ASUS MAXIMUS IX CODE

[Black Haru]

The ASUS MAXIMUS IX CODE features everything you might want on a premium board. However, built around the Intel Z270 chipset, it must answer a question: are four cores enough in 2018?

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[erixx]

Nice review and congrats!

 

[fullinfusion]

only a year gone by for a review but kudos to you for stepping up to the plate @Black Haru

Nice review

 

[Vayra86]

I think the real question that needs an answer is: what is the point of this anyway. Kaby Lake really cannot be considered relevant anymore when quad core i3's exist. Thanks for the review. But, don't do this again, its a waste of time.

Also, these kinds of lines in your intro really don't instill faith (to me) in your credibility:

"In order for the Intel 7700k to have a chance against its newer, bigger sibling, the 8700k, it's going to need a top-notch board to do it." Bullshit - you can run this on any mid range board and get within 95%-100% similar scores. Matter of fact, Z270 and Z370 are notorious for their similarities both in boards, layouts and chipset. Let's just be honest and say that MAXIMUS is effectively just heavily overpriced and Z270 has run its course no matter the price point/CPU you want.

I'm sorry if I come off harsh but... this whole review reads like an ASUS ad, at the wrong place and time

 

[fullinfusion]

I think the real question that needs an answer is: what is the point of this anyway. Kaby Lake really cannot be considered relevant anymore when quad core i3's exist. Thanks for the review. But, don't do this again, its a waste of time.

Also, these kinds of lines in your intro really don't instill faith (to me) in your credibility:

"In order for the Intel 7700k to have a chance against its newer, bigger sibling, the 8700k, it's going to need a top-notch board to do it." Bullshit - you can run this on any mid range board and get within 95%-100% similar scores. Matter of fact, Z270 and Z370 are notorious for their similarities both in boards, layouts and chipset. Let's just be honest and say that MAXIMUS is effectively just heavily overpriced and Z270 has run its course no matter the price point/CPU you want.

I'm sorry if I come off harsh but... this whole review reads like an ASUS ad, at the wrong place and time

The point is this review was never done here so give the reviewer a break, he's doing the job the other didn't..

Didn't like the review then why read it and complain?

Anyways not being harsh but it is what it is

 

[Vayra86]

The point is this review was never done here so give the reviewer a break, he's doing the job the other didn't..

Didn't like the review then why read it and complain?

Anyways not being harsh but it is what it is

LOL... so let me get this straight, we're not allowed to have criticism on what's posted on this site? 'Don't like it, please screw off?' Nice.

Elaborate: 'review was never done here'... aren't there countless boards that haven't been reviewed yet?

 

[Black Haru]

I think the real question that needs an answer is: what is the point of this anyway. Kaby Lake really cannot be considered relevant anymore when quad core i3's exist. Thanks for the review. But, don't do this again, its a waste of time.

Also, these kinds of lines in your intro really don't instill faith (to me) in your credibility:

"In order for the Intel 7700k to have a chance against its newer, bigger sibling, the 8700k, it's going to need a top-notch board to do it." Bullshit - you can run this on any mid range board and get within 95%-100% similar scores. Matter of fact, Z270 and Z370 are notorious for their similarities both in boards, layouts and chipset. Let's just be honest and say that MAXIMUS is effectively just heavily overpriced and Z270 has run its course no matter the price point/CPU you want.

I'm sorry if I come off harsh but... this whole review reads like an ASUS ad, at the wrong place and time

LOL... so let me get this straight, we're not allowed to have criticism on what's posted on this site? 'Don't like it, please screw off?' Nice.

Elaborate: 'review was never done here'... aren't there countless boards that haven't been reviewed yet?

I respectfully disagree. While you are correct that most boards would provide nearly the same performance in most areas, 5% is 5%. For the purpose of providing the most competative possible comparison, every little bit matters.

I don't feel it's fair to treat the intro like it's the conclusion.

 

[EarthDog]

There comes a time where one needs to simply cut the cord and move forward... this is one of those times. That said, well done on your review here.... push W1z to get you on Z370 instead of last gen's tech we needed to see last year.

In order for the Intel 7700k to have a chance against its newer, bigger sibling, the 8700k, it's going to need a top-notch board to do it.

I call shens on this too... only the cheapest of cheap boards will hold the 7700K back. They will hit a cooling limit before 95% of boards stop the CPU.

Why wouldn't we go Z370 and 8600K for the same/similar money right now? I would have like to see that comparsison more than this one as it takes out the price difference for all intents and purposes.

Odd the conclusion says, "its hard to recommend (due to price)", yet, just below that is a giant "highly"-recommended badge?

 

[Black Haru]

There comes a time where one needs to simply cut the cord and move forward... this is one of those times. That said, well done on your review here.... push W1z to get you on Z370 instead of last gen's tech we needed to see last year.

I call shens on this too... only the cheapest of cheap boards will hold the 7700K back. They will hit a cooling limit before 95% of boards stop the CPU.

Why wouldn't we go Z370 and 8600K for the same/similar money right now? I would have like to see that comparsison more than this one as it takes out the price difference for all intents and purposes.

Odd the conclusion says, "its hard to recommend (due to price)", yet, just below that is a giant "highly"-recommended badge?

I agree that if you are in the market for a new system, Coffee Lake is the way to go. However, it's still a great board and it would be unfair to disregard its performance simply because it was reviewed later than its counterparts.

 

[EarthDog]

I agree the board is fine, but Z270 is last gen. People are still buying these sure, but, its simply long in the tooth with CL being out for a few months now and 7700K/Z270 released well over a year ago.

Anyway, hopefully we don't see a bunch of these moving forward. I would much rather see Z370/X299/AMD stuff from TPU as opposed to Z270 at this point in time.

 

[Tumbler1987]

At the risk of sounding redundant, I was also left scratching my head when I saw this review posted, I had to read the specs of the board twice to make sure this is indeed a Z270 based board.

Thank you for the review, but I have to disagree with the conclusion, a 9.1 score for an overpriced last gen board? Let’s face it, even if you’re in the market for old Z270 based boards, $279 is way too much to pay for a last gen product when there’s a plethora of good Z370 boards available for a much lower price, and 8700K are readily available on all retailers at MSRP or less.

Sorry, but I also don’t agree with the recommended badge...

 

[Vayra86]

I respectfully disagree. While you are correct that most boards would provide nearly the same performance in most areas, 5% is 5%. For the purpose of providing the most competative possible comparison, every little bit matters.

I don't feel it's fair to treat the intro like it's the conclusion.

But its not 5%, its a few % above or even a few % under depending on what benchmark you look at. Similar to every other board on the marketplace in this segment. It all does the job fine. You also do NOT push this board to its limits in the review, so there is really no reason to speak of that last few percent difference because that's not the way the product has been pushed.

I'm sorry, its really just completely out of place in 2018. At release, it falls in line with all the other boards so one doesn't take notice, but now?

The reason I got my panties in a bunch is because this hurts TPUs credibility in terms of recommendations. The irony is: you also can't NOT recommend it, because that would do the board no justice (it still is a good product, like all the others, albeit overpriced), but that key component that is 'time' in terms of components was simply overlooked here, and its not how the reader will read it.

And also, is this really a test that compares boards the way the introduction points out? Is this really 'testing a 7700K versus Coffee Lake on this board for gaming'? With that small benchmark set? Its not. Its just another MB review... it adds no value in terms of content anymore.

 

[erixx]

Remember this is voluntary work with a personal touch, Z290 performs well and for sure it sells well, not everybody gets only latest greatest stuff, but saves money here and there.
Speaking more in general, the ratings of ALL reviews are always or mostly 8 or 9 and that makes no sense at all!
To solve that I'd start using 2 ratings: a Pure Tech-freak rating for innovation and raw performance, and another Price/Performance rating for those gentlemen of the conscious buyer folk. When checking reviews before buying it is easy to get lost unless you meticoulously read it all over again.

 

[Tumbler1987]

Remember this is voluntary work with a personal touch, Z290 performs well and for sure it sells well, not everybody gets only latest greatest stuff, but saves money here and there.

Speaking for myself, I do appreciate the voluntary work, and I'm sure that's the general sentiment here, after all, that's the main reason people visits TPU, for honest, down to earth reviews by gamers like us.

I think the issue here is the fact that it makes absolutely no sense to recommend this board on the basis of saving money, as an example, my Asus Z370 board was $155.99, heck, $145.99 after MIR actually, a full $135 less than the MSRP for the board featured in this review, that more than makes up for the small difference in price between an 7700K and an 8700K, and that gets you the exact same performance per clock with 50% more cores at a potentially lower price.

Yes, this board may have more bells and whistles than my board, but so do other Z370 boards in that same price bracket, so why give such a high score, and a recommended badge to a one year old board that doesn't support the latest processor technology and whose apparent "advantage" over new boards is a performance "boost" that's well within a margin of error? All that extra money could get you a state of the art board, with extra CPU cores and even a few extra dollars to spend on memory or a GPU.

Congratulations to the OP for posting his first review, but like others have stated, this review may have been overdue, and the conclusion seems flawed in light of the fact that this board has absolutely no upgrade path, is just as expensive or even more expensive than more current boards, and there's no tangible per clock performance difference between a 7700K and an 8700K, making the comparison between the two processors a moot point.

I look forward to the OP reviewing more current boards in the future.

 

[Black Haru]

I don't think I need to restate my own thoughts on this reviews relevance.
I am, however, a little hurt that you all think this is my first review.
My Biostar Racing Z370GT6 review has been up for weeks.

 

[erixx]

it costs less than half a Maximus Extreme (yes that overpriced fancy pig), so it is cheaaaap

 

[Black Haru]

Actually, I do think I can articulate my thoughts better.
I see two related but distinct issues raised here.
First is the credibility of recommending an outdated, outperformed platform.
I don't recommend buying the ASUS MAXIMUS IX CODE over a Z370 board. I compared the Z270 to the Z370 throughout the review in a bid to garner interest for the review from the enthusiast community which I know stays very informed. It was never meant to be an exhaustive comparison, and I was well aware of what the outcome would be when I started. I was just trying to throw some spice in an overdo review for you guys to chew on. Too spicy, I think, but it did work in its own way.
I hope in the future that this kind of review is rare. I will, however, try to make my intent more clear in the future. I respect the knowledge contained within this community, and it is certainly not my intent to undermine TechPowerUp's reputation.

The second issue I see raised is specifically with regards to the scoring of the review. In this I stand completely firm.
The scoring system, and the award system that compliments it is really just a referencing tool, a numerical summation of the reviews content. Price does play a large role in scoring, but other factors also have to be considered in order for the rest of the review to be represented in the score.
The issue raised here: that a score of 9.1 is unreasonably high for an old platform is, in my opinion, misguided. Someone who is searching for a Z270 board, for whatever reason, should not have to look at the date of every review so that they can account for the drift in score overtime due to new product releases. The ASUS MAXIMUS IX CODE was scored in relation to other Z270 platforms, the alternative may seem more honest right now, but in the long run it would render the scoring system too cumbersome to be useful.
I started the comparison to Z370 within the review, and the scrutiny it drew may well be deserved. I simply ask that you take the score and the review for what it is.

I want to thank you all for taking the time to read my work, and for presenting your concerns.
Thanks, also, for the well wishes and congratulations. I promise I'm only holding a small grudge that it's a month and a review late.

 

[Vayra86]

The issue raised here: that a score of 9.1 is unreasonably high for an old platform is, in my opinion, misguided. Someone who is searching for a Z270 board, for whatever reason, should not have to look at the date of every review so that they can account for the drift in score overtime due to new product releases. The ASUS MAXIMUS IX CODE was scored in relation to other Z270 platforms, the alternative may seem more honest right now, but in the long run it would render the scoring system too cumbersome to be useful.

This is a very good point actually, had not looked at scoring in that way. I've always had the idea the 9+ scoring that is almost standard for most products really serves PR purposes And that is fine, because the pro/con lists and conclusion do point out flaws.

Thanks for taking the time to consider the point(s) raised and responding!

 

[EarthDog]

I deleted a post to rephrase....Here is the rephrase.

Is anyone here able to tell readers what, empirically, the difference is between a 9.1 and 9 or 9.2? The concern many have over number ratings and the reason why most sites dropped it is that it is subjective. Here, it goes another level and there are tenths of points too. There isn't any criteria to take off points so its up to a 'butt dyno' type of evaluation which varies each time around. Since there isnt an empirical method, you give that board to dave and id bet money its a different score.

IMO, the score here has to go or there has to be a way to make it more objective than subjective. To me, it really means nothing (at any site).

But i think this is more for feedback than the code thread, lol!

EDIT: To be clear I don't have an issue with how the Code was rated, just the rating itself across all reviews here since there isn't anything to go off of.