves three phases... RAM 2... whoa. Comes with Wifi and an XFI card... overkill much? I'd get it for the fact it comes with an XFi tho.



The hell?!

Is that really 16 phase??! thats the first thing i did...counted. SIXTEEN??? WTF


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