Power Consumption and Temperatures

Removing the top ABS plastic ROG ARMOR reveals the board itself as well as the coolers, and the CPU VRM cooler is quite the thing.


The cooler is large because it has a built-in water channel to help with cooling, or maybe just for visual reasons given the temperature and power draw numbers I recorded from the ASUS MAXIMUS IX FORMULA. Removing one of the plugs reveals that part of the inner channel to be made out of copper, but a close inspection makes it look like part of the channel might not be. Either way, with such impressive temperature and power-draw numbers, one might wonder why this watercooling channel is even needed, and you might ask why we couldn't just not have one and have a cheaper board to buy instead.


The PCH cooler barely pokes out of a hole with the ROG ARMOR in place. With the cover off (and when you pop the cap to install an M.2 drive), you can see that the PCH cooler is a rather basic block of anodized aluminum in a weird "L" shape. The majority of the cooler gets no airflow at all, yet the chipset remains very cool, even when temperatures are measured with an IR thermometer.