Board Layout

Pulling the MAXIMUS IX FORMULA board out of the box, you'll immediately notice the plastic cover on the front and the metal plate that attaches to the rear of the ASUS MAXIMUS IX FORMULA. ASUS refers to these as "ROG ARMOR", the front built to keep the board safe from GPU heat and the rear stiff to help keep the board from bending due to the stresses of being a part of an enthusiast PC.


The area around the socket is fairly open, ready for most coolers. There are four DIMM slots capable of crazy-high memory speeds. That's part of what is expected from ASUS ROG boards; the best memory overclocking support.


The expansion slots that peek out from the ABS plastic front cover are composed of dual PCIe x16 slots (x16 or x8/x8), while three PCIe x1 slots and a bottom PCIe x16 (x4 link only) take up the rest of the space. There are six standard SATA ports connected to the Intel Z270 PCH, available on the right side of the ASUS MAXIMIS IX FORMULA.


M.2 drive placement on the ASUS MAXIMUS IX FORMULA is stealthy, with one of the slots hidden under a plastic compartment in the top ROG ARMOR plate, accessed by removing a single screw in the plastic cover.


A second M.2 slot is found on the board's bottom edge; it requires you use the support bracket that is found in the box. You'll also find the usual pin headers here, along with a couple buttons and fan ports.


The rear I/O panel has a backing plate that is pre-attached to the board, so you don't have to fiddle with trying to fit the plate into your case, an idea I like a lot. I will just say that this makes the time you spent installing the board that much easier on your hands. There are a huge number of USB ports on the rear panel of the board, along with audio and a couple buttons. One button is to clear the CMOS, while the other is used for "USB BIOS Flashback" duties. You'll also find a DisplayPort and a single HDMI plug for video connectivity. The HDMI port is powered by the ASMedia ASM1442K IC shown above.