ASUS Maximus III Gene P55

[cadaveca]

Like I said, it's up to the OEMs, at this point. While I purchased this stuff, I do not have alot of money, and cannot continue to buy stuff to review.

But again, I only do motherboards. TPU has a cpu and a memory reviewer, so those products are not on my plate ATM. This allows each of us to specialize, but at the same time, I do need cpus and memory to review motherboards.

You guys gotta give W1zz some credit here too...his help was a big part of this review. I had alot of respect for him before, and so much more so now.






And on that note, OEMs, send me your stuff!

 

[cadaveca]

lights:

 

[GSquadron]

The image needs a bit more light room i think

 

[cadaveca]

Yes, the room is fairly dark.

 

[Imsochobo]

Am running m-atx system with silverstone GD04B.
3600mhz cpu and 5850 @ 850//1200

Small systems can pack a punch!

And my system is pretty much old and outdated, cpu, memory, mobo is old.
psu, ssd and graphics is the new stuff, still holding its ground at 1920x1080P

 

[geek33]

good review cadaveca, now i must buy that corsair dominator GT and try to OC my 760 @ 4Ghz with below 1.3v on my gene

 

[HammerON]

Appreciate the review
I would like to see more from ya!

 

[sneekypeet]

good review cadaveca, now i must buy that corsair dominator GT and try to OC my 760 @ 4Ghz with below 1.3v on my gene

Daves GTs had Elpida Hyper ICs, likely memory you buy now wont react the same at all

 

[geek33]

Daves GTs had Elpida Hyper ICs, likely memory you buy now wont react the same at all

oh ok. the most stable voltage on my 760 is 1.36V @4.059Ghz and for me this is way too high for stable 24/7 use.

 

[roast]

Good review! Nice to see MOBO reviews back.

 

[Bo$$]

well done dave, do you get to keep the board

 

[cadaveca]

well done dave, do you get to keep the board

Considering I paid for it, you bet I'm keeping it.



IF this was provided as a sample I had to return, I'd probably just go and buy another. It really is a good board.

 

[ShaunB]

Best RAM for Maximus III Gene?

Hello,

Great site here btw I was hoping someone could recommend some RAM for this board, I noticed in the review you used:

4x 2 GB sticks of Dominator GTs @ 2000 MHz CAS 8 1T

And I have considering these as an option for my upgrade, is this RAM ideal for the ASUS Maximus III Gene or should I go with another option?

I little more information regarding this upgrade:

Last week I puchased another ATI 5770 and bought a Maximus III Gene to run 2 in Crossfire and was pretty disappointed with the results. I am now returning the 5770 and buying (2) 6950's and plan to flash those to 6970's. I was also running an i5 650 and have purchased a i7 875k just incase my CPU was causing the low performance with the 5770's.

My last purchase to upgrade this machine is RAM and a SSD but I am not sure where to go with the RAM. Either 4x2g or 2x4g and what speeds to choose.

I am also running a Corsair H50 for cooling, and do not know a lot about overclock but am trying to learn and liked the features of this board to make it pretty easy to learn.

Thank You

 

[cadaveca]

2x4GB sticks would probably be easier to run, however, I have not tried any as of yet. I am currently using 2x2GB Dominator GT 2133 CAS9 which perform much the same, just lacking the low-latency clocking. The C8 sticks are kinda hard to come by at this point, but the C9 2133's provide equal overall performance. There are also many other kits out there that can do just as well too. I had a Mushkin Ridgeback redline kit that was fantastic...

Crossfire works fine in this board, but I've only tried 2x 5870.


An H50 isn't exactly the best in terms of cooling...It does the job, but there are many other optinos out there too. With a hyper-threaded quad cpu, the H50's cooling ability will limit clocks in my experience; even an i5 760 can benfit from better cooling.

 

[Cold Storm]

The Ripjaw X 8gb 7-8-7-24 kit does work well at the stock speeds. I had it in the system when I first got it. I have then put both the Viper Xtreme 4gb 2kmhz sticks, and PiS 2200mhz.. The only thing I have to say between the 3 kits.. The PiS doesn't like to work as good on the Max board as the other two. But, that'll come once I tweak the sticks even more.

 

[ShaunB]

Thank you for the quick reply, I will prolly look to liquid cooling in the future but for now the Corsair H50 will do for all that I am planning, so far just using the CPU Level Up feature.

Would it be possible to provide a link on Tigerdirect or Newegg to the RAM you would buy for the best performance now and long term regardless of the price. I really want to max this PC out for now and not have to look back for a year or two.

I have been referencing the approved vendor list but it looks to be outdated:

http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=YwO7uzOlu1js0TqM&templete=2

I have read that using too much RAM could actually be a bad thing when it comes to gaming or overclocking and really have no clue which one to buy.

Thank You

edit:

I might have to call Asus on Monday to see if these will work: http://www.corsair.com/cmt4gx3m2a2133c9.html

any reason why I wouldn't want to use these?

I guess I need to know what is better great speed with less memory or good speed with more memory, again pairing up with (2) ATI 6970's and a i7 875k overclocked.

 

[cadaveca]

It's ahrd to recommend ram without looking at overall performance goals. While larger amounts of memory may be harder to clock to high speeds, when kept in mind, it's not much of an issue.

Any 1600mhz XMP-enabled ram will work good. Adjustable ram multipliers in bios means that ram speed isn't so much a big part of overclocking; however when it comes to ram with a higher speed than 1600mhz, it does take some overclcoknig to get them to default speed, and whether they will work right or not is highly dependant on each individual cpu's memory controller. Some might need some extra volts, some may not.

I myself am easer to try out one of the Corsair 2133 1.5v 4GB kits...however, I have the 1.65v kits now(and the kit you linked), seen here:

CORSAIR DOMINATOR GT 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SD...

 

[ShaunB]

Thanks again for the reply, I think I will have to wait to ask Asus if 4x2g 2133Mhz will even work on this board. While waiting on a reply it was helpful reading this article:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.p...w&id=496&Itemid=99999999&limit=1&limitstart=6

1.Low Latency (CL6 or lower) + High Speed (1600MHz or faster) = Most Preferred
2.Low Latency (CL6) + Standard Speed (1333MHz) = More Preferred
3.Standard Latency (CL7) + High Speed (1600MHz or faster) = Preferred
4.Standard Latency (CL7) + Normal Speed (1333MHz) = Acceptable
5.High Latency (CL8) + High Speed (1600MHz or faster) = Less Preferred
6.High Latency (CL8 or higher) + Low Speed (1066MHz or slower) = Least Preferred

After seeing how the high speed triple channel memory only increased games at high res/quality by 4 FPS I don't think it would really be worth it if I would lose some efficiency while running say Adobe Premiere or Photoshop.

Safest bet for me might be just to get some slower 2x4g dimms.

 

[PaulieG]

Hello,

Great site here btw I was hoping someone could recommend some RAM for this board, I noticed in the review you used:

4x 2 GB sticks of Dominator GTs @ 2000 MHz CAS 8 1T

And I have considering these as an option for my upgrade, is this RAM ideal for the ASUS Maximus III Gene or should I go with another option?

I little more information regarding this upgrade:

Last week I puchased another ATI 5770 and bought a Maximus III Gene to run 2 in Crossfire and was pretty disappointed with the results. I am now returning the 5770 and buying (2) 6950's and plan to flash those to 6970's. I was also running an i5 650 and have purchased a i7 875k just incase my CPU was causing the low performance with the 5770's.

My last purchase to upgrade this machine is RAM and a SSD but I am not sure where to go with the RAM. Either 4x2g or 2x4g and what speeds to choose.

I am also running a Corsair H50 for cooling, and do not know a lot about overclock but am trying to learn and liked the features of this board to make it pretty easy to learn.

Thank You

Both ram configurations will have their limitations. If you go 4x2GB and populate all of the Dimm slots, you may not be able to clock as high as 2x2GB. With 2x4GB higher capacity sticks, you'll find that there are limitations with higher speed sticks, and will often need looser timings. I consider myself lucky that my Team Xtreem 4GBx2 set will run at 1866 without having to loosen timings.

edit: looks like Cadaveca already touched on this...started the post, and had to leave it for a few before I finished.

 

[ShaunB]

Thanks again for the reply and look forward to you finsihing, would a 4x4g 2133Mhz configuration be ideal?

 

[PaulieG]

Thanks again for the reply and look forward to you finsihing, would a 4x4g 2133Mhz configuration be ideal?

Probably a waste of money. It's very unlikely that you'll get close to those speeds in that config. My bet is that you will only get 1866 or so out or it...so I don't think it's worth the premium.

 

[Cold Storm]

Your wanting to look for a kit that can do it all around for you.. if your going to oc it, then you want something that will handle the oc with the right Dram Multi..

For instant:

Multi on the CPU is set at 21x to get 4.2ghz at 200blck (Qpi) I then use a multi for the ram at (8) to get the sticks stable at 1600. But, If I want to set the ram multi higher, (10) then I will need to know the desired speed to get the ram running at 2000mhz.. So, instead of my 7-8-7-24, I had to set it at 9-10-9-28 with the (10) multi..

SO, in all.. It's better, if you can afford it, to go with the higher MHZ so you know that the sticks will run at the desired Mhz for your oc to be stable.

 

[cadaveca]

Probably a waste of money. It's very unlikely that you'll get close to those speeds in that config. My bet is that you will only get 1866 or so out or it...so I don't think it's worth the premium.

I don't agree. I have run both the Hyper-based 2000 C8 Dominators, as well as the PSC 2133 C9's @ 4x2GB straight up 1T. The 2000C8 managed 2000bclk, but the 2133's require a drop to 178blck, when paired with an i7 cpu. It's just a matter of tweaking VTT to match the speed. Either way, I managed to get both kits stable at defaults speeds, on both the I5 760, and the I7 870, without any problems.


Of course, I tend to push things a bit more than most, but it wasn't very hard. It's just a matter of getting two kits that work well together.

That said, 2x4GB should be just as simple.

Does the speed really matter in the real world though? Maybe a little. Maybe not.

 

[ShaunB]

sorry but I'm still more undecided if not more confused, I have been reading an understand the numbers but just can't pick one configuration that will be I guess the perfect match for i7 875k.

with all the numbers it gets quite confusing where the benefits and gains are, between Latency, Speed, Size, and number of DIMMS I am at a lose.

Am I making too much of a deal about this?

Normally on a build I just put whatever RAM works but this time around I am trying to keep in mind about overclocking and gaming.

 

[Aceman.au]

Nice thorough review, but now is a really bad time to buy an LGA1156 board, so I'd have to say that I disagree with the high score given.

Why is it a bad time? THe 1155 boards that have the issues, and even then the problem doesn't affect performance. If thats what you're refering to...