The Board - Layout

The ASUS MAXIMUS VI EXTREME is very similar in appearance to the HERO I reviewed several weeks ago, but the EXTREME has more full-length PCIe slots and a slightly different VRM cooler design. Although it's a slightly new esthetic, this board is very clearly an ASUS design. The back is a mad mix of pins everywhere, and taking pictures without some glare is often difficult because of the shiny coat.


The new heatsinks sit low to the board's surface, providing plenty of clearance, though the socket is completely surrounded. The back of the socket is kind of cluttered, but things have been optimized so as not to interfere with most aftermarket-cooling backplates.


There are six expansion slots on the ASUS MAXIMUS VI EXTREME, all of which are PCIe-based. Five of them are full PCIe x16 slots and one is a PCIE x4 slot, but it too can accept a fully sized PCIe x16 card if need be. The DIMM slots each support DIMMs of up to 8 GB in size and feature T-Topology2 to enable better performance and higher overclocks.


The bottom edge of the ASUS MAXIMUS VI EXTREME has more switches, fan headers, and buttons than anything else, but there are the usual USB and audio headers as well. There are a total of eight fan headers in various locations on the ASUS MAXIMUS VI EXTREME. All of those are 4-pin PWM-based.


The rear I/O panel has Clear CMOS and ROG CONNECT buttons at the top, below a space for the mPCIE COMBO II to peek out of should you decide to use it. There are only two USB 2.0 plugs while the remaining six are USB 3.0-based. HDMI, DisplayPort, and optical audio and analog ports are here as well. There is also a LAN and PS/2 port, and a total of ten SATA 6 Gb/s internal ports. Six SATA 6 Gb/s ports are driven by the Intel Z87 chipset, while the other four are provided by external controllers.